Toby Froud (b. 1984) made his film debut as a toddler playing Toby, the infant brother of Sarah, in the movie Labyrinth. He is the son of the film's conceptual designer Brian Froud and puppet builder Wendy Froud.
Brian Froud has said in interviews and the film's making-of documentary, Inside the Labyrinth, that he drew designs of the baby for Labyrinth before his son was even conceived. When Toby was born, he looked exactly like the picture. For this and other logistical reasons, they opted to cast him as the baby in the film.
As an adult, Toby Froud gained experience as a stilt-walker and dancing bear, with costumes built by his mother, and has apprenticed at the Muppet Workshop in New York City and with Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings films. He attended Wimbledon Art College and apprenticed with WETA on the films The Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong. He worked for the stop-motion studio Laika as a puppet fabricator on films including ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls. Froud returned to the worlds of the Creature Shop, this time behind the scenes, as design supervisor on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
He made the short film Lessons Learned in association with Heather Henson's company Handmade Puppet Dreams.
External links[]
- Stripey Pajama Productions
- Family Bio
- Endicott Studio Bio
- Toby, the Baby from Labyrinth, Grows Up to Be a Goblin King—in Portland, Portland Monthly, June 2014