Written interviews

On the other forum I have posted some interviews that I have translated from Spanish. I will post them here as well.

http://unahabitacionconvistas.blogspot.com/2006/06/la-hora-de-jonathan-rhys-meyers.html

Una habitacion con vistas
22 June 2006

The hour of Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Chris Wilton, the protagonist of "Match Point", by Woody Allen, did not have an easy live. He is an ex tennis prosfessional that dreams of being accepted in the English higher class to enjoy their privileges at any cost. Through luck he gets to know a family like that and marries the heiress. In football terms, things are looking up for him. In terms of Woody, the man is lucky.

One could say the same about the live of Jonathan Rhys Meyers (28), the actor that plays Wilton in the movie by the American director. A boy that was expelled from school, that played pool, lied and stealed that in less than 10 years became one of the promises of cinema. How did he do it? With determination and hard work. But also with a lot of luck.

"There is not a true battle when you are born rich. You don’t know what it is to sacrifice things without having a choice. It are these experiences that ignite talent in people. It seems a skill but in reality it is stretching the limits of your physical and mental abilities to escape the situation you are in", reflects the actor on the phone from Dublin where he is filming the series "The Tudors", in which he plays Henry VIII.

And to explain: Rhys Meyers has not lost his head. Although he just spend a year in the blessings of Allen, Rhys Meyers is not walking with his head in the clouds. Or so it seems until this moment in the interview with the actor that cultivated in the shadows since he started his career more or less in Europe and the US with cult films (remember "Velvet Goldmine", about punk-glam inspired by David Bowie?), miniseries and a lead role in the American tv movie "Elvis".

The boy, a beauty with a mind of the street, has already won a Golden Globe for "Elvis" and a price in Cannes, where they were overwhelmed last year by his acting in "Match Point".

- Is this movie going to change your career?"

I don’t know. I think that, referring to my acting, some people like it and others don’t. In the US and Ireland they love it, in England I got all kinds of critics. It helps to be the lead in a Woody Allen movie. It’s very prestigious for an actor to be in a successful movie. So in summary, I think that my experience with Woody Allen has been more than I could have dreamed of".

- Did Allen give you an advise on acting?

"No. I never talked to him much".

- Was that difficult for you?

"It was very easy! When something is very easy it is not necessary to talk. I just went to work and said Good morning, Woody and he said Good morning. You work and say Bye at the end of the day. He doesn’t like talking to actors much. He leaves them at peace. Because he is an actor and he knows that in a certain way the process is very solitary and that you have to do thing yourself. And you can ask advise and he can suggest things, but an actor knows the acting point of view better and the director knows more about the movie as a whole. And it’s the compromise between these two processes that makes a movie".

- Would you like to work with him again in the future?

"Yes, of course. I would do any movie with Woody. Any movie."

- Did he give you much trust as an actor?

"I could have been 25% better".

- How’s that? What would you do different?

"He suggested that my character would be Irish. I said yes, because I like the idea of an Irishman in a Woody Allen movie, but if I had thought about it more I would have said no. Because he never changed the script and Irishmen are very different. I have received a lot of criticism about that".

The actor plays in Allen’s team and defends Allen when the master is doubted. For example, about the indifference that the movie received at the Oscars: It’s nice that Woody is nominated for an Oscar for his movie. Scarlett and I came close and that’s nice as well. But it also received four Golden Globe nominations and is a box office hit. What else can you hope for in a movie? Besides, I believe this was not the year that Woody will win for best movie. I think this was the year that he needed to show that he can still make movies that could win for best movie”, he comments. "Now everybody wants to work with him again. I think his next movie has Colin Farrell and Ewn McGregor, his last had Hugh Jackman and Scarlett. ‘Match Point was a complete revitalization of his career. And I am happy that I have done something to help with this".

Famous person

If anyone would have prophesized that Woody Allen would direct and Irishman in a dry drama, without the typical Allen words nor his intellectual humour, this person would have been called crazy. But on the other hand this demonstrates that craziness does exist.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers doesn’t have academic credentials. And his biography shows parallels with the fictional character that shot him to fame. That is, Rhys Meyers went through miseries and was abandoned by his father. Therefore he uses the surname of his mother. No paternal influence whatsoever.

- Which character traits of yours are in the character?

"I use my emotions to get a connexion with the character. This is a little bit complex with Chris Wilton, because he is not a psychopath or a very bad person. He is a normal guy in every aspect. Therefore the choice he makes is the most extraordinary thing about him. I believe that all performances reflect the personal journeys of the actors".

Because he never went to acting school, for years he felt that he got his place in the industry erroneously. “I didn’t have a training nor a technique for what I did, I only did the best possible and I was terribly insecure ".

But he says that now he is more mature, more determined. Pure Irish ambition that you see on and off the screen. Because if this moaning guy cultivated a low profile, now he wants to change things. “I am working hard to become one of the best actors in the world”, he says. Remember the ambition of a character we know? The character played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in "Match Point".

"I am not going to lie, I am very ambitious and very grateful for the luck that I have had. I am simply talking about being the best actor and person I can be”, confirms. Quite a change for someone who four years ago was almost obsessed with the rejection that he received at castings – he makes clear that this still happens to him – or bad critics: “When you give a bad performance, you are rejected a lot, by millions and millions of people. That is a bit more complicated than when a girl, boy, your chef or the bouncer at a bar rejects you. I was lucky, because the rejection lit a fire while other persons become cowards".

And the boy has gotten the courage to overcome and get paid is this glamourous job: “If I didn’t want to be in this job, I should have left the industry after a while. I think I have already become quite far with doing 'Match Point' and winning a Golden Globe, filming 'August Rush' with Terrence Howard and Robin Williams, and other projects. I passed the stage of becoming famous. I am already there, I could be the greatest that I could be, you know? I like being an artist, but I prefer being a rich artist. It’s the fear of poverty, that leads actors: we are afraid of being poor again”. A short silence. “That’s a joke”, he says.

- So, how do you deal with fame?

"It’s ok. I like it. But I don’t like it if I would like it too much. That happens to some people that begin to like the drug of fame and say ‘Fuck, yeah, I am famous’, but when you let that be you become bitter. I would like to think that I like just enough. I hope one day when I am not famous or a star, I will be a complete human being".

- Do you read critics?

"Yes. The bad ones, only the bad ones. Those are the only honest ones. It’s easier for an actor to believe the bad critics than the good ones. Come on! When they tell you ‘you are an excellent writer, this interview is extraordinary’, you must be embarrassed. For actors it’s the same. I prefer that they underestimate me and surprise everyone with something good instead of saying that I am wonderful without being interesting".

Nothing to do: Jonathan Rhys Meyers is very grounded. His position on the actor scale rises like foam. And he knows it: “I think Cillian Murphy ("Exterminio") and I are at the same position and Colin Farrell is a little bit above us, but only a little".

He has faith, he is already in "Misión imposible III" and says he doesn’t mind being in a film with great expectations. y dice que no le molestaría tener un protagónico en una película de gran presupuesto. It’s not surprising that he is mentioned as a possible new James Bond, although he syas that he has never received a formal offer.

- What would you say if in a few years they do?

"I would say ‘When?’”

- And if you could, who would you choose?

Woody Allen as a bad guy, and Emanuelle Seigner as a Bond girl and hundred other beautiful acresses".

- Have you ever thought you would not make it in this industry?

"Every day! This morning I thought it".

His other roles

If the face of Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks familiar this is because he has played supporting roles in various movies. He was the coach of Keira Knightley in Bend it like Beckham. Until this movie he has always played dark characters: “The way I look determines the roles I play and in this period I am looked at as a handsome but cruel guy, spoiled and unpleasant. This has helped me get 'Los magníficos Amberson"', he says. And also for “Ride with the Devil”, by Ang Lee and in which I played with Tobey Maguire. "My character was a guy created by the civil war, full of hate, misery and suffering.”

Despite his fame as an excellent imitator - Woody Allen is one of his recurring impersonations -, he says he couldn’t do romantic comedies. “I am a terrible comedian. I am not funny at all. I can imitate, but being a good comedian requires timing. And mine is not very good".

http://www.laguiatv.com/actualidad/noticias/169807/entrevistas/jonathan-rhysmeyers-la-audiencia.html

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers: 'The audience likes to hate the characters’
Angélica Martínez (Colpisa) 26/08/2010

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is popular through his role of Henry VIII in “The Tudors”, the series he is already working on for three years. This summer TVE (Spanish tv station) is broadcasting the first season, in which live and intrigues at the British court in the sixteenth century is recreated in a modern and avant garde way. The actor with his prominent blue eyes has already triumphed in the cinemas with movies like "Match Point" and "From Paris with Love".

QUESTION: ¿How did you prepare for your role as Henry VIII?
ANSWER: I read a book about the reformations he started and passed a lot of time with the writer who knows a lot about the monarch. I also dedicated myself to listening to stories about his court from people who have read about it, although I only concentrated on the King.

Q: Your Henry Tudor doesn’t look at all like the versions created before…
A: Our vision is avant garde. He behaves like I would behave if I had absolute power at 28 years old. I don’t have the physical appearance of Henry, my passion comes from somewhere inside. He was a powerful man, that weight 140 kilos. I could imagine his intelligence, his ambition and that he saw the world bigger than it was.

Q: How would you like the public to receive your character?
A: I would like them to enjoy hating him. He was a bastard, but an interesting bastard. Through the costumes of that era, we have made him attractive. I am certain that the public hates the characters, but like watching the series.

Q: Are you attracted to roles like those of Henry VIII?
A: For any actor an extreme character is fantastic. There is nothing more enjoyable than bring live to a villain.

Q: Young people are interested in the series despite the historical content.
A: Henry VIII’s court was very Young. People ascended the throne at 11 or 12 years old. The series shows the live of the King between 28 and 29 years old in a time when most died between ages 30 and 50. The concept of youth has changed and what is shown is interesting to the youth. It’s a vibrant story, passionate and with the spirit of the youth.

Q: Sex plays an important part.
A: Without doubt it’s a very attractive ingredient, but the costumes of the time are as well. We have avoided the ridiculous clothes to make sure the public interested themselves for the characters, that they are boring nor fashionable. The court was a very modern court. He was the rock star of that time. He had 150 palaces that he constantly used. Every four months it started to smell and they moved court. They moved the furniture, the clothes, the women…It was a moving circus.

Q: Did you like to film the sex scenes?
A: It is more fun to watch on screen than to film. They need choreography and we have top lay them several times before a crew of 100 people. They are not nice at all.

Q: You seem more content with yourself than before.
A: I am more calm. I have bought a house in London with my girlfriend. It is an interesting time professionally and personally. I am finally in the area I wanted to be.

Q: Do you like to play with your sexual identity?
A: Yes, I suppose I like that on screen, but my sexuality is very defined. I feel comfortable in my own skin, but I like to become other characters and adventure in other identities.

http://archivo.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?cid=2268000

Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Interview From Paris with Love

By Julio García, Univision.com

Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers shares the lead role with John Travolta in the action movie From Paris with Love, which will premiere this Friday, but he has earned fame with his lead role in the series The Tudors. He has also played in films like the sweet August Rush and Mission: Impossible III, among others. Jonathan is on the phone to talk to Univision.com.

You could say that in From Paris with Love you play a double role, having an official job and another unofficial.
Yes, I am a young man that works at an embassy as personal assistant to the ambassador, that would like to become a special field agent for the government, the CIA. He has this fantasy of being a sophisticated spy like James Bond, living a double life and this is his dream. So when they couple him with Charlie Wax, he believes it is his opportunity to realize his dream. But what he gets is a wild type and he has to hit it out hard with him, but as both come from the same background, they leave the stupidity behind immediately.

His dream turns into a nightmare.
Certainly a nightmare, because large part of the movie James Reece is the moral compass. He has to see the good side in people, because the moment he starts to get cinical he doesn’t function, only when he keeps his naivety. Including with the girls, he needs to stay naïve and good.

What do you think about making movies about terrorism in this time where we are all the time threatened by terrorism?
When I read the script and met Pierre Morel and Luc Besson, I told them “we are addressing important themes like cocaine and terrorism, we should only use it to fuel the action. It’s the same with Taken, that addresses the sex industry. This is not a movie about terrorism, but about these two agents, in the style of Lethan Weapon. You have to entertain, cannot focus to much on this, because you will be explaining for two and a half hours.” I believe Luc and Pierre agreed and they have kept the script light.

What was it like to work with John Travolta?
Very easy. We hadn’t meet until we filmed the first scene. The chemistry was the same I had with Scarlett Johansson on the first day of filming Match Point. It was a lucky coincidence, although Luc knew that John and I were going to work together well, but we didn’t know.

When did you film this?
Last Christmas, a little over a year ago.

This was a little before the death of John’s son. Did you see him after that?
Yes. The tragedy is indescribable. There’s an incredibly beautiful family. How do you say goodbye to family? You cannot. I lost my mother two years ago and she was a very young woman, 50 years old. How do you say goodby? You can’t. And you carry this with you the rest of your life. I am sure that John has changed since the death of his son like I have changed since the death of my mother. He is a tremendous guy. I was at home in London and saw him on the television with his plane in Haiti. I wasn’t surprised, because that’s who he is, feeling responsible to help, whatever happens. How can you not like a person like that?

How was working in Paris?
It’s a very beautiful city, the possibilities are endless, but I also saw the not so beautiful parts. Paris is not only the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Place the Concordia and Montmartre. It also has very dangerous suburbs and it was an experience seeing both sides of the city.

What are you going to do after this movie?
I just finished the fourth season of The Tudors and it wasn’t easy, because Henry is already 50 years old and it is difficult to play an older man. I have a movie with Julianne Moore, titled Shelter.

Any musical project?
I love music, but I play for pleasure. When I will record an album and promote it, it will become a job. I could work with my brother and my father, who live in Spain, but I am an actor. Maybe I will record something one day, but it will not be hit list music, but more World Music. I would rather work with Ali Farka Toure than with Beyoncé.

Are you familiar with Latin cinema?
A little, I have done a movie with Alfonso Arau, who also made Como agua para chocolate. I made The Magnificent Ambersons, a remake of a Orson Welles. I have not done movies in South America, just an advertisement in Buenos Aires and I have been in Central America: Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I saw movies like Estación central, Amores perros and Babel. But I need to explore it a bit more. There are fantastic directors and I worked with Mario Testino, who is from Peru.

http://www.hoycinema.com/actualidad/noticias/CINE-Jonathan-Rhys-Meyers-rodaje-llegas-conocer-nadie.htm

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers: "On a movie set you do not get to know anyone"
04/05/2006

You like him or not, you accept him or not, certain is that the Irish Jonathan Rhys Meyers stole the lead from star Tom Cruise in the new movie ‘Mission: Impossible III’. And all thanks to his incredible physical attraction.
At the Four Seasons Hotel in LA we had the opportunity to interview this young man with intense green eyes and uninhibited language, who has little by little found him a spot in the Mecca of the cinema. The actor playes one of the team members. Rhys Meyers reveals his passion for his girl friend and his desires to proceed further in his career as an actor.

QUESTION: What kind of training did you have to do for this movie?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: Nothing, to be honest; I didn’t have to train because I didn’t have to shoot any dangerous scenes.

QUESTION: Your acting in the helicopter was very convincing.
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: It was all filmed in the studio. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I am not going to lie. I still don’t understand why I spend two hours at the gym every day. Ok, I was expecting to do action scenes, but in the end I didn’t.

QUESTION: In your opinion, what are the most important scenes of the movie?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: Those filmed in Rome. We spend our first day of shooting in a speed boat with JJ, the director, who used to be a conductor of an orchestra. The second day I was telling Tom insults and calling him names in Italian and English. He has a great sense of humour and we got along very well. It were some unforgettable days.

QUESTION: Did you like working with Tom Cruise?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: It’s quite an experience shooting with him. He is a fabulous actor. Even though I saw him in many other movies, he is very different in this one. Working with someone that is so familiar to me, but that I had never met before, is very strange. Since I was a kid I had seen Tom’s face more than my school teacher’s or my cousin’s. When you go to the cinema the experience is very intimate, even though there are 500 people in front of the screen. It’s very strange meeting someone with a live and a fame like Tom. In Italy the Italians were really pleased. There is something familiar about him when you meet him, something that scares you as well.

QUESTION: Would you say that your know Tom Cruise now that you have worked with him?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: No. You never get to know anyone filming a movie. What you know about the person is how this person reacts to extreme situations. This has been one of the most difficult shoots I have done. Last year I worked with Woody Allen for eight weeks and I couldn’t tell you who Woody is, I have nothing in common with a 70 year old man from New York and very little with a 44 year old that is a star in Hollywood.

Vanity

QUESTION: How did you get your role in Mission: Impossible III?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: My agents asked me to talk to JJ. I had heard he is a fun guy, so I didn’t have any doubt approaching him. They interviewed my about the role of Billy Crudup, but they told me I looked to young compared to Tom. So JJ told me that I wasn’t right for this character, but that he did want me in the movie. There were originally five team members in Toms team: Tom, Ving, Maggie and two more. He knew I was not going to be interesting as one of the five, so he made of two characters one and offered me the part. He wanted me to be the Irishman in the group because he was interested in getting an international flavor in the team.

