You may not know Toby Kebbell, but the actor’s star has been rising steadily over the past ten years. This past summer, he took on the mo-cap role of antagonist Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – but prior to that, the British thesp had earned raves for his parts in Dead Man’s Shoes, Control and RocknRolla. And rest assured, if you currently can’t picture his face, just wait. He’ll play Doctor Doom in Josh Trank’s anticipated Fantastic Four reboot, and now we’ve learned that Kebbell is also climbing on board the dark fantasy A Monster Calls.
Juan Antonio Bayona (The Impossible) is directing the adaptation of Patrick Ness’ award-winning children’s book, which was in turn based on an original idea by the late Siobhan Dowd. Bayona, whose past credits also include bone-chilling ghost story The Orphanage, has been putting together a very strong supporting cast over the past few weeks – Kebbell joins Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver in the project.
He’ll be playing the father of a young boy (still uncast) who attempts to deal with bullying at school and his mother’s (Jones) cancer diagnosis by escaping into a fantastical world filled with monsters. Things take a turn for the unexpected when the most fearsome of the monsters (Neeson) follows the boy home. According to THR, Kebbell’s character is “a man with a history of not being there for his son.”
A Monster Calls hits theaters on October 14th, 2016.