Cult actor Toby Jones returns to Hackney for part in Royal Court production

Holding Court: Tony Jones. Photograph: Robert Workman

Short, slight and exceptionally well mannered, you wouldn’t notice Toby Jones if you passed him on the street.

Notoriously overshadowed by Hollywood interpretations of both his Truman Capote and Alfred Hitchcock, you might not recognise him from his work either.

You won’t even spot him in Harry Potter.

His contribution? The unseen voice of Dobby, the (digitally created) house elf.

But, diligently and persistently, Jones has been carving out a career as one of the foremost actors of his generation.

Performances in classic British films like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Mike Leigh’s Naked, and the award winning Berberian Sound Studio are finally bringing him the acclaim his chameleon-like ability deserves.

He is appearing this month in Circle Mirror Transformation – the latest in a series of plays the Royal Court Theatre has taken from their home in Sloane Square and presented in unlikely spaces around London. This July it is the turn of the Rose Lipman Building in Haggerston.

Set in Vermont, New England, the play charts the journey of a group of non-actors taking part in an evening theatre class. Moving in and out of focus over the course of weekly sessions their relationships gradually unfurl before the audience.

“It’s about watching behaviour,” says Jones. “You won’t know quite what all the relationships are but you’ll ask, what happened during the week that made them act like that? What did that look mean? Are they attracted to each other or is that just the game.”

It is this degree of examination and collective exploration that Toby so loves about the process of putting on a play.

“Normally on film it comes down to very quick rehearsal, working largely on your own,” he says. “It’s quite a lonely process but here, with the other actors, this mysterious accumulation of emotion starts to happen”

A devoted and seasoned theatre actor, he was awarded an Olivier for The Play What I Wrote in which he impersonated guest roles from Cilla Black to Roger Moore on stage every night. Hackney audiences may also remember his performance as J.M.W. Turner which opened the Arcola Theatre’s new building on Ashwin Street in 2011.

Having played so many well-known figures, the mystery of creating a new character is a subject Toby is often asked about.

“There’s a kind of mythology around certain actors that the transformative process is total,” he says. “I think we’d like to believe that actors are something occult – if you do the right things and it all comes together they actually transform.”

Although he describes Circle Mirror Transformation as a mysterious thing in itself.

“The shape of it more abstract than a simple three-act structure,” he says.

He eschews the idea of mystery in his own process. In truth his practice is immersion in the world of the play and a constant curiosity about human interaction that helps him to create, in this case, an ordinary and recognisable person.

“It’s extreme naturalism so that means, if we do it right, people will get that pleasure of un-acted behaviour, not being sure where the play begins and ends.”

Toby’s bright blue eyes light up at the delicious prospect of achieving this effect on the audience before he disappears round a blind corner and back to rehearsals.

Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, 5 July – 3 August 2013 at the Rose Lipman Building, Haggerston. Tickets £20.

For more information go to Royal Court Theatre.