QUESTION: How much plays vanity a part in accepting a role so important for your career?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: Not one actor can say that he is not vain, especially when you get up in the morning thinking you have to stand in front of a camera and only with the idea that people want to see you in the cinema. This thought alone is already incredibly vain. There are actors with different physique that are seen as beautiful and sexy and that play characters that don’t fit them. There are actors like Jude Law or Josh Hartnett that constantly play horrible types, when in reality they are very beautiful. Especially Josh Harnett. He could be one of the biggest stars of America, but he doesn’t want that image. Vanity plays an important role in every actors life. We all want to be seen as good. Actors pass 90% of their time asking hoe the other actors see them. But this perception is very subjective.
Dangers that alure

QUESTION: To many actors it’s easy to get carried away by success, fame and money. How do you keep your feet on the ground?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: I haven’t bought into the idea of being special. Acting is not a difficult job, what surrounds an actor is difficult, finding work, money, but when you buy into the idea of fame and you act famous and start to go out with famous people, go to clubs and all that could make you lose your head. I don’t like that side of the industry, I like to distance myself from all that, it’s not a requirement to go out with an actress or fashion model. When you do that you will find good things and bad things. You get a beautiful girl, you bring her to your bed that night, but you also get the fucking journalists the following day. So when you are going to do that you better think twice.

QUESTION: When are you going to get married?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: I don’t know. When my girlfriend wants to. I adore her and am very happy with her.

QUESTION: Do you want it all? A house, children, a dog?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: All except the dog. I am afraid of dogs, I hate them.

QUESTION: Are you the kind of man that someone goes out with before meeting the one you’ll marry?
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: Yes! (laughs). Fuck, I am! I think of Rachel Leigh Cook, who is married now. And Toni Collette, who is also married. Asia had a child with someone after ending our relationship. I think I am the premarriage cake.

QUESTION: After spending time with you, they think “Never again am I going for someone like that”.
JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS: That is so true. It’s not something conscious, but that’s how things are… Like they say: ‘Good and bad go hand in hand.’

http://www.tiempodehoy.com/entrevistas/jonathan-rhys-meyers

Jonathan Rhys Meyers
25 / 03 / 2011
GLORIA SCOLA tiempo@grupozeta.es

The Irish star looks back on his career and his introduction into the film world and talks about The Tudors, series in which he plays Henry VIII and that Tiempo brings to her readers every week.

“Henry VIII was a terrible man”

He has been the King of Rock – Elvis Presley – and the most famous and bloody King of England – Henry VIII. In this exclusive interview, done during the last festival of Abu Dhabi, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Dublin, 1977) talks about his past and future in acting, his work with Woody Allen, monarchy and of course The Tudors, the pricewinning – more than 32 internationals awards – that Tiempo offers her readers every week.

You were born in Dublin and at 15 years old you were discovered in a pool hall in Cork. How do you remember this?
I was working there, I was in the middle of a game, like Paul Newman in Yo estaba trabajando ahí, estaba en medio de una jugada, como Paul Newman en The Hustler and a casting director saw me and said to me: “Do you think you could do this in front of a camera?”. I laughed. And she continued: “It’s for Warner Brothers. I want you to say these ten words, a sentence, while I am filming you with my the camera. That is all.” She repited it two more times and said to me that she might return in half an hour and I said to her: “Well, ok.” I didn’t mind, as I didn’t know anything about that.

And she returned.
She left and after a while I left too, because I had a job interview in a clothing store at the other side of town. When I returnt to play pool, this woman was hysterical. “Where were you? I have talked to Sir David Puttnam and Bruno de Keyzer and they want to see you for a screen test. There is a limosine waiting outside.” So I was 15 years old and within half an hour I had a limosine drive me to meet a great producer. I spent three days doing tests and I was devastated when they didn’t give me the part, but two days later the casting director called me and said: “Maybe there is another role, this is how is works.” And from there on it’s a very boring and complicated story about auditions that you do and you don’t do, meetings, getting and not getting parts, doing movies…until now.

Very well, but you have succeeded. You have triumphed.
Well, we still don’t know (laughs).

And after you were discovered, did you go to an acting school?
No.

And what is your technique?
I am still discovering that. My technique is that I don’t have one. I would love to say that I have a craft and skill for acting… but it’s not like that. I am an emotional person and a very good observer.

That is to say, you have a lot of psychology.
No, it means I capture emotions very quickly and that is my capacity. I have the skill to feel emotions of others and to put myself in situations that are not real. I have a very lively imagination and that is because as a little boy I spent a lot of time alone. My mother didn’t have much time to be with me and my brother was a vivid reader, so I spent a lot of time alone.

I have read that you spent some time in an orphanage. Is that true?
No, that’s not true. The truth is I don’t know where that story has come from. I think it comes from some journalist that wanted his article to be more attractive then it in reality was and that he could tell the editor and get more pages. That he could say: “O, how good am I”. But I have never stayed in an orphanage.

But it is true that your father left his family?
Yes. I was very young. But my father was also very young.

So you have forgiven him?
Of course. My father and my mother were adolescents.

Really?
Yes. Adolescents are children and therefore they shouldn’t have children. My father is a very caring man now and my mother sadly passed way three years ago.

I understand that you bought her a house from you first big pay check.
Yes, and I feel very fortunate that I have been able to do this for my mother. Also because seven years later I could do the same for my father. My father lives in a house I bought him in Spain, in Las Ramblas, Alicante.

When Neil Jodran hired you to play the assassin of Michael Collins, he said two things about you: that you looked like a young Tom Cruise and that you had alarming confidence. That this was your skill. It was also because of your eyes…
When I went to meet Neil Jordan in Dublin there were four boys that were also being interviewed. The started to say things like “I am doing a bit of television now and a play” and I was a very young actor that hadn’t done anything yet. I thought: “That’s it, these boys are professionals and know how this goes. I am going to meet Neil Jordan, that’s great, but that is all”. So when I entered the room, Neil Jordan say an alarming confidence in me…but they didn’t get to me (laughs) [I am a bit confused on this part, an Spanish speakings that can help me here?]. And that is why they chose me.

Let’s talk about Match Point. Your character in reality, is not really bad.
Like Woody Allen told me: “Remember that he is not a psychopat, he’s a pathetic”.

Woody Allen gave you the script? Normally he doesn’t give it to all the actors, so they don’t know the final.
That’s true, but he gave it to me, because my character is in the whole script, so he had to give it to me. Matthew Goode and Emily Mortimer didn’t know the end, but Scarlett Johansson did. She said: “Woody, you have to tell me. If you don’t, I won’t do it”. Besides, Scarlett arrived at the shoot a week before we started. Kate Winslet was going to do it, but she had to decline, I don’t really know why.

How is Allen directing?
Very friendly. He doesn’t talk to you much, because he doesn’t have to. The longest conversation I had with him was five minutes, ten maximum. Sometimes he said: “Good morning” and I greeted him back and that would be all we said. With Dianne Wiest he did three movies, including Bullets over Broadway, where she was the lead, but he never spoke to her. Only good morning and good evening and he said: “That is an actress”. He never had to direct her in a scene. He only had to let her do her job. Besides, Woody wants to be an actor, not a director. Woody Allen would love to turn up at a shoot, play his role, eat a cake and go home. He would love to be only an actor, but nobody chooses him as an actor. I asked him: “If I would direct a movie, would you play the lead?” And he answered: “Of course”.

Would you like to direct? Is it a natural move for an actor?
No, it’s not a natural move, but I would like it. I think some actores are very good directors and others not. Ben Affleck is magnificent, much better than he ever was as an filmstar. Matthew Modine, the same…

What has playing Henry VII in The Tudors meant for you?
The first two seasons I really enjoyed doing. The last two in truth not. I would have wanted an older person to play follow up on the part. I thought it would only be one season and suddenly I was trapped for four years. I lost a lot of work, a lot of movies…

What do you think of Henry VIII?
I think Henry VIII was a terrible person. Egotistical, vain, presumptious, proud, bipolar, psychotic…But all this was because of gout, ulcers, scurvy…The illness changed his character at 40 years old.

Now that you have played the King of England. What do you think of the monarchy?
The monarchy has a great meaning. People are born with it and it is an intrinsic part of their live.

You have a movie waiting to come out, Shelter, in which you play with Julianne Moore, and Belle du Seigneur, produced by Glenn Close…Do you dream of winning an Oscar?
I think it is the dream of every actor, and anyone who says it’s not, is a liar.

http://blog.unab.cl/claudiamg/2009/03/28/entrevista/

Posted on Marzo 28th, 2009 by claudiamg
Jonathan Rhys Meyers smells success
Jonathan has had a lot of success since he played a Machiavellian and seductive murderer in the movie ”Match Point”. Currently he is the face of the male fragrances of Hugo Boss.
Below you find the interview that he has done some time ago about his participation in the commercials and other topics.

•I suppose you have put on Hugo by Hugo boss before you left home.

”Of course. I would never promote something I wouldn’t buy myself.

•It’s the first time this fragrance chooses a celebrity to promote. Why do you think they have called you?

”I suppose because I try to be brave in my interpretations, take it to the limit. I have worked with real free thinkers. And since I am the face that they use to give form to their stories it is understandable that a firm like Hugo, representative of a free spirit and independence, turns to someone like me”.

•Hugo smells of irreverence. What is the most irreverent thing you have done?

”I have just finished playing the King of England. I suppose, as an Irishman, that is the most irreverent that I could have done”.

•The company represents the ‘healthy man’. Do you identify with that?

”Yes, I care about my health. My upbringing influences as well: I grew up in a small city in Ireland [Cork] in a little unhealthy conditions. I like healthy. Other publicity campains put and enfasis on the chique hero or the decadent one. Hugo goes for power, the energetic. And that attracts me especially”.

•There is an Irish saying that refers to your country growing on potatoes.

”[Laughs] ¡And its true! I grew up on cooked potatoes.

He laughs now, but Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ youth wasn’t easy. A persistent rumor says that his parents left him in an orphanage when he was a baby, although the actor insists that this is only a fantasy. In any case, after a separation when he was still a small child, Jonathan grew up on the streets of a labour neighbourhood, was expelled from strictly religious school and at 16 years old was hanging around in the bars of the town. Until one day he was discovered by a casting agency in a local pool hall. A few months later he did his first commercial for Knorr soups. In the cinema he starred as assassin of Michael Collins, and as an icon of glamour thanks to a David Bowie-esque Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haynes. Much earlier, when he was 19 years old, we could see him as a friendly, edible adolescent in an entertainingly bad Spanish fantasy called The Killer Tongue. “Man, can you believe I have not seen it yet? Please, if you get a copy, send it to me”. He is thinking about trading London for Hollywood, but until recently, Jonathan Rhys Meyers was concerned to leave behind something else: an ambiguous image that prevented him getting bigger roles”.

•Your fear of not being considered for certain roles has gotten you obsessed with physical exercise. Have you succeeded in breaking the image of an androgynous actor?

”From time to time you will have to get a new image of yourself and promote it. And so I did with Velvet Goldmine, when I exploited my androgyny completely; after that similar roles came pouring in, but I wasn’t interested in repeting myself. So I did Bend It Like Beckham, where I played a sweet and intimate guy. You always have to grow. I have centered a large part of this growth on doing exercise. It’s very difficult to get adult roles when you are twenty something, because you are not an adolescent anymore and not yet a man. I am convinced that any actor will not get his best roles until his mid thirties. Then you can put all your experience into the story. I think about Hugh Jackman and George Clooney, that have not reached success until far into their thirties”.

•The turning point came with ‘Match Point’, both in your career as your image.

”Being a lead in a Woody Allen movie confirms you are an artist. That a movie has had so much success and was so different as this one, qualifies you as someone that has his own voice. That prompts others to say: ‘Yes, I want this guy in my movie’. Or in this case, a Hugo campaign”.

•You have also been in a campaign of Versace, one of the most opulent brands in the fashion world. Do you think two so different spirit can be embodied at the same time?

”Of course. As a actor you need to have different registers; as a model as well. Therefore, I was interested in doing this campaign of Hugo, because it represents an independent spirit, free thinking, brilliant and brave. And complementary to something so clearly decadent and chic as Versace. This are only two different sides of my personality”.

•It’s well known that the Director of Versace is always surrounded by security guards, also at private parties. Did you manage to pass them?

”[Smiles] Of course. Security guards are the most reasonable people you can think off. Besides, Donatella never lets anyone pass the circle she doesn’t want”.

•You have always shunned public live. Aren’t you afraid that ‘glamour’ will absorb you?

”I have never thought by myself “oh, I am going to live a life full of glamour”, but when I find myself in a situation like that I will enjoy it. I know very well it has nothing to do with my life. I can still go to the store on the corner to buy milk and everything goes alright. I imagine when success increases and suddenly people give you things and you earn more money every time; before you know it you start to go out with people of the industry, actrices, models..And you forget when you are really turning into an extraordinary person: your ability to connect with the guy that travels by bus every day. When this guy doesn’t identifies with you it is probably because you don’t go to the cinema and doesn’t want to smell like you”.

• But it is possible that your face is plastered on the bus.

“Better! If that guy gets recognized and perfume, I will have earned the wages. "

• Why do you think the fashion and beauty companies hire a celebrity rather than a model to advertise?

"It's very difficult to connect the product with the lifestyle of a model. Seeing a celebrity promotes a connection, you perceive your life. Hugo fragrance smells success of the young star of Woody Allen film or the adventurous spirit of co-Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III."

• Does the mere fact of putting a face to a company requires you to choose a certain type of roles?

"No, no. I don’t necessarily have to choose positive roles, but have to play well. And I also don’t have to follow a lifestyle to represent the product. So it’s like this: Hugo does not have to change anything about me and I have to do anything to change Hugo. We are very comfortable together. "

• What did you achieve by offering your own image, apart from a lot of money?

"I never do anything just for money. This is a worldwide campaign, what means that a certain type of public will know me better. So, has being the face of Hugo helped my movie career? Yes. Has it contributed to my modeling career that I was chosen for some of my recent roles? Yes. Everything is complementary. And as long as it works, I will keep modeling”.

•Which man have inspired your personal style?

”John Galliano, Dirk Bogarde, Peter O’Toole, El Gatopardo, de Visconti, Wong Kar Wai.”

•I am surprised that you don’t mention any rock star. You have played various in different movies throughout your career.

“Playing Elvis was a revelation for me. Chat Baker, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix…None of these man never followed a style; rather the opposite: style has followed them”.

He is always a good read-so honest!

I am beyond looking forward to his next interview! Speak Johnny, speak!

I found another interview on M:I iii. I translated it from Dutch. I'll add the link for those interested.

http://www.film1.nl/blog/8155-Jonathan-Rhys-Meyers-over-MiIII.html

Irish actor Jonathan Rhys (pronounced as Reese) Meyers plays a member of the IMF-team named Declan, just like Maggie Q. In the Netherlands Jonathan is mainly known for his supporting role in ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ and his lead role in the Woody Allen drama ‘Match Point (2005). He also played Elvis Presley in the miniseries ‘Elvis’ (2005) for which he earned a Golden Globe.

Have you ever been in Amsterdam before?
O yes, I like Amsterdam a lot. Very friendly people and very relaxed (he should get to know the rest of the Netherlands – my comment) After the interview I will go shopping on the PC Hooftstraat (very expensive shopping street in Amsterdam).

What was it like working with newcomer Abrams?
Of course he isn’t really a newcomer. He is the most successful tv-director and producer (Alias and Lost – red) in the world. He is the Spielberg of the tv-world and I thing that he could equal Spielberg in the film world in terms of success.

How does he compare to Spielberg?
He (Abrams) is just like a stadium rock band. He likes large. But at the same time he is very modest and relaxed.

What attracted you in the part?
Declan is a dare devil. He is like a young dog, smart and funny.

What was it like working with Tom Cruise?
Very intense yet very easy. He is a great actor and producer. Tom is the biggest film start in the world. No matter how self-confident you are when you are in a room with Tom your behaviour changes. He is not human anymore, but a company. You do not sit next to Tom Cruise, but next to Jerry Maguire and that guy from Collateral (2004). You know his face better than that of your best friends.

Despite his fame could you make contact with him?
Only during filming, off set I don’t know who Tom really is. The same counts for Woody Allen. I have spoken to you more now, than I have spoken to Woody during the filming of Match Point.

Woody Allen is known for his silence opposite actors? Most actors don’t even get the whole script…
I did have the whole script, but indeed other actors had to work with less. I think it’s good, because that way as an actor you can fully concentrate on your part.

Does the film become better that way?
It’s just a way of making a movie. Everyone has his own way. I don’t think there is a better or worse way, just an interesting or uninteresting way.

