The singer-actor whose ‘family are madder than the von Trapps’
Game of Thrones’ Toby Sebastian talks to Blanca Schofield about gigging, becoming Andre Agassi and duetting with his sister Florence Pugh.
‘Ikick myself sometimes when I’m playing live. I’m like, “Why is this song so hard to sing?’ And then I’m like, ‘It’s your fault, you chose to put this in’,’’ says Toby Sebastian, 32, when I compliment his falsetto.
“But my older sister Bella is now a voice coach – she’s been an actress and a singer – and has been instrumental in helping me, especially live.
With luck, his soprano skills will stay intact on his latest tour – his biggest yet.
The Pugh children (he was born Sebastian Toby Pugh, but dropped the last and flipped the first two for his fame name) are all multihyphenate.
As well as making music, Sebastian, 32, is also an actor, with roles including Trystane Martell in Game of Thrones, John Travolta’s son in Burning Rubber, co-starring Shania Twain, and Andrea Bocelli in The Music of Silence.
His youngest sister, Raffie, 20, was described by their father, Clinton, as “a very good artist [who] could do acting’’. And aside from being one of the A-list actresses of the moment, Sebastian’s other sister, Florence, 28, can also hold a tune if Midnight, a bluesy soul number they recorded together, is anything to go by. It was his mother, Deborah, who suggested he duet with Florence when they reunited after lockdown at home in Oxfordshire. “I said, ‘Mum, I’ve finished this recording, please don’t add stress’. But of course mums are always right.”
It now has almost 7.5 million streams on Spotify, with another 500,000 YouTube views on the video they recorded at their father’s restaurant, Kazbar. I ask if they’ll release another track together. “I’m sure we will, she's got an incredible voice,’’ Sebastian says as we talk in his east London music studio.
Florence has called their family ‘‘the von Trapps, but not quite as pretty or perfect’’. Sebastian agrees with this image, adding “definitely a bit more mad and bohemian’’. There’s no rivalry, he insists: “I’ve never really felt a lot of competition, which I know is probably a rarity in families, but I think it’s probably because we’re so spread out.’’
Why are they’re all artistic? “My dad likes to take credit and say it’s because of his trumpet playing,’’ he says, laughing.
Clinton is not actually a trumpet player – unless a few childhood lessons count – but he studied design at Kingston Polytechnic, while Deborah was a dancer. Suffice to say: it’s a performance household.
“I’d play a little bit of something, which in hindsight was not very good, but my parents would be like, ‘That’s amazing, come on – play in front of everyone!’,’’ Sebastian says.
He learnt guitar from a flamenco teacher in southern Spain, which the family moved to for a few years when he was 7 in the hope that the climate would help Florence’s tracheomalacia, a breathing condition. He still returns often with his girlfriend.
Back in the UK at his independent co-ed school, he “was always performing’’. And he was determined to make it. At 15, he was scouted for the Channel 4 talent competition Orange Unsigned Act, where the winner would get £60,000 and an album deal. He didn’t win or even get very far. But he impressed anyway and got a record deal with A&M, leaving school at 17 to go to Los Angeles and Nashville, where he was in the same studio as Keith Urban and worked with Taylor Swift’s former producer Chris Lindsey.
It wasn’t all rock’n’roll, though. “I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t go anywhere. I was going back to my little hotel, getting an early night.’’ In the end, A&M did not release his album, as happened to the Brit recordbreaker Raye. So he found another label, Beverly Martel, which put it out in 2013.
In the past few years he has been releasing independently, although he is in conversations with labels for his second LP, out this year and produced by Matty Benbrook, who has made music with Paolo Nutini and Dido.
During his time in America he started attending open castings before landing a rebel soldier role in the 2012 Shakespeare series The Hollow Crown, starring Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Music helped him to get into Game of Thrones, as the casting director Nina Gold explained at the time. (She also said: “He has a really romantic feel that just worked.’’) His character was the prettyboy Dornish prince murdered by his pugilistic sisters.
Game of Thrones devotees are pretty intense; in 2019 Emilia Clarke said she would no longer be taking selfies with them. But Sebastian’s experience hasn’t been so overwhelming.
“It’s certainly at a level that’s very lovely, especially when people are really excited and kind and want to ask you something – I think that’s an amazing thing,’’ he says of fans recognising him. “What it would be like if there were 100 people following you down the street all the time is a whole other matter entirely.’’
After Game of Thrones, Sebastian sang a different tune in the role of Bocelli, staying with the tenor at his home in Forte dei Marmi to prepare, and starring alongside Antonio Banderas.
But The Music of Silence was panned by reviewers, receiving 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. “It’s out of your control,’’ he says of dealing with the negative criticism. “Of course you could always wish for more, [but] the experience I had, the people I met and what I learnt was priceless.’’
The Pugh family are rarely out of the spotlight. The latest Florence yarn is about a supposed fallout she has had with Kylie Jenner – the girlfriend of her Dune: Part Two co-star Timothee Chalamet – since she hasn’t followed her back on Instagram.
She has also had to address body-shaming trolls.
This must kick Sebastian’s older-brother reflexes into action. “I’d always feel protective,’’ he says. “But she has an amazing team around her. And she’s incredibly strong.’’
Aside from his album and tour, he’s writing a TV show and starring in Perfect Match as 90s tennis star Andre Agassi, in a fictional retelling of Agassi and Steffi Graf’s love story, coming to Prime Video in July. He hasn’t met Agassi, but he did have to do some tennis lessons ‘‘just so I look believable’’.
What of a duet with musician Nutini, now they’ve worked with the same producer? “He’s got a damn good voice. I don’t think he needs my help,’’ Sebastian says. Well, if the Scottish-Italian heart-throb is ever looking for someone with a fine falsetto and decent top spin, he knows who to call. – TheTimes