Toby in "Sweeney" movie---SPOILERS

[roquat]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 11:36am

So according to the clips available online, the actor playing Toby in the "Sweeney" movie (who gets an "introducing" credit) looks to be about 11 years old. An intriguing idea, which will certainly divide audience sympathy, but I'm not quite certain how the end will work...

Thoughts?

[Mythus]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 11:56am

Why would the ending be different? Since you've firmly established there are/will be SPOILERS in this thread...does being eleven make you incapable of going crazy and slitting someone's throat?

[nitsua]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 12:07pm

Hmm...

I understand why the cast an older guy in the revival, but in the original.. I've always assumed he was 13 or so.

I think growing up as Toby did, with the people he hung around with, I think he's perfectly capable of it. Especially after his touching "Not While I'm Around".

He sees what Todd does to Lovett, and ironically, avenges her death by killing him.

I don't like how it is in the screenplay, though. It seems that Todd's asking for it. I like the original better.

[scott68]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 1:14pm

Toby has traditionally been played as sort of a slightly mentally-handicapped man-child, but I don't necessarily think casting younger is a bad idea. That said, I'm not exactly sure how he'll turn out in the movie, as while the clip of the young actor singing "Not While I'm Around" shows that he has a great voice, I didn't quite feel that he had any idea what he was singing about.

[Jon]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 1:36pm

Ken Jennings, the original Toby, was in his mid-to-late 20's when he played the role. He looked young because he's very short- about 5'3".

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 1:38pm

Think about it...

If they do it right, it could be the ultimate "horror" moment in any movie ever.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 2:39pm

It ruins Toby's arc...which may be okay if they highten some of the other discussions. And coupled with casting Johanna and Anthony younger it makes for an added theme. I'm trying to keep an open mind.

[Mythus]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 2:48pm

Jon, Ken Jennings was 31 when Sweeney started.

[uncageg]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 2:54pm

After seeing this young man in the clips, I am really looking forward to seeing how he plays that final scene with Sweeney. In the "Not While I'm Around" clip, he looks detached. Have to see his performance leading up to the song and after.

[Jilani]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 2:58pm

Where are the clips people are referring to?

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 2:59pm

I love that he's detached in his singing. Tobias is not a normal boy. He's been abused his whole life. He wouldn't act "normally" in this "warm and fuzzy" situation.

He is doing the best he knows how to tell Mrs. Lovett he will protect her from harm. To me, he looks like the "brave little soldier" that he wishes he could be.

What I HOPE he does at the end is completely snap, ultimately, from keeping everything inside, when he observes what he does down in the bakehouse. That would be the big payoff for him as an actor and as the character.

*fingers crossed*

[artscallion]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 3:11pm

Since I have the sniffles and a sore throat, I don't have the energy to retype my thoughts on Toby's age appropriateness. So I'll just link to an earlier thread in which we discussed this issue. We didn't come to a consensus there either:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=950125

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:11pm

i always find that humans who are "detached" are actually more like "preoccupied".

The boy in the video is trying to remember his lines. That's a far cry from being "detached".

Now, some have asserted that Toby was a boy when the story originally took place. Sweeney Todd is based on a legend, not a true story...so, there is no "real" version where the boy is younger. I don't doubt that it is possible thaat the boy was a boy...but, it does disrupt the Toby chracter's arc if he hasn't had time to develop into a fully detached person. It lowers the stakes for him, it makes him overly innocent, and makes the ending laughable.

With that said, who knows what else is in store...they couldl change loads of plot points and make the story more interesting. Who knows.

Again, I'm trying to keep an open mind.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:36pm

"Now, some have asserted that Toby was a boy when the story originally took place."

He was.

touchme---Have you ever read, seen or researched any of the previous versions or the "legend?"

Only three of the characters go back to the original story:

Sweeney Todd
Mrs. Lovett
Tobias Ragg

All others were added and/or developed over the years.

But Tobias was always a child until the Sondheim musical.

[artscallion]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:41pm

"Now, some have asserted that Toby was a boy when the story originally took place.

If you mean me, I do understand that it is a legend. Anything in my posts that refers to Toby original status, is meant to point to the legend, not an actual event. It's unknown whether or not the legend has any basis in fact. But there is a "real" version of the legend that I refer to. I apologize if my posts were not clearer in that respect.

I'm not sure what age people think he is in the movie. But one of the interviews I heard refers to the actor playing him as fifteen years old. I'm not sure that's correct. does anyone know the actor's age? I suspect the interviewer may have confused him for the actor playing Anthony, who seems closer to fifteen.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand how this will ruin his character arc. But thanks for giving me something to mull over in my sickbed.

Updated On: 11/30/07 at 04:41 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:44pm

Tobias was REAL!!!

Just like Ichabod Crane and the Tooth Fairy.

Damn it.

[Pippin]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:44pm

get better artscallion!!

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:47pm

By the way... Washington Irving was SO taken with all the Sweeney legend stuff becoming popular during the early 1800s in England that he decided to have a crack at his own "American scary legend."

He wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as a direct result of the Sweeney craze in England.


EDIT:

*hands artscallion a Kleenex*

Updated On: 11/30/07 at 04:47 PM

[artscallion]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:48pm

Thanks Pip! and Best!

"Just like Ichabod Crane..."

Yeah, and Sweeney Todd reminds me of Sleepy Hollow!!!



EDIT: Joking!

Updated On: 11/30/07 at 04:48 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:49pm

There's a reason why.

(see my previous post)


*hands artscallion two Nyquil caps*

[artscallion]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:52pm

Zzzzzzzz...

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 4:58pm

Feel better.


More stuff: The original "verbal legend" started in the late 1700s, just before the turn of the 19th Century. Most of those stories that followed are set in or around 1800, and so are most of the film and TV versions that have popped up lately. The "Penny Dreadfuls" on Sweeney were first published starting in the 1840s. In both the Christopher Bond play and the Sondheim musical, they set their story in this era... during the Industrial Revolution.

But it's funny to see, say, the Ben Kingsley version with Joanna Lumley as Lovett... and they're dressed in 1700s garb, rather than mid-1800s. Oh, and Toby was a child in that one, too.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 5:02pm

"The boy in the video is trying to remember his lines."

Also touchme---I didn't see that at all. I saw him struggling with what he wanted to SAY to her.

How easy do you think it would be for someone like that to tell this woman he would protect her from harm?

Struggling and uncomfortable? Yes.

With his lines? No.

But to each his own.

Updated On: 11/30/07 at 05:02 PM

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 7:39pm

I don't think the moment is written to be uncomfortable at all. It is the first moment we get to see the protective nature of Tobias. It isn't uncomfortable. In fact, it's probably the most comfortable Tobias has ever felt.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/30/07 at 7:58pm

You have preconceptions. That's fine, we all do.

I don't think this scene has to be played any certain way at all. Whether or not it works in the overall film? I don't know yet.

But I don't see any of these choices as "wrong" so far.