What do you think is an interesting way of filming?
I like to be left alone. Unless it involves big stunts, I hate a long preparation. During a scene I try to keep in very small. I look for that one simple element to fathom the character.

How does that compare to Declan?
I was myself, but different. I had to be relaxed and a little bit naughty and brave. I have all these elements in me, I only had to enlarge them. It’s not a difficult character, so I kept my emotions at the surface.

What was the most challenging part that you played so far?
I found it very hard to put myself in the shoes off George Osborne in Vanity Fair (2004).

Why?
I found it difficult to play such an arrogant rich kid. I hate to see myself on the screen. The easiest role was Elvist Presley.

That should have been really hard, shouldn’t it? You are from Ireland and Elvis from Memphis, USA.
I only did a little bit of research. I had four days of lessons from a dialect coach. Some way or another I good really put myself in Elvis’ shoes. It was very easy, strange as it may sound.

I heard you can impersonate Woody Allen pretty well.
(Smiles) That’s right.

What did Woody think of that?
I have never donei t when he was around, but I would like to do it for Saturday Night Live for instance.

What should a part have for you to accept it?
A good director. When I read a script I don’t know whether it can be a good movie. To avoid pitfalls I therefore choose a director that I would like to work with. Because a good director usually makes a good movie. I don’t care whether I have a large role. I don’t have to be the star necessarily. I learn more from small parts, because I don’t have to carry the whole movie and I can watch how other actors, like Tom Cruise, work.

So how does Tom work?
Tom doesn’t work for money or fame, because he has enough of both. He Works more than seventeen hours a day. If Tom wouldn’t work, many people would lose their job. He is the biggest start in the world and the film industry depends on him. I think that’s very very professional.

Would you like to be such a big star?
No, I don’t profile myself as a big star. I live in a normal house and drive a normal car. I wouldn’t be able to pay something else (laughs). I don’t go to Hollywoord parties and I don’t walk the street with many bodyguards. I know people that complain they are always harassed by paparazzi. Then I think: you walk the street with a two meter tall guy with a machine gun or you drive an enormous black car with blinded windows. No kidding you are being harassed.

Do you still live in Ireland?
No, I live in London with my girlfriend. But this year I will return to my home country to film a miniseries (Tudors). I play the young king Henry VII (sic). The story is written by Michael Hirst. He has written the script for Elisabeth (1998) as well. It’s nice to be king (laughs).

Well, perhaps for a day.
Yeah, or for an hour. After that it becomes boring.

Could you tell us a bit more about your next movie ‘August Rush’?
It’s about a boy August Rush (Freddie Highmore) who’s looking for his biological parents. Terence Howard (Hustle & Flow) plays a social worker. Kerrie Russel and I play the parents. Robin Williams plays a mysterious stranger that helps August, sort of a ten year old Mozart, in his search. But that’s all I want to say about the story.

Would you like to play in the next 'Mission: Impossible'?
Maybe, when they ask me. If the public reacts negatively to my part that would be the end of my character.

Maybe they can have you get shot within ten minutes.
(Laughs) That would cost them quite a lot. I can tell you that.

Which director would you most like to work with?
Oof, there are many. Fernando Meirelles, Zhang Yimou, Chris Nolan and Jim Sheridan. I have a very long wish list.

Bart-René Thiel


I think it's an interesting interview. Or at least there are some interesting bits in there. The role he found most difficult to play: George Osborne. Shows that he's not arrogant, even when people say he is or appears to be. Yet also some nice contradictions with other interviews. Love it when he just contradicts himself all the time.

Thanks for sharing this interview Audrey!

Is JRM saying that he'd like to host Saturday Night Live??

OMG Audrey, thank you for these! I love his interviews, love how his brain works. Hope he gives one soon.

GlamrockShamrock wrote:

Thanks for sharing this interview Audrey!

Is JRM saying that he'd like to host Saturday Night Live??

Don't think he really wants to host it, but just do the impersonation of Woody on Saturday Night Live. But hey, who knows with Jonny!

I'm sure most of you have read these but for those who haven't (copied from http://www.jrmfansite.org/-chronologically from oldest to newest):

1997

Glamorous Hooligan
By Charles Grant
The Face, February 1997


Jonathan Rhys Meyers is at a scary point in his life right now. The 19-year-old Irish actor has chalked up an impressive eight movies, and is already being talked up in British film circles as “the new Ewan McGregor”, but very few people have actually seen any of them — including Jonathan. “I think all these movies are going to come out and everybody’s going to find out I’m a fake,” he says with a sly smile, during a break in the filming of the recently completed B.Monkey directed by Il Postino’s Michael Radford. “I’m going to write a book called ‘How to bullshit your way through Movies’. That’s what I’ve done for the past two years. I don’t know how to act; I’ve never been to acting school; never had a lesson. So far I’ve got away with it -but for how long?”

Maybe that book should be called ‘How the movies saved me from myself’ for the story of Rhys Meyers’ meteoric rise is a modern classic of redemption: thrown out of school and almost certainly headed to juvenile centre having been caught driving without tax, licence or insurance, he was discovered in a Cork pool hall by a casting agent and offered the joint lead in The Dissapearence of Finbar Flynn. Films by Nicolas Roeg, Stephen Poliakoff and Tim Hunter followed. Now his raffish charms have seen him cast alongside with Ewan McGregor in Velvet Goldmine, the much awaited glam rock movie from Safe director Todd Haynes — a role that will do nothing to halt those comparisons with the hot Scot. “I haven’t met Ewan, but I’m looking forward to it”, says Rhys Meyers flicking his fringe. “I’m gonna have so much fun being part of someone special like that. He’s gorgeous.”

1998

The Making of a Movie Star
By Roger Clarke
Sunday Telegraph, June 14, 1998

Thanks to his performance as a decadent glam-rocker in the much-hyped Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers was the hottest property at Cannes. Now everyone wants a piece of him – but can he take the pressure? Roger Clarke witnesses…

Jonathan Rhys Meyers will be 21 next month, and soon afterwards he’ll become a big star. He’ll appear in all the magazines and on the chat shows, be seen at all the A-list parties, and his face will be photographed by Bruce Weber for the cover of Interview. The engine of his new fame is Velvet Goldmine, a film set in a druggy Seventies glam-rock London, and Johnny Rhys Meyers plays the lead character, a barely veiled version of the young David Bowie.

Johnny was the hottest property in Cannes last month and everyone knew it. Older and more famous actors like Bruce Willis were laughed at in their own screenings, but Johnny was having his first taste of fame, and after dreaming about it for what seemed like years he was finally getting what he wanted. He has three films coming out this year, and everyone wants a piece of him.

Rhys Meyers, one of four brothers, was born in Dublin in 1977. He grew up in Cork with his mother (his father, a musician, lives in Jersey) and has never worked at anything other than acting. He got into acting through social connections in Ireland, where everyone knows everyone. He can act, sing, dance a bit. “I love music best,” he says, “I always wanted to be a rock star.” With an exceptional angular face, dark hair, brilliant blue eyes and lips that can do a fine Elvis snarl, he was born to be photographed. When David Puttnam observed his startling rapport with the camera at a casting, he said to Johnny, “The camera loves you.” Johnny’s reply was shameless: “And I love the camera.”

The other films he’s appearing in are B. Monkey, with Rupert Everett, and The Governess, with Minnie Driver, and he’s been cast by Ang Lee in Ride With The Devil, an American Civil War epic currently shooting in Kansas. But it’s Velvet Goldmine that seems likely to make him a megastar.

The film tells the story of Brian Slade, a bisexual rocker, and his descent into self-destructive stardom. Slade is not an entirely sympathetic character, and it’s hardly surprising that Bowie blocked the use of his music in the film. With Eddie Izzard a hoot as Slade’s manager, Christian Bale as a journalist, Ewan McGregor as an Iggy Pop figure and Toni Collette (Johnny’s on-and-off girlfriend) as a kind of Angie Bowie, it’s a strong piece of ensemble acting. Michael Stipe, of the band REM, is an executive producer.

To find out how a working-class boy from Cork would cope with all the hype, the wall-to-wall interviews, the paparazzi, I went to Cannes with Johnny. I wanted to see a star being born.

Thursday 21 May: Cannes

Johnny’s flying in from Kansas, having been given a four-day exeat from filming. Every single stage of his Kansas-Chicago-Frankfurt-Nice route has fouled up. The Kansas flight is two hours late, he misses his Chicago connection and is re-routed through Paris. The Nice customs didn’t like the look of him and go through his luggage with a fine-tooth comb. It’s bad enough that he’s carrying a guitar and has a sleeve-pocket stuffed with penny whistles, but there’s another image problem. In the Ang Lee film Johnny plays a hillbilly psychopath; he’s been given hair attachments that extend halfway down his back, and he seems quite convincingly in character. The flight problems mean that Johnny has missed his morning interviews in Cannes, including one with Barry Norman for Film 98.

Christopher Crofts, Rhys Meyers’ unofficial manager, has flown to Cannes before him, and has been receiving anguished calls all night from Johnny in Paris. The helicopter link from Nice airport to Cannes is booked up. Christopher, at whose dairy farm Rhys Meyers stayed when he left home at the age of 17, travelled by the link and found himself sitting next to Robert Duvall. “You look familiar,” ventured the gregarious Crofts, a former president of the Irish Grasslands Association. “Do you farm in Limerick?”

In the late afternoon, Crofts is taken on the long drive to Nice airport. Johnny is already shattered. He arrives at his first-floor room in the Carlton. It’s cramped and dark and he asks for another one. “It’s a perfectly nice room but not as good as Toni’s,” he says. He seems to be getting the hang of this star thing. He takes a shower and then walks with me over to the Martinez hotel, also on the Cannes seafront, cluttered with film hoardings and dried-out palm trees.

In the sultry early evening crowds of people congregate outside the grander hotels waiting to gawp at the stars. Most of them have no idea which stars, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s an especially large throng outside the Martinez, and a big contingent of security guards and police to hold them back. They take one look at Johnny’s hair and refuse to let him in. As we both try to telephone the people expecting us inside, the police start to push us away. “This is disgusting!” fumes Johnny. “They’re judging me by the way I look!” Johhny vows he is going to leave Cannes immediately. A girl dashes out through the guards, throws someone’s security pass around Johnny’s neck, and we’re whisked past the dumbfounded guards.

Taxis are found. We drive to La Napoule, an old-fashioned restaurant down the coast to the south, the seafront road jammed with cars in temporary one-way systems.

Johnny had intended not to stay for dinner, but when he is seated next to Colm Meaney, best known as Chief O’Brien in Star Trek, he settles into easy banter with the Dublin-born actor. “That’s the Irish for you,” ventures Crofts. “That’s why I moved to LA,” says Meaney jokingly.

Friday 22 May: the day of the premiere

10am: Johnny is sitting in the Carlton’s sweltering baroque ballroom, heavy golden drapes are swagged around the terrace windows. A well-thumbed volume of Rimbaud is visible in a leather bag. The television interviews are junket-style, with a fixed crew. On the far left corner sits Toni Collette. At the top right is Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine’s director, and opposite is Christian Bale. Each star has their own video crew. Bale is ultra-experienced and cool. Some lighting technicians move a potted tree between Toni and Johnny, since she seems to be distracted by him. Johnny concentrates on the job in hand. He has not yet learned to autopilot in interviews and treats every six-minute interview with an earnest grace which will exhaust him before long. Each journalist is handed a tape after their interview. A Swiss woman asks what it’s like to kiss Ewan McGregor.

We wait for Johnny at the beach, where the PR company McDonald & Rutter has reserved two tables. Crofts has brought along a Gucci suit for Johnny to try on for the premiere; Johnny has an aversion to black tie. Five freeloaders seat themselves at the next table and consume a huge lobster meal before vanishing. No one has the slightest idea who they are.

When Johnny arrives the pressure is beginning to tell. He has had a frightening press conference and was spooked by the banks of paparazzi. He tries on the Gucci suit in the restaurant’s lavatory. It doesn’t fit. Johnny insists he’s going to wear his own glam-rock costume: bottle-green velvet jacket and yellow velvet pantaloons. There’s a strong chance he won’t be let into the premiere if he does. Hysteria looms.

Johnny is wined and dined again by the usual crowd of financiers, agents and the Velvet Goldmine cast. The premiere’s at 10:30pm. Johnny gets in without any trouble, especially since Haynes is also wearing an unorthodox silver jacket made by costume designer Sandy Powell. Tickets could not be had for love or money yet there are empty seats inside.

At one o’clock in the morning, as the whole cast emerges triumphantly, the gawpers start heckling. They want to see established stars. “Who’s that ugly slut?” they shout at a blameless (and perfectly attractive) actress. A convoy of cars whisks the stars off to the Villa Federica, a floodlit mansion of some opulence. The Velvet Goldmine party is the hottest ticket in town. Michael Stipe, Brian Eno, Winona Ryder, Bono and Sigourney Weaver are there. Gordon, an Irish friend of Crofts’, is disconcerted to catch one of the waiters in the act of picking his pockets. Glam-rock music blares out into the early light. Some of it is the soundtrack of the movie, on which Johnny sings. Johnny leaves at six with Toni Collette on his arm. It seems their friendship is on again.

Saturday 23 May

Mary-Jo Slater, a casting director, arrives unexpectedly at midday and takes her actor son Ryan up to Johnny’s new seafront room to meet him. Johnny stayed with her last year in Los Angeles while filming a television movie called The Maker. From one o’clock to seven that evening Johnny receives 60 print journalists at L’Evasion beach restaurant. He’s nearly falling over with exhaustion and is upset when an aggressive paparazzo jams his camera in his face as he walks back to the hotel.

Crofts returns the unused Gucci suit and takes a redirected phone call from his farm in Cork: it’s one of his neighbours, asking him if he has any silage to sell. Early to bed at one, after a stuffy dinner with Cannes dignitaries and financiers.

Sunday 24 May

Japanese and French print interviews from 10:30am, though Johnny surfaces half an hour late. At one o’clock his PR schedule officially ends, and there’s a small lunch with the Velvet Goldmine crew, very low-key. Christopher Crofts is trying to work out when Clare Kilner, a director who’s flown in from England to pique Johnny’s interest in her film, can have a few seconds of Johnny’s attention. She’s given five minutes, then she flies home.

At six Johnny is expected at the Cap hotel for drinks with his English agent. He cancels. Sandy Powell arrives with the costume her boyfriend wore at last night’s party, and speedily adapts it for Johnny to wear at the awards ceremony. Christopher and most of the cast retire to a small restaurant, where they watch the ceremony on television. Todd wins a rarely given award for technical excellence. When Todd and Johnny arrive back at the restaurant there’s dancing on the tables. A Miramax party on a boat in the harbour is considered a damp squib and no one goes.

To bed at one, then up again for his Kansas flight at five, with four more changes ahead. Johnny will arrive at midnight, and he has a wake-up call at 5:30am, to be on set and acting. Ang Lee has been implacable about the schedule.

Before he leaves the film festival, Johnny tells me: “I wish Cannes had remained just fantasy. I grew up seeing it on TV and wanting to be here and now I wish I’d never come.” The voice of tiredness? A disillusionment with the mechanics of incipient fame? The mix of luxurious living and punishing schedules has taken its toll, but he’s learning now, after jumping in the deep end. “He has to learn,” says Crofts when I see him in London on his way home to Cork, “how to say no.” It’s not an easy lesson.

Special thanks to Hansi for transcribing this article.

________________________________________________________________________


Glamour Boy: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Entertainment Weekly, Summer Double Issue 1998


Age 20

Why him? With a splash of glitter and a drugged-out glaze, this Irish upstart (think River Phoenix meets Leonardo DiCaprio with a rogue’s brogue) puts the wham back in glam as a Bowie-esque megastar in Velvet Goldmine.

Work Habits “I was an extraordinary liar and thief as a kid, so I was always playacting to survive.”

Creative crutch “I’ve been listening to Bob Marley a lot lately; he makes me think I can change the world.”

Next? The Governess with Minnie Driver, due in July; and Ang Lee’s Civil War drama Ride With the Devil.

_______________________________________________________________________

Hot Actor: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Rolling Stone, August 20, 1998


A fresh face in a world hungry for a new Leonardo DiCaprio/Daniel Day-Lewis mutation, Jonathan Rhys Meyers – who makes a suitably colorful impression as Bowie-esque rock star Brian Slade in the upcoming Velvet Goldmine – is about to learn about fame, fame, fame, fame. In the film, directed by Todd Haynes (Safe), Slade’s manager, played by Brit comic Eddie Izzard, declares, “The secret to being a star is to behave like one.” But the twenty-one-year-old Rhys Meyers – who grew up in County Cork, Ireland, and was first spotted by a casting director at a pool hall when he was fifteen – is focused on the work. “When you want to be an actor, especially in film,s you’ve got to have a certain arrogance,” he says with characteristic intensity. “But I’m looking at things in the long term, because a star is very short term – you only see it when it explodes.”

