Then and Now - Tony as a student at the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1977

Tony at his mansion in Surrey - "Home is where the books are".

"I have a responsibility to my gift and every day I accept the yoke with joy."

Tony was born in 1957 to the noted radio producer Atkinson Spaniel and his wife the actress Pippa Moon. He grew up in London and was educated at Dulwich College before going on to study at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London. Tony's first job after leaving college was as the only male member of the radical feminist theatre group Women behind the wire, playing the rapist lawyer in Speed Brimstone's Shrivelling Gland, the torturer in Ann-Marie Lamp's Lady with the Limp, the colonial administrator in Wozo Atweh's My Land, your shame, and the tap-dancing sperm in the acclaimed musical version of Our bodies, ourselves. He also participated in a regional tour of Godspell alongside Sue Pollard and Rula Lenska. Television followed, including a stint as a regular presenter of the children's programme Play School, robot assistant to Michael Gough in Blake's Seven, and Hooded Figure 3 in Samuel Beckett's Quad. Then came his first major breakthrough: in Charles Sturridge's landmark adaptation of Quentin Featherstonehaugh's novel of the Spanish Civil War Boys in the afternoon, Tony played the Oxford aesthete turned committed revolutionary 'Bumcheeks' Minty. Tony's portrayal of Minty - shown fighting Franco with an old Lee-Enfield rifle, a tattered volume of Dowson's Collected Poems and a pet marmoset called Plato - became a national talking point.

Tony as Pandit Nehru in Lindsay Anderson's 1981 production of The Ghandi Tapes

"That boy plays Horatio better than I ever did" - Patrick Mower

Tony returned to his roots in the theatre, working at the National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Royal Court, sometimes all at once. He also appeared at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre in his own one-man show based on the declining years of Al Jolson, All blacked-up with nowhere to go, but this engagement was dramatically cut short mid-performance when Tony flew to Hollywood to play the villainous Serbian arms-dealer 'Splet' in the Bruce Willis action-thriller Killing me softly, with his club. Although the film was not the most successful vehicle for Willis, it got Tony noticed in Hollywood and shortly afterwards he garnered critical acclaim for his sympathetic portrayal of the nutritionist transforming into a giant salami in David Cronenberg's Vegetarian. European film work followed, including the role of Edvard Munch in Patrice Chereau's 'biopic' The Munch Bunch, a guest cameo in Roman Polanski's little-seen Whip my frog, and as the Grand Inquisitor in Peter Greenaway's Pity the Poultry of Rome. In 1990 he appeared in the BBC situation comedy You'll have to speak up a bit Dai, in which he and his friend Neil Morrissey played a pair of deaf-mutes who open a guesthouse in a depressed Welsh pit village.

"Above all, I've just been very lucky"

Throughout the 1990s, Tony continued to combine screen and stage work together, working onstage in the classic repertoire and also new plays by David Hare (Did you really come here to enjoy yourselves?) and the late Sarah Kane (Coprophilia) whilst in Hollywood he was much in demand, especially after his portrayal of 'Death' in Baz Lurhman's up-dating of Bergman's The Seventh Seal. In 2002 he won an Evening Standard award for best lead for his portrayal of Primo Levi in the Ben Elton-Howard Goodall musical Camp! (after his old friend Antony Sher dropped out over "wardrobe differences" with director Trevor Nunn) and in the same year he played Benjamin Britten alongside Derek Jacobi as Peter Pears in Ronald Harwood's biographical film Silly old queens.

First day of rehearsals: "A space where liquid theatre seeps from our very pores"

There were also forays into less familiar territory: he collaborated with the artist Sam Taylor-Wood for an installation at London's Institute for Contemporary Arts which consisted of a large-scale projection of a close-up of Tony's right eye as he read his press cuttings. Busy as ever, he has just finished filming Stephen Frears' version of Nick Hornby's best-seller Pub Bore (produced by Tony's production company Kennelworks), and has just started work as host and 'investigative actor' on a new reality police show Crime Stage which aims to solve real crimes by combining forensic science with the deeper truths of drama. Amongst future plans is a foray into the world of opera, directing Weill's Die Spanferkel Spieler for ENO in 2006; as Swann in Stephen Poliakoff's 12-hour television adaptation of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu - also featuring Lindsay Duncan, Geoffrey Palmer and Charlie Dimmock - and a series of TV ads for Courts home furnishings.