Clearly, Rhys Meyers doesn’t idealize his profession. “All actors are lazy,” he confesses. “You get on a set and immediately people are wiping your ass for you, and nobody tells you when you’re being an asshole. I’m sure nobody working for Tom Cruise would turn around and say, ‘Tom, don’t do that anymore because you’re a fucking dickhead to do that.’ Actually, he might quite like it.”

So far, Rhys Meyers has been too busy to be lazy. He’s worked in, among other films, Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins and Suri Krishnamma’s A Man of No Importance. Coming up in The Governess, with Minnie Driver, and Ride With the Devil, Ang Lee’s Civil War epic with Skeet Ulrich, Tobey Maguire and America’s best-selling poet Jewel, whom Rhys Meyers calls “a beautiful woman.”

In Velvet Goldmine – executive-produced by Michael Stipe and also starring Ewan McGregor as the Iggy Pop-y Curt Wild – Rhys Meyers embraces the androgyny of his flashy role. “People are always being labeled,” he explains, “so you’re a dude or a chick. Here in L.A., anyway, that’s all going out the fuckin’ window. When I look at magazines, I don’t see feminine women and manly men. I see beautiful boys and sexy girls. They’re trying to crossbreed into what it would be like to have a boy-girl – that’s very attractive to people.”

Earning an ‘A’ for Androgyny on the Screen
New York Times, September 13, 1998


Good-looking and bursting with raw talent, 21-year-old Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been hailed as the latest new star in Hollywood.

ONCE upon a time, the talk was of the “It Girl”. These days, Jonathan Rhys Meyers has film-makers extolling what is called the “A Boy”.

The “A”, of course, stands for “androgynous”, which is a quality — an infectious smile and raw talent are others — that has the 21-year-old Irishman leading the latest Anglo-Irish thespian wave.

The actor, who has been compared to Leonardo DiCaprio, stars in Ride With The Devil, which is expected to be released early next year, co-starring Tobey Maguire and Jewel.

“Johnny’s fabulous to look at,” said Ang Lee, who cast Rhys Meyers as a long-haired villain-with-a-difference in the Civil War film. “Personally, I feel he has a poetic quality.”

Director Todd Haynes, who picked Rhys Meyers to play the vaguely David Bowie-esque glam rocker Brian Slade in Velvet Goldmine, which is to open in the United States on Nov 6, said: “We had to have a beautiful man who could be very skinny and strike an impressive and arresting pose.

“To convey a viable rock ‘n’ roll icon in a fictional film is a really difficult task.”

Rhys Meyers, for his part, takes a pragmatic view of his appeal. “The way I look is the way I look,” he said.

But he’s too smart not to be rather more self-aware. “I’ve got an androgyny anyway — I’ve always had a very, very strong male side,” continued the actor who was 2-1/2 when his father left their home in County Cork, Ireland, leaving his mother and brothers to cope.

“Because I grew up with a single parent, I equally have a strong feminine side, and I’m not afraid to let that come out. I’m hoping I’ll get some of the emotional intelligence that comes from having a female side. I find that very beautiful.”

In Velvet Goldmine, his enigmatic Slade makes his way through 11 wigs and 17 makeup changes to capture the sad heart of a film that, for all its apparent glitter, is as much a requiem for an era as a celebration of it.

“It’s very hard for somebody to wear all those different haircuts and look well in every one of them,” said Rhys Meyers. (The costumes, which include leopard-print trousers and sparkly platform boots, heighten the effect.)

“That was the challenge — was I willing to let vanity take second place to courage? I decided I’d take a risk.”

A similar impulse prompted him to accept the part of Henry Cavendish, the increasingly anxious suitor to Minnie Driver’s closetted Jew in The Governess.

“I thought, a really subdued 1840s Victorian piece — oh wow, let’s go whip myself,” he said. “And I get constantly rejected!”

Now, Rhys Meyers is in near-constant demand with films awaiting release from, among others, Michael Radford (B. Monkey) and Mike Figgis (The Loss Of Sexual Innocence).

Also unseen in the United States is his first major role, shot when he was 18, in Sue Clayton’s The Disappearance Of Finbar Flynn, an eccentric Irish comedy in which he plays the errant lad Finbar who falls in with a snowbound community of tango-obsessed Finns.

With fame comes the inevitable comparisons, most often to DiCaprio, whom Rhys Meyers somewhat resembles, though with a more pouty, fuller-lipped effect.

“But,” said Rhys Meyers, “when Daniel Day-Lewis first started acting, nobody said he was the new anything. What I’d like is to be a Johnny Rhys Meyers. I’d like to be accepted as myself.”

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SEXY BOY
By David Cox
I-D Magazine, October 1998


He’s not the new Ewan McGregor, although they star together in this month’s Velvet Goldmine. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a man on his own and a man with a troubled mind…

Jonathan Rhys Meyers doesn’t smile once during our conversation about his role in the extravagant new glam rock film Velvet Goldmine. However, despite his straight face, the 21-year-old actor from County Cork is far from sulky and withdrawn; nor does he seem tired after traveling from a movie set in Virginia to the Cannes Film Festival for its premiere. Instead he appears to be alert, responsive and almost grateful for the opportunity to discuss his role as androgynous ’70s rocker Brian Slade.

“I didn’t understand what the film was about. I never did and I never have and I never will. If I could understand it, it would have been boring. The whole thing was such a challenge ‘cos I had no idea what is was like to live in that decade, no idea what it was like to be a pop star and no idea what it was like to embrace bisexuality in such an open way. So it was a completely new role – fresh and liberating like the ’70s were.”

For Rhys Meyers to say that he doesn’t understand Velvet Goldmine is not simply an endearing act of false modesty. American director Todd Haynes hasn’t exactly opted for an easy approach to his chosen subject; what could have been a simple, splashy celebration of glam-rock is instead a multi-layered examination of fame, identity and gender, a continuation of themes explored by the film-maker in his previous works Poison, Safe and Dottie Gets Spanked. Starring alongside Ewan McGregor as Slade, a Bowie-esque star who shines briefly before burning out and disappearing, Rhys Meyers provides a human face for Haynes’ thrilling thesis.

“Jonathan is extraordinary,” says the filmmaker. “He’s very young but so talented. He brings so much more to Brian than there is in the script. He could so easily have been a sort of icy mask in the centre [sic] of all this activity, but he brought a vulnerability and a sensitivity that complicated things to a large degree. I think he brought me closer to what I was trying to do.”

The collaboration proved as stimulating for the actor: “Todd let me do my own thing and I trusted him as the director. He also placed a lot of trust in me because Brian was my role and he knew that was my area. Sometimes you might work on a film where the director might get too involved in the acting, or where the actor might get too involved with the directing. I just left Todd to the directing and he left me to the acting. When he needed something more – or less – he let me know and kept control over me in a very subtle way. It was like he was a corridor and I could bounce off every wall. Whenever I went out of that corridor he’d very carefully lead me back into it.”

In Goldmine, Brian Slade’s meteoric rise to stardom is the catalyst for some intense self-analysis. Rhys Meyers captures the solipsism and insouciance of the star perfectly, subtly colouring it with a tragic hint of awareness that the charade cannot last. It makes the actor appear slightly self-conscious on screen and runs the risk of being read as plain old bad acting (Chloe Sevigny treads a similarly fine line, for different reasons and to different ends, in Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco). Instead, Rhys Meyers’ risky performance enables the film to locate its main theme – the narrow gap which separates private identity from public persona.

“When I first started playing Brian Slade, I got sad very quickly and I remained sad for a long time. It was very tragic for me to play him as a human being because I wasn’t trying to play a character. I set out to see if I could play myself. I tried to go outside myself to see in, and as I started to do that I saw things I’d never seen before, parts of myself that weren’t exactly admirable. I saw a selfishness and an arrogance and developed a loathing of myself, a self-loathing that rubbed off on the character.”

“I never thought about the role as a performance. I never actually questioned Brian Slade as a character. I questioned myself as Johnny. When I was in the costumes I wouldn’t say ‘This is Brian’, I’d say this is Johnny. I knew who it was. I let myself be myself as much as possible and made myself be as honest as possible. It was the first film in which I wasn’t conscious of what I looked like because I knew I looked so out there that if I started concentrating on that it would lead me down a very narrow, very deceitful path for myself. So I let myself flow like a river through the whole thing.”

Barely 20 when shooting started on Goldmine – his first significant role, aside from a short appearance in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins – Rhys Meyers has little connection with the period during which a majority of the film’s action is set. However, his fine androgynous features mean that he’s picture-perfect as a product of those times. Through his vicarious, on-screen experience as a pioneer of the glam-rock movement, Rhys Meyers arrived at his own understanding of what the Velvet Goldmine era was all about.

“Lust and liberalism. It was like Spring and people felt a freshness that they’d never felt before and that many of them would never feel again. There was no emotional intelligence and no control. It’s a return to being a child. A return to innocence rather than a return to any sort of glamour. They were indulging in naughty things that they’d never done before. There was no AIDS, there was no worry about sex. They didn’t know what the withdrawal from drugs was going to be like so they thought everything was going to be fresh and rosy and it was like a flower that was just blooming, blooming, blooming. Then the petals started to drop off and there was nothing but an empty, hard stem and that’s all it was in essence. It wasn’t innocent or beautiful or liberal; it was very tragic and very messy.”

Special thanks to Vanessa for transcribing this article.

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Going for Greatness
by Michael Dwyer
The Irish Times, October 31, 1998

At 21, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers realises fame is no longer his spur. His mission is to be a great actor, and with 12 films in three years, he’s well on his way. He talks to Michael Dwyer.

When the American writer-director Todd Haynes was casting the young Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as an enigmatic, bisexual pop star in the glam-rock opus Velvet Goldmine, he commented: “Johnny is just incredible. Being 19 is a full-time job as it is, and here he is, playing this role that demands so many different aspects – vulnerability as an actor, transforming completely from era to era, performance skill and singing ability.”

When Ang Lee, the Taiwanese film-maker behind Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm was casting his recent American Civil War production, To Live On, he chose Rhys Meyers to play the villain of the piece. “Johnny’s fabulous to look at,” he said. “Personally, I feel he has a poetic quality.”

When the New York Times featured Rhys Meyers last month – in an article headlined “Earning an ‘A’ for Androgyny on the Screen” – the writer, Matt Wolf, noted that his androgynous appearance is “one quality, and infectious smile and raw talent are others, that has the 21-year-old Irishman leading the latest AngloIrish thespian wave”.

Last week, when Rhys Meyers featured in three of the six new cinema releases in London (and in yet another one on video), Charlotte O’Sullivan interviewed him in Time Out – headline: “Hallo Spaceboy” – and she drooled: “An exquisite version of Malcolm McDowell, the 21-year-old Irishman looks ripe with truculence, coy lashes fluttering above girlish eyes and fresh-from-the-butcher lips.”

Yet when Rhys Meyers returned home to Cork this month, for the film-festival screening of Velvet Goldmine, he seemed even more insecure and vulnerable than when I met him two years ago in London for what was the first media interview of his career. In that short time, he has become one of the most in-demand young actors in international cinema, moving from set to set all over the world, but he was edgy and ill at ease in Cork. For a number of reasons.

“I’m a big worrier,” he says, lighting a cigarette. “I worry all the time. We actors, every second we need to be re-assured of ourselves.”

He arrived in Cork from Rome, where he is working with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange on the film of Titus Andronicus for Julie Taymor, the Tony-winning director of The Lion King on Broadway. His long hair has been dyed blond for the film.

“It’s more frightening than anything else to come home,” he says. “It’s scary. I feel quite self-conscious. The other thing is I have so little time. I don’t even have 24 hours here. It’s such a rush, and I will have so little time to see my family. But I felt it was something I couldn’t not do.”

His unease was heightened by a number of unflattering references to himself in print. “While I’ve been in Rome I’ve seen a few magazines that frightened the s*** out of me. Because no matter who loves the film (Velvet Goldmine), a lot of people hate it.”

Which magazines? “I can’t remember,” he says. “They were English. For me, for my first time as a human being, it’s the first time ever I’ve been out there and been judged, and some of them judged rather harshly.” It would be entirely unfair for anyone to attribute any of the many problems of Velvet Goldmine to Rhys Meyers, whose glowing star-quality is one of its few assets. He lightens up when I quote the article about his androgynous appearance. “There is an androgyny there,” he says. “If you look at some of the photographs of me at Cannes, I look like a woman.”

The other reason he is upset is the break-up of his relationship with the Australian actress, Toni Collette, who played the title role in Muriel’s Wedding. They met when she played his wife in Velvet Goldmine – as a couple loosely based on David and Angie Bowie. “It’s gone,” he says of their relationship, his voice lowering. “I suppose I don’t really want to talk about it. I suppose what it comes down to is you’ve got to know yourself before you get to know anyone else. And I don’t know myself.”

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was born in Dublin in the summer of 1977 and moved with his family to Cork a year later. The eldest of four brothers, he left school when he was 16 – “I was kicked out of the Mon,” he says – and he was discovered by Hubbard Casting which was talent-spotting for the David Puttnam production, War of the Buttons.

“It started with a phone call from a very good friend of mine, Gordon McGregor, who asked me to come to Cork city for the auditions,” he says. “I turned up in this pool hall with about 50 other lads. Then I was brought down to Skibbereen to meet the director, and then I did another audition, until it was down to Gregg Fitzgerald and me for the lead. He got the part and did a wonderful job of it.

“I was 15 or 16 at the time, and I felt really rejected. I was crushed, so I said, ‘f*** this acting business’ and I went about my merry way of being a juvenile delinquent – and then this woman calls saying there’s an audition and did I want to go to it.” This time he got the role – in a Knorr soup commercial. He made his feature film début soon afterwards, with a minor role in A Man of No Importance, in which he is credited as First Young Man, before landing one of the two leading roles in Sue Clayton’s quirky The Disappearance of Finbar, co-written by Clayton and Dermot Bolger.

The movie was being filmed in Lapland in late winter when a thaw came in, the sets melted and the completion of shoot had to be postponed for six months. Returning home, Rhys Meyers got a call saying Neil Jordan wanted to see him for the role of the young assassin at Béal na mBlàth in Michael Collins.

“I went up to Dublin and met Neil at the Davenport hotel,” he recalls. “I was sitting in the lobby waiting for the audition and I’ll always remember the carpet, this beautiful, royal-blue carpet I was looking down at while I was waiting. There were two other guys waiting and talking away, and one of them had met Neil before. I just sat there saying nothing. “They went in to meet Neil and when they came out talking and laughing, I thought ‘that’s it’. Auditions always make me nervous, anyway, and that made me feel even worse. But I went in and it was great. Neil didn’t ask me to do anything for the role. He just sat down and talked to me. The next day he rang my agent and cast me.”

He had managed to conceal his nervousness from Jordan, who recounts the story of that audition in the diary that precedes his published screenplay of Michael Collins. His diary entry for Good Friday, 1995, concludes: “In the meantime, I have found someone to play Collins’s killer. Jonathan Rees-Myers (sic), from Co Cork apparently, who looks like a young Tom Cruise. Comes into the casting session with alarming certainty. Obviously gifted.”

Getting involved in the film business at such a young age, Rhys Meyers asked his friend, Christopher Crofts, a Cork farmer in his 50s, to become his guardian. “Christopher takes care of a lot of things at home for me,” he says. “Being away all the time, I need that link. I started working on Christopher’s farm when I finished school. I asked him for the job, but it took about two weeks to figure out I was no farmer. Then the whole acting thing came up and I asked him to help me out with it. It struck up as a business deal and then we became really good friends.”

Meanwhile, the roles rolled in – 12 films in three years. He spent a lonely two months in Madrid, playing a young American toyboy in the lurid Spanish horror movie, Killer Tongue. Then, to Morocco to play the young Samson in Nicolas Roeg’s Samson and Delilah. Next stop was London for Stephen Poliakoff’s The Tribe and a ménage àtrois with Anna Friel and Jeremy Northam which raised eyebrows when it was shown recently on Channel 4. From there he went to California for Tim Hunter’s The Maker, newly released on video here. “That was tough for me, because I’m a European boy and I had a week and a half to get an American accent for the part,” says Rhys Meyers, who plays a young man whose older brother (played by Matthew Modine) tries to draw him into crime. Another American film followed directly afterwards – Guy Freland’s Telling Lies in America, with Brad Renfro, Kevin Bacon, Maximilian Schell and a pre-Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart.

Then it was back to London to work for Il Postino director Mike Radford on B Monkey, with Asia Argento, Rupert Everett and Jared Harris. “It’s a love story,” says Rhys Meyers “and I play the tragedy in the love story.” B Monkey will be launched at the London Film Festival next month, two years after it was made.

“It had a lot of problems,” he says. “I don’t know what it’s like. I didn’t even see the rushes. I died and lived five times in the editing. I think I live now. Which is quite nice, although to die would have been good, too. It was a good death.”

Next up was Velvet Goldmine, followed by The Governess in which Jonathan Rhys Meyers is stripped and sensually stroked by Minnie Driver. Like his Velvet Goldmine co-star, Ewan McGregor, he is uninhibited about screen sex scenes. “It really is incredibly boring,” he says. “You just lie there like a piece of meat. I don’t have a problem with nakedness, but a sex scene, there’s no such thing. When you do a sex scene for a film, it’s more embarrassing for the people who are shooting it than for the people who are doing it.”

As it happened, he went from The Governess to The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the yet-to-be-seen new film from Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis. “It was filmed in Newcastle and it’s really low-budget,” he says. “It’s seven short stories and I’m in two of them, The Heart Attack and The Funeral. I was going through such difficult times with myself when I was working on it that I didn’t have that much of a good time. Then, I suppose, if you’re in a funeral scene and a heart attack scene, you’re not meant to.”

A happier experience was being back in the US for Ang Lee’s To Live On with Tobey Maguire and the singer, Jewel. “I had a hard time filming it, but I miss everyone I worked with on it so much,” he says. “I’ve actually thought about that film a lot. It was a wonderful film to work on. Plus it got me into horses, which I’m huge into now. And I enjoyed playing the bad guy, this bushwhacker. He’s a slimy son of a bitch.”

Twelve films in three years, and yet he feels oddly unfulfilled. “It’s strange, you know. People say to me, ‘What’s it like being in movies?’ and ‘Are you famous?’ I’m not, and if I am, there’s a not a hell of a lot of joy in it. Maybe it seems like I am famous to my family and friends, but I haven’t got any of the good out of it yet. All I’ve got is worry and stuff like that.”

He returns to his baptism by fire in the media. “That drained all the confidence out of me,” he says. “I found it difficult reading some of those things. One even said that for a British actor I had an OK Irish accent! I’ve decided now never to bother reading them again.

“When it comes down to it, I have 100 per cent belief. I have this friend, Shekhar Kapur (who directed Elizabeth), and he told me he has never shot a scene that he thinks is any good. I feel the same sometimes in that the more I do, the more I want to get better at it.

“I’m going to become a great actor. After getting this glimpse of what fame is, I don’t want it. Screw it! I want to be a great actor more than anything else.

“When I spoke to you two years ago, I thought I could become famous and I thought fame was something where you would be in this ecstatic sense of pleasure with yourself the whole time, feeling so good about yourself.

“Now I realise it’s not like that, and that it’s something I don’t want. Now I suppose it’s a happy thing that I feel like that, because it pushes me to do my job better and not really want the fame.”

Fantasy Date: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
By Polly Vernon
Minx, November 1998


Fancy a bit of Irish? Polly Vernon does when the lovely young start of The Disappearance of Finbar takes her for a ride…

Jonathan. You see me, you fancy me loads, you ask me out and – what do you know? – I accept. Where would you take me?
I’ve never been on a date.

You’re on one now, matey.
We wouldn’t go to a cinema, and we wouldn’t go to a pub, because there’s too many people, and I’d only want to be with the person I was with.

Would that me, by any chance?
Yes. You. I’d take you wherever you wanted to go. I’d take you horse riding in Finland. It’s where I made my first film, The Disappearance of Finbar, and it’s beautiful.

Can you ride?
I can. I got a horse for my birthday. Since I started dealing with horses, I’m less of a coward.

Bring him along. And what would you wear?
I’d wear a jumper I got in Tibet, and the suede trousers I usually wear when I’m horse riding.

I trust they’re quite… tight. I’m hungry, actually. Can we stop at an isolated ramshackle hut of a restaurant and eat?
Of course. You can have a choice of local specialities – reindeer or salmon. Or I could feed you these little fish you get in sauce. It’s very Scandinavian.

Would I feed you back?
No. I’d be the subservient, servile one.

Oh good. And would we drink a great deal of vodka?
No. I don’t drink. I’m a really boring date, you see. Although when I was filming in Finland, I did moonshine once or twice. I used to sit in a sauna with a friend of mine, Kent Sturk, and drink gallon drums of moonshine.

Were you in any way naked with Kent Sturk?
Stark bullock naked, and very, very drunk. It was hot, and after a while we’d go outside and roll in the snow, and then we’d be absolutely freezing. So we’d go in again and get this warm feeling all over our bodies from the moonshine. Which was amazing.

We could always do that, if you wanted…
But drink doesn’t suit me. I had a brush with the law in Tibet because I’d been drinking Tibetan moonshine. So I’d stay sober on our date.

Do you mind if I drink – heavily?
Not at all. I’d find it quite amusing.

Sweet. Do we dance?
Do you like to dance?

I do.
Then we’d dance. We would tango. Can you tango?

Umm… no.
Well, would you like to try?

Yes, please. Are you a good dancer?
I don’t consider myself to be a good dancer. Maybe someone else would.

I think you’re a great dancer. Only – we’re ridden across snowy planes, you’ve fed me small fish and now we’ve tangoed. Could we get down to something more serious?
Actually, I probably wouldn’t make a move on you.

But why? We were getting on so well…
Because it’s not an original trick to ply a girl with drink then drag her into a room and shag her brains out. It isn’t exactly what I’d like to do.

But you didn’t ply me with drink. I did that myself. What if I made a move on you?
Well, then I’d probably accept it.

You would?
Yes. But I wouldn’t sleep with you on the first date.

Would you lose all respect for me and never phone?
I don’t call people. I’m incredibly bad with the telephone. I get very annoyed every time I hear one ring. It always means I have to go somewhere.

So you mean I’d never see you again?
Yes, you would. I’d travel to see you. I’d much rather do that than use the telephone.

Jonathan – when you’re extraordinarily famous, will you be this well behaved?
I hope I’ll deal with it. But I might not. Fame could go straight to my head and I could start behaving abominably. Though I could be an angel.

Abominably would be better.
It does sound like good fun, doesn’t it? Anyway, bye. Thanks for the date.

I think I love you.

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THE FIRST & LAST WORD: JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS
J17, November 1998


“My mother knew I was a star when I was four years old,” says spunky Irish-born actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers. And now it looks like the rest of the world shares his mum’s opinion as Jonathan hits the screens this month in the long-awaited glam-rock flick Velvet Goldmine. Jonathan plays Brian Slade, a dodgily named, blue-haired rawk star who fakes his own death and, gasp, gets to snog Ewan McGregor.

But Jonathan’s no newcomer to the world of film. You might have spotted him in Michael Collins or Telling Lies in America and he’s also in yet another new film, The Governess, with Minnie Driver. In it he plays Henry, the eldest son of a wealthy family, who gets expelled from university and returns home to make merry with the hired help, played by our Minnie. Oh, and he gets his kit off, but laid-back Jonathan took it all in his stride. “I don’t have a problem with my body image,” he says breezily.

Jonathan’s renowned for his flirty ways, but he’s determined not to let all this star stuff go to his head. “I’d really like to be known as a nice guy,” he explains. Offscreen, the Meyerster’s locking lips with Toni Collette, his wife in Velvet Goldmine, though there are rumours the relationship may have already bitten the dust.

If not, don’t be too disappointed – he’s got three young brothers who he reckons are all drop-dead gorgeous. Form an orderly queue here, girls.

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Jonathan Rhys Meyers
by Jessica Mellor
Empire, November 1998


Trouble teenager Gets Physical with Ewan McGregor

Irish-born Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s life so far is the sort of success story that makes great movies. After such small roles in such critical hits as A Man of No Importance he will this month be thrust into the limelight taking almost top-billing as the 70s glam-rock god Brian Slade in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine.

At 16, Rhys Meyers has been kicked out of school and was at a club when he was asked to audition for a film.

“I didn’t get that part and felt utterly rejected, but I had a hungry,” explains the softly-spoken 20-year-old. “I’d had a very poor background and I knew how to survive.”

Said survival came in the form of his first film role in The Disappearance of Finbar, followed quickly by parts in The Governess and Velvet Goldmine. With all three released this month, audiences could be forgiven for thinking that this saturation of our cinemas is a conscious thing- but Rhys Meyers simply hasn’t stopped working. In fact, he recently completed co-starring duties alongside Toeby Maguire in Ang Lee’s Civil War love triangle Ride With The Devil. And now his foot’s in the door, the acting part of it comes pretty easy.

“I don’t think I work hard enough because I feel like I should have a method. But I don’t really do anything, I just act,” he admits.

Starring with Ewan McGregor and Toni Collette in Goldmine, Rhys Meyers plays a troubled teenager who reinvents himself, which is not unlike his roles in the other two movies. Is he in danger of being typecast?

“No, because youth is troubling, so I don’t mind playing that. It’s very difficult to be young because everyone expects you to be adult but doesn’t treat you as one.”

But the burning question is, considering he sleeps with both of them, how did his two co-stars in Goldmine compare in on-screen bedroom stakes?

“Toni and I went out with each for 11 months. I was very happy that she was playing my wife, and I am still very much in love with her,” he gushes. “But sometimes no matter how much people are in love you just can’t give each other that time. And Ewan’s a good lad, he’s good fun. We had to do a lot of lovey-dovey stuff but I never felt uncomfortable with that. In fact, it was interesting playing a bisexual for ten weeks without being criticised as a human being…”

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Here’s Johnny
By Jennifer Pierce Barr
Elle, November 1998


In Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers dons the glitter in a tribute to the age of Ziggy and Iggy

Swaggering across Manhattan’s Bryant Park on a quest for cigarettes, Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks as if he just stepped out of a CK commercial: Tall, skinny, with a messy ponytail and lips like Jim Morrison’s, the Irish actor could pass for a rock star. Which seems appropriate, considering his role as a pop idol in Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes’s exuberant celebration of early British glam rock, opening this month. Playing an androgynous, Bowie-like icon, Rhys Meyers poses, struts, and sings with the sort of haughty insouciance and puckish determination that make you think he was born to be in front of an audience. But Rhys Meyers (“Hi, I’m Johnny”) claims he never wanted to be an actor while growing up in County Cork: “What would I be doing otherwise?” he says with his Irish lilt. “I’d probably be in jail… I don’t love acting. This is a job for people who aren’t happy being themselves. If I was happy with myself, I wouldn’t want to run around being somebody else. And, well, who am I? You see, I can’t put my finger on it, because the things I like change every day.”

And, well, they should when you’re twenty-one. In the four years since he was discovered in a pool hall (he left home at fifteen, “to go make something of myself”), Rhys Meyers has acted in a dozen film and TV projects, including Michael Collins, The Governess, and next year’s Ride With the Devil and B. Monkey.

To prepare for Goldmine, Rhys Meyers locked himself in a “rock-star-y London apartment” with a microphone and a guitar and listened to the New York Dolls and the Doors, American bands that would have reached a British kid in the ’70s. After making a demo tape with his three musician brothers, he convinced Haynes to let him sing on the soundtrack. “Johnny’s ability to command a stage wasn’t something I’d tested before – it was a leap of faith and I hit the jackpot,” says Haynes.

In case you were wondering, Johnny Rhys Meyers smokes his Marlboro reds all the way to the filter. He believes in Jesus Christ, various Buddhist prophets, and the future. He’s been in love (he thinks). He’s passionate about horseback riding and music – his tastes range from English artist Nick Drake to Sufi singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. And he thinks war (Ireland’s included) is pointless. Ultimately, he gives the impression that he’s equipped for survival, even if it means making his own luck along the way: On his cigarette mission, Rhys Meyers forgets to ask for matches. Instead of bumming a light from a passerby, he scans the sidewalk. Spotting a discarded book nearby, he pockets his find with the delight of a child.

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Oh You Pretty Things
By Graham Fuller
Interview, December 1998


Whatever abilities Jonathan Rhys Meyers hasn’t yet acquired as a film actor, he has one quality in his favor: Once he’s onscreen, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him. The boy is electrifying, in the same way Montgomery Clift was in Red River, James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, and Natassja Kinski in Paris, Texas–electrifying in a way that some of our most beloved stars have never been. It’s a quality that renders critical judgment about a performance irrelevant–good or bad, it doesn’t matter–and it’s a quality that can seldom be sustained. That Rhys Meyers has it for now will be enough to establish him as a special kind of movie presence. Given his fleeting scene as the assassin in Michael Collins (1996), his lovelorn Victorian suitor in last summer’s The Governess, and now his Bowie-esque pop prima donna Brian Slade in Velvet Goldmine, he’s also got the chops to create an extraordinary career (it continues next year in B. Monkey, Ride With the Devil, and The Loss of Sexual Innocence) long after the magnesium glow has begun to fade.

Velvet Goldmine is writer-director Todd Haynes’s giddy yet melancholy requiem for the mythical freedoms of early ’70s British glam rock. It’s a deliberately splintered piece of filmmaking, both in its pop art structure (modeled on Citizen Kane but collaged together like a Roxy Music or Bowie song) and narrative perspective. Christian Bale, doleful as a reporter and former glam fan called Arthur on a grail quest for his past, carries the burden of the story. Toni Collette (who has been romantically involved with Rhys Meyers) gives her most haunted performance yet as Brian Slade’s discarded wife. And Ewan McGregor (who appeared in Interview last month) is a magnificently ravaged Iggy Pop-alike–the treasure at the end of Arthur’s search. But it’s Rhys Meyers’s epicene Brian who, metamorphosing from naive posthippie minstrel to corrupted peacock, is the source of the tragedy Haynes locates at the heart of glam’s narcissism. The right actor in the right place, Rhys Meyers–closer perhaps to Mick Jagger in Performance than Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth—makes an eerily evocative lad insane.

There’s nothing eerie about the twenty-one year old Irishman who met with me in the lobby-bar of Manhattan’s Royalton Hotel. Johnny Rhys Meyers, as he calls himself, has all the sinisterness of a puppy dog. Idealistic, trusting, a stream-of-consciousness spouter given to spontaneous affection–even with his stern interviewer–he’s a maelstrom of nervous energy, although there’s no doubt he can command it at will. To quote an early Bowie line, he’s “chameleon, comedian, Corinthian, and caricature.” Just watch him.

GRAHAM FULLER: Why did you become an actor?

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS: Poverty. [laughs] It was something I could do. I never actually had any desire to be an actor. When I was younger I was shy and coy and humble. I’m still quite humble because I don’t want to be seen as egotistical. But I’ve started to realize in this last year that my glass is half full rather than half empty.

GF: How did you get started?

JRM: I was kicked out of school when I was fifteen and started hustling pool in this place called The Vic in Cork [Ireland]. I was nervous doing that because I usually wouldn’t have the money I was betting against and then I’d lose and end up owing it, or I’d have to run out the door in case they beat the shit out of me. I was in there playing pool one day when these people from Warner Bros. came in. They were casting a film called War of the Buttons [1994] and asked me if I’d like to audition, so I did and they brought me to see the director. I didn’t get a part because I looked older than the rest of the boys they were casting, and I was crushed–I felt incredibly rejected, like my legs were cut out from underneath me. For about two months, I refused to watch television or videos, and then I thought, Fuck that, it’s beating me, and I’m sick of being beaten. I’m going to go and do it–I’m going to go and make a movie. I auditioned and auditioned for about a year and a half without getting a part. I felt like I was in a boxing match: I’d come into the ring, which was the movie industry, and go up against my opponent–and he’d constantly be hitting me back against the ropes; every rejection was an uppercut. But then I got a part, and I hit him back.

GF: What was the part?

JRM: It was for a Knorr’s Soup commercial. It was my first job, and when I got it, it was like, I’ve got one, now let’s get another. I got one night working with Albert Finney and Rufus Sewell on A Man of No Importance [1994] and then the lead role in Disappearance of Finbar [1996]. I was so excited. One month before shooting I was in the house where I live with the Crofts family in Buttevant [County Cork]; nobody else from the family was home. And I’ll never forget what happened as long as I live. It was five past eight on a Wednesday evening. Six men came into the house with shotguns. One of them shoved a shotgun in my mouth and a handgun to the back of my neck. They tied me up, dragged me around the house, and started playing Russian roulette at the back of my head. They wanted twenty-five thousand pounds, and they held me for about an hour and a half. There was a farm manager there and they beat him up a bit and brought him into the room and we were both handcuffed. I had the fear of God in me and my stomach was turning, but I appeared completely calm.

GF: Did you think you were going to die?

JRM: It didn’t matter to me. If they had just pointed the gun at my head and shot me that would’ve been fine. I’d die and that would be it. My fear was about them beating the shit out of me or something like that, because that would hurt a hell of a lot more. The only thing I was pissed off about was if I died I wouldn’t get to be in Disappearance of Finbar. That’s what drove me on. I was like, I have a fucking movie to make–I’d better control myself and get out of this situation intact. There was this one young fellow who got freaked out enough to point his gun at me and cock the hammer to shoot me but the leader just kind of gave him a cuff around the head and said, “Don’t be stupid.” So I looked at the leader and that’s when I knew I was going to be all right. From that moment on I started to establish a rapport with him. Basically, I acted my way out of the situation.

GF: Once they left, you were OK? There was no trauma?

JRM: I think I broke down about three months later. Maybe for a month I hated them and wanted to burst into their houses and point a gun at their kids, but two wrongs don’t make a right and I forgave them a long time ago. I also realized they were doing it because they were poor and it was coming up to Christmas and they needed money for their families. I would have given them all the money, you know? I think some of them went to prison for different things afterward. That’s good if it taught them a lesson and stopped them doing it to other people, but I don’t want to hurt them–I don’t want to hurt anyone.

GF: Was it an experience that changed you?

JRM: Yes. From that point on, I knew I could be an actor–that there was nothing I couldn’t do. It gave me a strong head and a strong heart. It also gave me a purpose not only to be an actor, but to be a human. I suppose I realized that I have things to do in this world not just for myself, but for other people, too. And it taught me to have no fear of people. If somebody comes up to me and tries to pick a fight, I’m like “You know how many guns I’ve had pointed at me at one time?”

GF: Doing Disappearance of Finbar must have seemed anticlimactic after that.

JRM: It was actually difficult because I’d only ever had one or two acting lessons and I was so raw, as I realized when I saw the film. It was also hard because I had to be away from home for the first time. But when I got back I heard that Neil Jordan wanted to see me and I ended up getting a part in Michael Collins.

GF: And you made a powerful impression in the last few minutes of the film. Now, why did it become important to you to play Brian Slade in Velvet Goldmine?

JRM: It was the challenge–I wanted to see if I could do it. And because I’m a boy from Cork who watched television when I was young and always thought movie stars were superhuman people and I could never be one. When I was a kid I could never imagine magical people like Sylvester Stallone or Michael Jackson going to the toilet, because I go to the toilet. I think Brian Slade thought that, too, but he also knew that he could be a star. And I wanted to put some of that into me because I wasn’t feeling very confident when I started doing Velvet Goldmine.

GF: Why the self-doubt?

JRM: Being in this industry can put a lot of pressure on you. You can either wallow in the pressure or you can rise above it. To rise above it you have to think to yourself, It doesn’t matter if people don’t like this performance or if I don’t get another job. What matters is I did something for me. So I thought, if I make a fool out of myself, so be it, but I’m not going to be afraid and not do it in case I screw up or something. It was a challenge to go off and try to transform myself, but I didn’t transform anything. That was the thing about the early ’70s. People thought they had to transform themselves but they didn’t transform themselves–they just took off their masks: the masks of being uptight, being establishment, and doing what everyone else was doing. And I think that’s what I did somewhat when I played Brian.

GF: Why do you think glam rock happened?

JRM: I think that after flower people–which didn’t work–people were looking to go to an absolute extreme, and glam rock was that. Bowie wrote in his song about Andy Warhol: “Dress my friends up just for show/See them as they really are,” and I think that is so honest: It’s about seeing people at their most comfortable, which is usually not about wearing a checked shirt and jeans but it might be about a guy wearing a dress and high heels with a big biker jacket over it–or whatever it is that makes him feel comfortable. I came to realize that’s what a lot of people in glam were getting at–that idea of putting everything they were about on the outside and saying, “Well, I’ve been something else for so long, and now this is the real me.”

GF: What happens to you as an actor when you start working on a role?

JRM: As opposed to being romantic and poetic about it, I start walking hand in hand with my own honesty about myself. I would never sit down and study a character. The character is in me and all I have to do is bring it to the surface, so I look really truthfully at myself and what I am. If you’re giving an honest emotion and you’re not trying to fake anything, it’s going to be beautiful because honesty is what people feel, essentially, and it can turn into art. Every character I play is just an aspect of who I am. Everybody has every emotion in the world. Some people aren’t able to surface them and I’m lucky enough that I can.

GF: Do you know why that is?

JRM: I had a lot of time on my own when I was a child and it set my imagination running. I had hunger. I’m still hungry. But I’m not hungry for material success because that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot. I just want to find success in myself and be able to stand and say, “I’m part of this.”

GF: Acting?

JRM: Yes. I don’t have to be an integral part–I just have to be a part. [pauses] It’s very hard when you are in a situation where people are constantly criticizing and judging you. It feels sometimes like when I was a little boy: I needed a lot of love, and my mother and my father loved me very much, probably more than I could ever fathom. But it was a time when they were young and they didn’t have themselves totally figured out, and I couldn’t always feel their love. I can’t blame them for that. I suppose it’s the best thing that could have happened to me because it’s made me an adult who will actually respect love. I now have people around me: my mother, my father, the Crofts family in Buttevant, Toni [Collette], Todd [Haynes], my agents. I’ve got friends who love me very much; and now I’m learning what love is and what it is to receive it, and I’m giving it so much more. And as it turned out, having an unhappy childhood fueled me to do my job when the time came.

GF: Do you prepare for your roles?

JRM: I could never prepare. If I read a scene more than three times it would become wooden to me. When I was doing Velvet Goldmine I’d look at a scene maybe a minute and half before I shot it. That way, when I’m doing a scene, I’m trying to think of the line and I’m actually playing the situation. And it’s also what you get off the crew–everybody’s emotions–and stuff like that around you that makes you what you are.

GF: Is your screen presence something you have control over?

JRM: No, because I don’t know about it. I played Brian Slade, but I don’t know everything about him. I left him a mystery. I didn’t try to create a past for him; his past was my past. To do what I wanted to do, I just accepted that his journey had been parallel to mine. When I first got into films, I thought about fame, of course, and I was like, oh, wow, imagine if I was famous–it would be wonderful. So I took all that and imagined I was Brian Slade going through it.

GF: Do you worry about celebrity going to your head, which is what happens to Brian?

JRM: It’s like nobody turned around to Brian and said, “You’re an asshole.” Everyone was afraid to. I really hope that people will treat me honestly in life and say, “Listen, you’re not being nice. You’re being a dickhead, so please stop and learn from it.” I don’t mind people telling me I’ve done wrong things because even though it may hurt at the time, I don’t want to get to the point that Brian does where he’s irredeemable, because that will crush you.

GF: It’s during your singing of “Tumbling Down” that we realize he’s become a self-parody.

JRM: Yes. He’s become this green monster covered in jewels and wrapped in a boa who’s ascending to the roof on a chandelier. Everything that was beautiful about Brian is leaving at that point–his spirit is going up into the air where it’s going to stay. When we see him as that bitter character he is later on, he’s become everything he once loathed, although the real Brian Slade lives on through his music in people’s heart–the angel he once was.

GF: As you went through the movie, did your emotions reflect Brian’s?

JRM: Very much. I had a strange time on the film. When I wasn’t working, I locked myself in my apartment with a guitar and a microphone and tried to write my own music. I tried to imagine that I was this person who was going out to change the world. And I went through times where I’d actually look at the script and go, God almighty, that was me this afternoon. That gave me the confidence to go on. I don’t mind what emotions I have to go through. If I’m feeling an emotion that makes me feel horrible, if I feel like bawling my eyes out, if I’m depressed, then I want that because it’s something real, and it’s making me feel like a human. Even if it’s very bad for me, it wakes me up because it’s like I’m hitting myself with a sledgehammer, and I’ll feel, “Well, now I’ve got to actually improve myself and make myself more understanding of other people.” The problem with Brian was he never realized that.

GF: Did you perceive Brian Slade as David Bowie, or did you try to detach yourself from Bowie?

JRM: I didn’t try to play Bowie because, as David Jones, he has done that himself so many times. Also it wouldn’t have been interesting for me to imitate anyone. I tried to make something that was very much my own, and I hope someday Bowie sees the film and realizes I’m not playing him. He was definitely a big inspiration, but then he’s an inspiration to a lot of people. Todd was just as inspired by Roxy Music.

GF: It was smart of him to include Oscar Wilde in Velvet Goldmine–because Wilde would have approved of the sensibility of Eno-era Roxy and Steve Harley’s Cockney Rebel as well as that of Bowie. Songs like Harley’s “Sebastian,” which you sing in the movie, are in direct line of descent from The Picture of Dorian Grey.

JRM: Yes. You know, there are a lot of things about England that I don’t particularly like. But one thing I do like is that fabulous sense of camp English people have and the dry sense of humor that goes with it. It’s about being haughty in the most fun way. Wilde appreciated the campiness of England, and so does Todd.

GF: Do you think glam rock was specifically about sexuality?

JRM: I think sexuality drove a lot of it. At the time, it was trendy to be gay and it was trendy to be anti-establishment. What a lot of people didn’t realize was that the establishment was more warped sexually and hiding behind a bigger mask than anything that came along to challenge it. I think what glam rock actually said to people was, “You don’t have to be a follower of glam rock, you just have to not judge it or damn it.”

GF: It was all over by the time you were born, so how do you relate to it?

JRM: I was born in ’77. But my father was a musician, so I knew exactly who people like Bowie were at a very young age. But I appreciated them as musicians, not as part of pop culture. One of the earliest memories I have is of being at home when I was two or three years old and my father coming in late one night, getting me out of bed, and bumping me into the back of a van. There were all these men there and they were smoking and talking and sweating. And the van rattled along until it came to this country house. My father took me in and sat me down by the fireplace and I watched them play the most intense traditional music. I can feel to this day how the music pumped through my body. It’s one of the most amazing memories I’ve got.

GF: Do you think you have to be happy to create good work?

JRM: I can only speak for myself, but it seems to me if somebody was happy with himself, he wouldn’t actually want to be somebody else all the time. I am not particularly happy with myself and that’s why I want to keep playing different characters. I think that can be useful to other people. As an actor, I’ve got an important responsibility to teach people. I’m not saying I’m a guru or anything, but I want people to go and see films I’m in and come out feeling something real, no matter what it is. Maybe someone might see Velvet Goldmine and then pass somebody on the street who’s dressed in a ballerina suit with a big punk hairdo, and instead of saying, “Fucking faggot,” as they would’ve done the day before, they’ll go: “Individualism.”

GF: Are you happy right now?

JRM: I’m happy at this moment but it changes. I flick in and out. I’ve gone through some hard times in the past year, but I’m not going to do that anymore because being unhappy makes me weary. There will always be ups and downs, but it’s important to remember you’re on your own beautiful journey and once you’re on it you have to see it through to its conclusion and try to never be afraid to do anything, because what’s the worse that can happen?

Special thanks to Vanessa for transcribing this article.

That last one is one of my favourites.

http://www.thecinemasource.com/blog/interviews/jonathan-rhys-meyers-interview-for-from-paris-with-love/

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

"Super Sexy Secret Agent"

February 5, 2010 Comments (1)


Written by Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Jonathan Rhys Meyers has emerged as one of Ireland's most talented actors today. He first achieved success in 1994 embodying the role of the King of Rock & Roll himself, Elvis Presley, in the TV miniseries Elvis. This led Meyers to a string of increasingly successful roles in varied films from Velvet Goldmine to Bend It Like Beckham to Mission: Impossible III to August Rush.

His greatest success to date was achieved playing another legendary figure, King Henry VIII, in the popular Showtime TV series The Tudors. Now the 32 year-old actor hopes to achieve big box office draw starring alongside John Travolta in the action film From Paris With Love.

Rhys Meyers says that his on-screen chemistry with Travolta was one that came completely naturally and organically, despite his co-star reaching new heights of larger-than-life as a bald, goateed bad-ass FBI agent in the film.

"It was pretty much there in the script," he says, " But we're also making a film where I'm playing an American guy in Paris, so if I didn't have someone like John there, I'm not quite sure it would have worked for me because I had to have a true American. I had to have somebody that I could play off and that was a happy accident. Because I met [director] Pierre [Morel] and I met [screenwriter] Luc [Besson] and I met [executive producer] Virginie [Besson-Silla] in London, and they said, 'John is going to do this movie and we think the chemistry is going to be fantastic.' But, of course, I was shooting The Tudors on a Tuesday and I arrived in Paris to shoot the movie on a Wednesday. So the first time myself and John really got face time with each other was on screen in the scene where I go in and bust him out of the customs office. So that's an extraordinary reaction."

"Because I had seen John in many films, but I hadn't seen John like that, so I didn't know what to expect," Jonathan continues, "And, of course, in James Reese's character, he expects a sophisticated, elegant, worldly James Bond to turn up and what he gets is a biker boy. He's coming minus the Harley Davidson, but pretty much everything else. And so, it's that jarring reaction of what you expect. You see, James has dreams, he dreams of what a spy's going to be like. He dreams that this is what a sophisticated, undercover life is, but the reality of it is that it's a dirty job. James doesn't have the cynicism that Wax has. But James has the naiveté that Wax enjoys. He enjoys seeing him be confused. He enjoys seeing him get a punch. He enjoys seeing him be shocked at the shooting because there's only one way to train somebody and that is to throw him at the deep end and it was great."

Another aspect of James Reese's naiveté, Jonathan claims, is the character's love life with fiancé Caroline, played by Kasia Smutniak.

"Well, love is blind," he claims, "I mean, really, how much do you know about your partner though? He knows that she makes dresses, he knows that she's into fabric, but, look, he's a naive guy anyway. It's not like he's been specifically naive, because she's so fantastically beautiful, yet it's jarring. And look, that's the reason she's there."

"These guys know what they are doing, so for us to have a challenge in the movie, these other guys have to be smart," Rhys Meyers adds, "And they are smart enough to know that this guy will go for this girl. And he'll go for her blindly because the beauty, the charm, the elegance, he's living in Paris, this is the dream. This will all divert him from what's actually happening and I think it's a great ruse. If you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight and they do."

Rhys Meyers agreed with the notion that much of the plot of From Paris With Love involves the concept of "blind faith" in more ways than one.

"Well, yeah, love for her, faith is much more important, because being instilled with that type of faith as she was by her lover was enormous," Jonathan says, "For instance, my character, I'm willing to ignore a lot of things because of love. She's willing to blow herself up. That just shows you how strong it is, whether it's a love for religion or a love for a human being. At the same time, when I read the script, I thought, it has cocaine and it has terrorism, now these things are only used to fuel the action, because if you don't give that subject its due, then you're in trouble. If you're going to make a film about terrorists, then make a film about terrorism and you make sure you concentrate and give it its time. For us, this was definitely about the relationships in the film."

"I made a film about war in China about a few years ago called The Children Of Huang Shi," he continues, "And what was extraordinary is everything that's encompassed in war, terrorism, all of these horrible things that exist in our world today come down to very, very small human choices, very tiny human emotions. And all wars end up being so small because the father who loses the son, the wife who loses the husband, the mother who loses the child, these are the essential elements of war. This is who suffers. So it's very individual stories and I think we kept that individual that these guys and this girl and even the guys when we're shooting the terrorists and they're trying to get out of there, you can see that all of these guys are nervous, scared guys that don't know what they are doing because they're just humans and they're scared."

We wondered if Jonathan himself is someone who believes in blind faith.

"Absolutely, one hundred percent, hook, line, and sinker," Rhys Meyers says, "We all fell."

Rhys Meyes explained to us what he believes is the key ingredient that separates an ordinary movie from a classic movie.

"I think it's chemistry," he believes, "I think that separates an action movie from a classic movie is the chemistry between the actors doing. If they're liking each other and like the story they are working on, why does Lethal Weapon work, because Danny Glover and Mel Gibson work with each other. And you can see the energy they play off each other very well. So you'll get some partnerships in life that will mean more."

"Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, if that had been Robert Redford and Warren Beaty, would it have been the same movie? Who knows?" Jonathan continues, "But it's the energy that carries it, so I think it's the two people that carries a classic movie. It's about the humans. It's extraordinary because sometimes, I see some films by Pixar that are extraordinary. There are no humans in them, but it's the spontaneous element of the human being is worth more than any explosion. If you can get that one little moment when two people understand and they share a joke on screen or they share a nice emotional moment, that makes the movie. That makes a classic action movie to me. However, I may be wrong."

Jonathan shared with us some of the more physically demanding aspects of shooting the film.

"It was physically OK, except I don't like heights," Rhys Meyers reveals, "I had to go up these steel stairs and I'm not a good hiker and I dropped the vase of cocaine going up the stairs. It was kind of funny. Pierre kind of liked it because I dropped the cocaine and I went, 'Oh, fuck, the coke!' in the middle of the shot. And I could hear Pierre laughing from three floors below and John still running, he's like three floors ahead of me. And then, we were like cut, and I was like, I got to go all the way back down."

"I'm scraping the coke in," he adds, "It was just awful. And of course, this vase, the physically was for me, I got a hold of this vase, which became a teddy bear. It's like his blankie. At one point, he's sitting in the car and it's just me and my vase. And I kind of felt sad when I had to drop it. It was my buddy for the movie and it was like, this is what protects me from the whole world is this vase of washing-up powder."

Rhys Meyers notes that the most challenging aspect of shooting From Paris With Love was shooting in the legendary Eiffel Tower.

"I think it's become one of the most difficult monuments to shoot in the world because now they charge you for shooting it because there's blue lights on it and it's privatized," Jonathan says, "So if you want the blue lights on the Eiffel Tower in the back of your shot, it's like 20 grand or something. It's expensive. It's really kind of expensive to do this because you have to pan off before you reach the Eiffel Tower, duck the camera up, and kind of angle ourselves before we look for it."

One thing that Jonathan claims was not so much a challenge for him at all was learning how to speak a Chinese language in the film.

"I spoke Mandarin and Japanese in a film I did a few years ago called The Children Of Huang Shi," he says, "And so, because I already had been involved and sort of touched in doing that language, it became so much easier. I had a really nice girl who was actually the prostitute, when I walk into the German guy, the girl who's engaging in paid fellatio is actually the girl who taught me how to speak Chinese. Speaking a language like that is very difficult because there's some words you're just not going to get. It's impossible for you because your tongue doesn't go to those places, so I did the best I could and I worked it out with her which is the best way to say it. And, then, I say it to the guy afterwards, to the man I was speaking to, did you understand what I said to you? And he said yes. It was OK. That was level 2. If I had been level 8 Cambridge, I would have been a disgrace. It would have been dreadful Mandarin. But it worked out fine."

"You see, the thing about that is try to make it as natural, I had to sound as natural speaking it," Rhys Meyers continues, "You got to speak with that speed, the speed that they do. Sometimes, when people do different languages, it becomes so slow when they're speaking the language, because they are trying to get all the words, all the feeling. It's best to just run through it, because they understand what they are saying. It's the same way as I'm speaking right now, but it worked out fine. It was one of those happy accidents. We had tons of happy accidents, tons of them, but if you have tons of energy, if you put out energy that's good, if you put out energy that's positive, we can do this, we can make a great film, we can make an entertaining film, we can have a good time, we can learn this language, we can do those stunts. If you put that energy out there, the world will conspire that you shall have what you need. And we did."

However one so-called Chinese technique he didn't do for the film was the "Chinese Menu" acting style of his co-star John Travolta.

"I don't give 'Chinese Menu'," Jonathan claims, laughing, "No, I give 'Blue Plate Special'."

But it wasn't all work for Jonathan as he shared some of us some of the joy of Paris, both emotionally and intellectually.

"We watched a lot of movies, myself and Kasia," Rhys Meyers says, "Look, Paris is the most beautiful city in the world and I was staying at a beautiful hotel, where Marie Antoinette learned how to play the piano and John got married to his wife. So you're in an extraordinary, elegant living museum. So I walk out and I see the Paris that everybody dreams of. I also saw the Paris that is the living nightmare of an economic first-world Western country, which is there's tons of different people from Paris, tons of culture all over the world, trying to make a living, trying to make a life, so you get to see those many elements, so I became much closer to Paris."

"Good experiences, bad experiences, all experiences that I had there just promoted the city to me as one that has an immense beauty, an immense culture, but it's got an immense heart and sometimes that heart gets broken," he adds, "And so, I liked seeing that element of Paris that I didn't see. I wasn't the tourist coming in. I was going out to these areas where people actually lived. And that type of Paris is not seen, Luc can show it to you, Pierre could show it to you, but I could never find it myself. So it was great. It made it a real city to me, rather than this Disneyland fantasy of what Paris should be."


I just love the story about dropping the vase of cocaine.

I believe this interview has some funny remarks.

http://www.cinecon.com/news.php?id=0601042

FROM THE NEWS ARCHIVES OF CINEMA CONFIDENTIAL

INTERVIEW: Scarlett Johansson & Jonathan Rhys-Meyers on "Match Point"
POSTED ON 01/04/06 AT 8:30 A.M. BY ETHAN AAMES

By Sean Chavel in Los Angeles

Match Point is Woody Allen’s best movie in years, and Jonathan Rhy-Meyers ("Bend it Like Beckham") and Scarlett Johansson ("Lost in Translation") headline the major roles. Rhys-Meyers is an Irish tennis player who has an affair with his brother-in-law’s ex-girlfriend played by Johansson. He’s a social climber, she’s a struggling actress. From a prestigious Los Angeles hotel, Rhys-Meyers and Johansson arrive to discuss the experience of making a Woody Allen movie set in London. This is a detour for Allen who regularly shoots his movies in New York. Some of the great New York movies would include Allen’s "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters" – they are love letters to great metropolitan city. But the relocation to Europe has done Woody good this time, and Jonathan and Scarlett think so, too.

JONATHAN: [Upon entrance] I look a bit skuzzy, I apologize.

Q: WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH WOODY ALLEN? WAS EVERYTHING DONE IN ONE TAKE?

JONATHAN: It depends. It’s a process where we don’t rehearse, which suits me perfectly. Sometimes it takes two takes. I think the most I did was eight [takes]. It was very, very easy. Very, very relaxing experience. [Pause] He casts you because you know what you’re doing. He doesn’t cast anyone where he’ll have to sit for three or four hours walking them through a scene. It would bore him terribly. In return, it would bore me terribly if I had to work with a director who felt they had to discuss every breath that I took.

Q: SCARLETT, YOUR EXPERIENCES?

SCARLETT: We have the similar experience, since we were working together all the time. Woody is very hands-off, which I respond very well to. I think he casts people that are capable, that bring more to the film than he can direct them to. [PAUSE] Very short days. And of course [with him], you do no coverage. So that’s great, too. Plenty of time to go out and have dinner. Very, very civilized. Woody always made his dinners at 7 o’clock.

Q: WOODY MADE YOU DINNER?

JONATHAN: No, no.

SCARLETT: No, can you imagine. I wonder what he’d make for us if he did.

JONATHAN: [LAUGHS] It would be his worst nightmare.

SCARLETT: I don’t know if he cooks. He goes out to eat all the time.

Q: DID YOU GUYS ENJOY WORKING IN LONDON?

SCARLETT: I love London. It’s a beautiful city. I have a family there, so I’ve vacationed there before. I’m familiar with it.

JONATHAN: I have lived and shot in London four or five times. I’m familiar with it. But I’m European, so there’s not much difference in living in Dublin or living in London.

Q: NOT REALLY THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE?

JONATHAN: No, it’s a very cosmopolitan city. All capital cities are all very similar, they have all of the same things. Maybe Istanbul is the one place I’ve been to that was different from all the rest.

Q: DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD EVER END UP IN A WOODY ALLEN MOVIE?

JONATHAN: Not many Irish people ever end up in a Woody Allen movie. Only two Irish people. I myself and Liam Neeson who was in Husbands and Wives.

Q: HOW WAS IT AUDITIONING PROCESS FOR WOODY?

JONATHAN: Very easy. I did a taping for him, and he asked to meet me. He came into the room. [Imitates nebbishy Woody Allen] Hey, I’m Woody Allen. I got this script. I’m going to present this script. If you respect the material… I don’t do much rehearsal… Let’s work. [Back to normal] I said yes before I was ever out of the room. It was like sitting for Picasso. Are you going to say no? No you’re not. It was extraordinary that I looked at the script and had the lead role. [PAUSE] You know, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’ve done this role, and how beautiful a movie it is. In ten years time I’ll be able to look back and enjoy it. At the moment, I’ll be able to look back and enjoy it. It still feels unreal to me.

Q: THIS ISN’T STANDARD WOODY ALLEN MATERIAL. YET IT’S SO SUBVERSIVE, FOR HIM, WAS IT A SHOCK WHEN YOU READ IT INITIALLY?

JONATHAN: Yeah, because I didn’t expect it to be that type of movie… I knew it was not a comedy. That was the one thing that was established before I met him. This is a Woody Allen movie, not a comedy. I couldn’t find out anything else about it… I knew it wasn’t going to be a comedy. Because anybody who would cast me as a comedic actor has got to be f***in’ nuts. I am naturally not a comedian. On a film set recently, somebody asked me to do a funny scene. I told the director over a walkie-talkie, ‘You’ve got to be nuts. You got to be looking at a different actor. I am not a comedian.’ You’ll never see me doing a comedy, because it will never be released.

SCARLETT: What movie was that?

JONATHAN: "Mission: Impossible 3."

Q: DID THEY END UP JUST SAYING, "NEVER MIND, DON’T BE FUNNY"?

JONATHAN: Yeah. Yes, really.

Q: SCARLETT, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD DO A COMEDY WITH WOODY?

SCARLETT: I just did a [follow-up] movie with Woody that is a comedy. Woody and I have a very similar sense of humor. He thinks I’m funny. And I think he’s funny. Which, I dunno, works for the best. With Match Point, I think I was told ahead of time that it was a drama. When you read it, he’s got all his fingerprints on it. It’s definitely a Woody Allen script. As soon as you read the line, ‘You’re driving me crazy. I can’t take it anymore.’ And it’s apparently Woody Allen. He’s done dramatic movies before, but yeah, I was excited especially to be doing this one.

Q: DID YOU GUYS KNOW EACH OTHER BEFORE THE SHOOT?

SCARLETT: No, we just met on this movie.

Q: SO IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN YOU HAVE TO DO STEAMY SCENES?

SCARLETT: Nah.

JONATHAN: No… I find it a great opportunity to be able to gorge myself on beautiful actresses on-screen and then not to have the emotional pillow talk afterwards.

SCARLETT: [LAUGHS, COMMENTS ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE] Yes, it was a very passionate embrace. It was like… he did taste my blood.

JONATHAN: Like I said, I gorged.

SCARLETT: He sent me flowers the next day, it was sweet.

Q: WHAT KIND OF FLOWERS?

SCARLETT: They were red roses.

JONATHAN: Actually, I have an assistant.

SCARLETT: It came included with a card that said, ‘Sorry about your lip.’

Q: THIS FILM IS A LOT ABOUT LUCK. HOW MUCH LUCK HAS PLAYED IN YOUR LIVES?

SCARLETT: I certainly feel very lucky. I have a job, a chance to do something I love. It’s one in a million. Actually, Jonathan you said a statistic earlier today.

JONATHAN: Yes. Only 1 in 750,000 actors makes more than a half of million dollars a year at their job. When you think about the percentage of being successful…

SCARLETT: When you keep doing Woody Allen movies…

JONATHAN: The only bad thing about doing Woody movies is your bank account. Actually, it costs you money. It would cost you money, [Scarlett]… you shop!

SCARLETT: [NODS] Yes, I shop.

Q: THIS MOVIE WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE SHOT IN NEW YORK MOST LIKE OTHER WOODY ALLEN MOVIES. BUT THE FINANCING CAME FROM EUROPE. WHEN WERE YOU GUYS CAST, WHILE IT WAS GOING TO BE MADE IN NEW YORK?

SCARLETT: I don’t think anybody had yet be cast. I think that was an early decision. It was never going to be made in New York, even if it was [originally] set in New York. But Woody got the financing from London, so he quickly addressed to it. So he re-wrote it.

Q: HOW MUCH OF THE DIALOGUE WAS ALTERED TO CHANGE IT TO NEW YORK TO FIT LONDON?

JONATHAN: No, very little. Woody already had it doctored by some English people. Changing a few Americanisms that they were never use in London. The only thing that was changed was that I was Irish, so Woody said ‘Why don’t you make him Irish?’ It was an in-joke for me because I have never heard of an Irish tennis player. It’s right up there with a Jamaican bobsled team. But when he asked me to play him Irish, I immediately took up the chance. I’m very pro-Ireland.

Q: DID YOU BECOME A GOOD TENNIS PLAYER MAKING THIS FILM?

JONATHAN: I am an appalling tennis player. I can make it look fairly reasonable, but you know, I would never play a game with anybody.

http://emol.org/music/artists/presley/rhysmeyers.html#vid

There should be a video as well. Follow the link, but I warn you, I couldn't get the video to work. The website it refers to doesn't seem to respond.

Interview script with JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS

What does it feel like to play the King of Rock-n-Roll?
It was quite an experience, unlike any other thing I’ve ever done in my life. But it was good fun, it was a bit nerve-wracking at some stages – to portray such a big legend is a huge responsibility, but overall it was just a great experience. I had great fun.

You’ve played a rock star before in Todd Haynes’ VELVET GOLDMINE. What did you bring from that role to your performance as Elvis?
My character in VELVET GOLDMINE, Brian Slade, was such a different kind of rock star. Elvis is so unique in every way, that I really had to go into this role with a completely new slate.

What was it like working with Camryn Manheim and Randy Quaid?
Camryn Manheim is probably one of the sweetest people I’ve ever worked with in all my life, and such a fantastic actress. And from the first moment we met each other we had such a great bond. We really loved each other very, very deeply. And it comes across on screen, you know.

And Randy Quaid is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. He’s hilarious! I remember seeing him for the first time on set, and I think I met his belly button before I met him, because he’s so huge! And I said to the director, “Are you nuts?!?”

So they had to give me these special shoes which I nicknamed “Frankies,” like Frankenstein, so I had to wear these “Buffalos” so I could actually, in some scenes be the same height as Randy. So we had to do a little movie magic. It was really really funny. But he’s a great guy. It was a great cast all in all.

Robert Patrick was great as Vernon (Presley) and Rose McGowan is lovely as Ann-Margret. What a sweet girl. She’s gorgeous, gorgeous! And Antonia Bernath, this young English actress, played Priscilla; she looks exactly like a young Priscilla Presley - fantastic.

Do you have a favorite Elvis song?
“Guitar Man” is definitely my favorite song by Elvis. It’s semi-autobiographical and it’s just such a great rock n’ roll song…not to mention the fact that I love singing it.

Why do you think Elvis’ legacy has endured?
There has never ever been anybody who has matched the phenomenon that Elvis had. The Beatles sort of matched it, but there was four of them. No one person has ever done what Elvis Presley did and he was the first. He had everything! He had the talent, he had the charisma, he had the sexuality, he had the looks. And it was all natural.

The same link also goes to this interview with the producers. Nice bit of inside information and some nice bits on Jonny as well.



HOW DO YOU BRING AN OFTEN IMITATED LEGENDARY PERFORMER TO THE SMALL SCREEN AND GIVE HIM CREDIBILITY?
INTERVIEW:
The Creators of "Elvis" Discuss Their Approach

How do you accurately make a film about a legendary performer whose life story has been well documented both on film and in print?
When Elvis impersonators abound, who do you cast so that the legend comes alive but is not a parody?
Those are questions that producers asked themselves when they decided to make a movie about Elvis Presley.


The fact-based drama is about the life of Elvis Presley, one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived. His electrifying story -- from his humble beginnings to his meteoric rise to fame -- will be told. Also, Presley's master recordings will be heard in a biographical film for the first time.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers ("Bend It Like Beckham") stars as Elvis Presley, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Camryn Manheim ("The Practice") stars as Gladys Presley, Golden Globe Award winner Randy Quaid ("LBJ: The Early Years") stars as "Colonel" Tom Parker, Rose McGowan ("Charmed") stars as Ann-Margret, Robert Patrick ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day") stars as Vernon Presley and Antonia Bernath ("Living Neon Dreams") stars as Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.

Robert Greenblatt, David Janollari, Howard Braunstein and Michael Jaffe are the executive producers who contacted the Elvis Presley Estate prior to going ahead with the project to talk about making a movie. "While we were interested in doing the film, we felt that with such an iconic figure [as Elvis Presley], we didn't want to move forward without the blessing of the Presley family and the estate," said Braunstein.
"Once they agreed to cooperate with us, they also opened up their archives so that we could really show Elvis in a way that he hadn't been seen before."

"In the movie, we see Elvis between the ages of 18 and 33 and we learn about his upbringing -- how poor he was," Braunstein continued. "We see his musical influences, watch his rise to fame and get insight into his relationships with the key people in his life including his mother, Gladys, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Ann-Margret and Priscilla."

One more piece fell into place, that had never before happened in an Elvis movie. "We were able to convince the Estate to let us use actual master recordings of his [Elvis'] music," said Braunstein. "So every time you hear an Elvis song, you are actually listening to an Elvis recording."

Next, they set out to find the right actor to play the legendary Presley. "We did a worldwide casting call," said director James Sadwith. "We saw actors in Los Angeles and New York as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and England." An open casting call was held in Los Angeles, where Elvis wannabes, including a number of bona fide Elvis impersonators, lined up around the block.

But, from the very beginning, there was one actor who they felt was right. "We liked Jonathan Rhys Meyers from the start, but he wasn't interested originally so we moved on," said Sadwith. As they went through the process there was another person who came very close. "He was one of 11 children born to a traveling tent preacher. All of the kids played musical instruments and the father had told them that they were born to carry on Elvis' work. He came very close, but ultimately backed out because he really wanted to be a preacher himself and felt that his congregation wouldn't take him seriously if he had been an actor reading lines and doing love scenes."

Finally, casting director Mary Jo Slater went to England to meet with Rhys Meyers and convinced him to read the script and then to take the part. Sadwith said: "So we got the very first person ever mentioned to do the movie. It was really great!"

Rhys Meyers studied Elvis, his films and his music, all the nuances that fans know and love. He also worked with a dialect coach and a dance instructor so that his sound and moves were authentic.

Both Rhys Meyers and dialect coach David Dahlgren had reservations about the accent: the actor didn't want to sound like a nightclub impersonator and the dialect coach was concerned about getting an Irishman to sound like a southerner.
"Elvis had more than just a regional accent," said Dahlgren. "He had very distinctive speaking mannerisms, pronunciations and inflections that are well known to his audience."
Actor and coach worked on inflection and intonation and individual word pronunciation. Rhys Meyers also found it helpful to have his dialogue written out phonetically. "For example, if he had to say 'I can't sing right now,' it became 'Ah cain't sang rat now,' " Dahlgren explained. "We also worked on speaking sincerely and naturally and, once this process became second nature, Jonathan was free to concentrate on just his acting [in the scenes]."
Marcus L. Brown was cast as Wynonie Harris, a blues singer from the '50s, who influenced how Elvis Presley performed. Rhys Meyers asked the producers to hire Brown to help him perfect his own dance moves. Brown and Rhys Meyers watched a number of Elvis performances together and then went to work.
"We saw how his body moved and acknowledged the sexual essence of his performance," Brown said.
"Jonathan was a very quick study and very passionate about what we were doing. We would work on a couple of things [movements] for a shot and then he [Jonathan] would master another on his own. He was able to hit a signature move at almost any point in the performance." Brown also noted that in the process of breaking down Elvis' movements, his and Rhys Meyers' appreciation of Elvis Presley's talent deepened.
And if clothes make the ordinary man, Elvis Presley's wardrobe stands out all on its own. Eduardo Castro served as the costume designer on the movie and noted that there are volumes of books and archival footage on Elvis' clothes.
"We were lucky that there are so many books available that illustrate Elvis' style," said Castro. "One book, Elvis Fashion, was published recently and it was invaluable. We had close-ups of the gold suit as well as the black leather suit that Elvis wore [on his comeback television special]. It also has a lot of archival photos from Graceland."

Castro's department had over 100 costume changes for Elvis alone, and actor Rhys Meyers wasn't in the country until a few days before production began.
"We just 'guesstimated' his sizes and luckily we were accurate," Castro said.
"We built most of his performance wear in Los Angeles, including the famous gold suit and the black leather suit that Elvis wore for his comeback television special." For the gold suit, Castro found a special fabric that needed to be fused to a backing because it was so fragile.
"It's very lightweight, but it's very close to the original fabric. The beads were made of Austrian crystals and covered the lapels, the side stripes, the bow tie and part of the shirt. The beading process took more than three weeks."

Castro also had to work with the differences in Elvis' style from his humble beginnings through his rise to fame. "We wanted [his clothing] to be worn out in the beginning, then get slicker as he became successful. Elvis created a look for himself and had a patina about him. We were very careful to keep that image alive."

As production drew to a close, all involved felt they had done their best to meet the requirements of the Elvis Presley Estate. Per Todd Morgan, the Director of Media and Creative Development for Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc., "We wanted the movie to be unflinchingly honest, but properly balanced and, overall, to be as historically responsible as possible."

To that end, the Estate pulled out all the stops to be of help to the production team. They made suggestions for the script to be sure that the dialogue and sequences in the movie were accurate.
"The Graceland Archives provided access to photos, home movies and artifacts," said Kevin Kern, Media Coordinator for Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
"We worked with the wardrobe and makeup departments on the movie to help create the look needed for the 20 year span of the movie. Their set designers and locations scouts visited Graceland in an effort to get a feel for the home they would create in New Orleans [the primary location for the movie]."

Best of all, the Estate allowed the production to shoot for a day at Graceland, the first time that a movie had been allowed to do so.
"Six scenes were shot on the grounds of Graceland," Kern continued. "[Graceland] tours continued while the shooting took place, which required careful planning." Almost 3,500 people took the Graceland tour that day, and some guests were able to snap pictures of the home and the stars in the movie.

As the cast and crew were arriving at Graceland the night prior to the shoot, they were offered a special evening tour of the mansion. "We felt that everyone would want to have the Graceland tour experience, but with the intense one-day schedule [planned for the shoot], most would not have the opportunity to break away for it," Todd Morgan said, so he and his staff arranged for a special nighttime tour.
"Being at Elvis Presley's home is a special experience anytime, but it's never more magical than at night, when the regular daily public tours are over and you're there with just a few other people. There's a spiritual presence of Elvis there all the time, a certain kind of warmth, but it's stronger in the quiet of the night."
Morgan knew that taking the Graceland tour would increase the production team's knowledge about Elvis and that they would feel closer to the very real and fascinating person behind the legend. Did the experience contribute an extra-special element to the actors' performances?
"Maybe it did," he said. "Everything shot at Graceland turned out just beautifully."

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Thank you for these, Audrey. I don't remember reading 2 of them, it was lovely to read them now, and the one about Match Point, with Scarlett was funny.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers's epic battle with the bottle and the woman who might just save his Hollywood career
By Daily Mail Reporter

Is Jonathan Rhys Meyers drunk again, or has he gone all Hollywood on us? One minute he is talking about his birthday - he's just turned 33 - and the next, he's waxing lyrical about, erm, butterflies.

'It's time to start thinking seriously about things,' insists the star of The Tudors. 'I wouldn't want to do the 20s again, you know? You go through your 20s sort of like a chrysalis in many ways, stretching into your own skin and trying to bust out of a cocoon.
'You want to be a butterfly and you just think of everything as, "Ooh, what fun can I have here?" But, after a while, you realise that things are getting in the way of you growing up and being who you really want to be. And when you look harder at exactly what it is that is getting in your way, you quite often find that it's yourself.'

So is it the drink talking, or just the self-help manuals? With Rhys Meyers it's impossible to tell because he has form for both. His first stint in alcohol rehab was in California in 2007, which he entered quietly after a reported 'gruelling work schedule' - Hollywood-speak for losing the plot. He had admitted to a friend that he needed help to beat his drink problem. But, just seven months after this very public attempt to clean up his life, he turned up drunk and abusive at Dublin Airport for a flight to London, and wasn't allowed to board the plane.
To be fair, there were extenuating circumstances - his mother, who had her own demons, was dying at the time - but the police were entirely unsympathetic and arrested him on charges of public drunkenness and breach of the peace. He topped that little escapade by being photographed drinking cider in the street - at 10am.

When we meet in a Los Angeles hotel, he is polite, clear-eyed and, apparently, completely in control. It's hard to believe that this thoughtful and measured young man is the same Rhys Meyers.
Yet, just a few days later, he's back in rehab, saying openly that he hopes it is for the last time. So what is going on?
Unfortunately, Rhys Meyers is fast acquiring a reputation for being exactly the person he feared he would become.
He said recently, rather poignantly - not to mention colourfully - 'I just don't want to be that f****** a******* sitting in the pub and someone turns around and says, "See him there at the end of the bar.
'He could have made a f****** fortune, but he went over to Hollywood and he just f****** p****d it up against the wall."' The saddest part is, he seems to be doing exactly this but is powerless to stop it.

Dublin-born but raised in Cork with his three younger brothers - mostly by his mother (his parents separated when he was three) - he admits that he was something of a rebel. He was expelled from school at 16 for truancy, and took to spending his days in a pool hall.
There he struck up an unusual friendship with Christopher Croft, a farmer. The openly gay father-of-three offered Rhys Meyers a job on his farm and put a roof over his head. The pool hall is also the place Rhys Meyers was discovered by a casting agent.
To this day, he credits Croft - whom he has described as a 'nice man' - with giving him some stability in his life. But he's unwilling to discuss the exact nature of his relationship with Croft, or his mentor's dark side.
Last year, Croft was arrested in Morocco - where, coincidentally, the actor keeps a home - for drugging and sexually abusing a 15-year-old homeless boy.
Whatever the truth, by the end of his turbulent teens, Rhys Meyers was already making waves professionally.
His first role was in the 1994 comedy A Man Of No Importance, which was released when he was just 17, and he has been working, more or less steadily, ever since.

That, he hints, may well be part of his current 'problem'. For is there a more dysfunctional way to grow up than on film sets? 'When you go all the way through from your late teens to your late 20s on film sets, it's a very strange introduction to the world,' he points out.
'It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.'

Somewhere along the way - through TV series like Gormenghast and films like Bend It Like Beckham, leading him back to TV again, to play Henry VIII in the internationally acclaimed series The Tudors - he became famous.
There's a part of him that fully appreciated his success, and he was sensible with at least some of his money. He talks movingly of having been able to buy a house for his mother, whose life had been plagued with money problems.
'It was one of those things that sons have to do. I just felt it was a way for me to invest my money into somebody that I loved very much.'

He didn't adapt so well to some of the other things that come along with fame. 'That's a funny thing, fame,' he says. 'People definitely do treat you differently. When you begin to be successful, people say, "Don't go changing." Well, that's easy to say, but the fact is, you don't change at all - other people do.'
Suddenly, he laughs, as he remembers a humorous anecdote. 'I was at a dinner with all these important and intellectual people, and there was an incredibly beautiful girl who was also incredibly vacuous. She was flirting with everybody she thought was worth flirting with and ignoring the rest. And there was a fine-looking man at the table, nothing spectacular, but very amiable and intelligent, and she was ignoring him. Later on, someone asked a question, and someone else pointed at the man and said, "Well, why don't you ask him? He just sold his company for three billion." Well, on the "three billion" her head span round so fast I thought it would spin out of the restaurant, and she did not leave his earhole for the rest of the evening. Suddenly, he stopped being just a fine-looking man and became a celebrity. And that's what it's like.'

The woman in his own life, Reena Hammer, 24, who is the creative director of Urban Retreat, the beauty company founded by her father, George, is neither vacuous nor overly impressed by celebrity. She was reportedly the one who gave him the recent ultimatum, 'Back to rehab or I quit'.
'I care for Reena more than I've cared for anyone,' he says. 'She's so amazing.
'We've been together for five or six years now, we're very good friends. Having loved her for so long has changed my whole idea of relationships with women.'

So what's next for Rhys Meyers? He seems poignantly aware that, before sorting out his future, he may have to confront his past. As he himself says, the Hollywood machine is full of boys who grew up in very ordinary situations, but have found themselves in an extraordinary place.
'They may wear fancier clothes and have prettier girlfriends, but there's also a photo on the mantelpiece showing them with a pudding-bowl haircut and school uniform,' he says, with what you suspect is the truth.


I don't like the tone in which this interview has been put down so much, but I think Jonny has been very honest about things in this interview and that it gives a little bit more insight into the life of our Jonny.

Just read the comments people placed with this interview. I would like to mention two of them. Not to nice ones, though the second might be true sometimes.

There was no need for him to go to rehab, he should of come and stayed with me for a few weeks....id of sorted him out and made him forget all about the alcohol!!! ...Good Luck to him. X

- tallulah, manchester, 07/8/2010 10:05

He's got very scary eyes, there is no light in them. They are not happy eyes.

- The Doctor, The Tardis, somewhere in the Medusa Cascade, BRIGHTON., 07/8/2010 07:24

Here's the link to the interview, btw.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1300337/Jonathan-Rhys-Meyerss-epic-battle-bottle-woman-just-save-Hollywood-career.html#ixzz1iVETpyxV

Didn't know this interview yet. It's from http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30264273

Off ‘Tudors’ before king is fat? Actor OK with it
Meyers admits it would be tough to gain weight to play King Henry VII

updated 4/17/2009 10:43:19 AM ET 2009-04-17T14:43:19
LOS ANGELES — Jonathan Rhys Meyers would be relieved to see “The Tudors” end before his character, King Henry VIII, transforms from a robust young man to pudgy old ruler.

“I wouldn’t be very good at putting on a lot of weight. When I played Elvis (a young Presley, in the 2005 TV movie “Elvis”), I really had to struggle so I would have Elvis’ puppy fat,” Meyers said. “I had to keep eating.”

Meyers’ portrayal of an energetically trim Henry is in sharp contrast to portraits depicting a mature, full-faced monarch, one with an apparent appetite for food as well as marriage.

“The Tudors” is in its third season on Showtime. It has unfolded as a flashy chronicle of the early and middle years of Henry’s political and domestic life, which included an infamous six wives and the beheading of two.

Henry’s health has been hobbled as the series progressed, but the cause is a leg injury and not weight.
“It doesn’t seem to have affected his sexual prowess,” Meyers observed. “Of course, Henry wasn’t as sexed up as the show is. But we’re not selling it to a 16th-century audience.”

Meyers has two scripts in hand for the fourth and final season, scheduled to begin production in June, and has yet to discover how the tale will end.
“If I was going to make a suggestion, just go to a certain point and then you have a placard saying, ‘Henry continued to rule and died in the year 1547,”’ he said.

The Dublin-born actor has relished playing the colorful king, whom he views as an “arrogant, selfish man” who was driven to folly because of his romantic obsessions and determined pursuit of a male heir.
The current season includes third wife Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis), the woman who was “probably the great love of his life,” Meyers said, and less-cherished wife No. 4, Anne of Cleves, played by pop star Joss Stone.

Meyers has the intense, pouty-lipped look that makes him a natural for bedroom scenes. But the episode he singles out involves a grief-stricken Henry and the court “fool,” whom Meyers describes as the only man in England who can speak truth to power.
He’s played by David Bradley, “a wonderful actor,” Meyers said. The episode, the season’s fifth, debuts May 3.
“We get plastered drunk ... and I’ve never done that before, never had to act drunk. It’s quite difficult to get it right,” he said.

So that encounter trumps filming Henry’s flings with a succession of lovely women?
“Doing the erotic stuff, it is what it is,” Meyers said. “But it’s not really where you get the best of your acting. I have a girlfriend, these girls have boyfriends. So where’s the respectful line in doing a sex scene if you really want to do a good one?”
He recalled being asked by the director in the first season to touch an actress’ breast, and being cautioned by her that she had a boyfriend.
“Not anymore,” a cheeky Meyers replied.

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I am just finding lots of interviews I didn't know yet.

Interview : Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Keri Russell
Posted by: Sheila Roberts

Actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell recently talked about their involvement in the latest installment of the popular spy thriller franchise, "Mission Impossible 3." The film, co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams, features the latest adventures of super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his Impossible Mission Force team.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers joins the IMF team as Declan, the team’s transportation expert. If you need it flown, driven, sailed, glided, helicoptered, or motored, he's the man you want despite his personality quirks. "Declan's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, mad Irishman," says Rhys Meyers, who was most recently seen in the lead role of Woody Allen’s "Match Point," a performance for which he received rave reviews. "He's part of the next generation of the IMF “ Ethan's grooming him. He's got that risk element that Ethan likes in his team members."

Declan is also a chameleon, able to blend into any situation unnoticed. "One minute, he's an Italian deliveryman; the next, he's a geeky American tourist; and the next, a Vatican guard," notes Rhys Meyers. "It's very easy for him to slip into another character." Keri Russell, who previously starred for Abrams on his first television series, "Felicity," takes on the role of Lindsey Ferris, the only trainee that displays the high skill level and abilities to be confirmed by Ethan to become a member of IMF.

"Keri's the absolute greatest," says MI3 director J.J. Abrams. "I haven't worked with her since Felicity, so having this opportunity is an absolute joy. It's inspiring. She's never done anything like this before, so watching her pick up the gun work and the stunts really showed me that she's capable of anything. Tom was really helpful in showing her the ropes of action and stuntwork: the timing of it, the rhythm of it, and getting the confidence to do it." In the movie, Russell's character, Lindsey, spars with Ethan using stick-fighting techniques. "The training was really fun," says Russell. "I spent about four and a half months training with the stunt guys they're incredible athletes. We boxed and I learned to stick-fight. It was pretty cool."

Here's what Rhys Meyers and Russell had to say about their roles in "MI 3":

Q. We'll start with ladies first. Keri, could you tell me a little about Lindsey, your character? Set her up for us and tell us why she's the catalyst behind this whole mission that eventually Declan becomes part of.

KR. I play Agent Lindsey Ferris, who is a young agent in training, part of the training that… Ethan Hunt's character trains all the young. And I go out on my first mission and get myself into a situation, and the story comes into play where Tom's character has to decide whether to come help me in my situation or not. On this situation, I receive some information about IMF that is very important.

Q. Indeed. And likewise, Jonathan, if you can please set up Declan. Who he is, what kind of guy he is, and sort of multi-talented, I believe.

JRM. Really, they cast the wrong guy, didn't they? (laughs) Declan is actually Declan Gormley and the reason he's called Gormley is because first we was Tommy Gormley whom I will always remember as being able to speak Italian with a bass Scott's accent. Bene. Bene. It was really funny. He's a great guy. Top class first AD. Top class in every way, as a human being and as a worker. So Declan Gormley is sort of like a young, impetuous, cocky IMF guy who gets recruited into Tom’s team for this mission to get Lindsey Ferris out of Germany.

And he's good at anything you can drive. He's good at speaking other languages. Good at basically being a cocky guy who thinks he can get away with anything which is just the type of guy you need really in that situation. But if I had a back story for Declan, he's probably spent most of his years as a teenager stealing cars and was probably given the choice prison or We have a better idea. Why don't we send you to IMF where you might be of some use? So I think he's one of these troubled kids who has everything it takes to be a good agent. But there's also. Everything it takes to be a good agent and everything it takes to screw it up really, really badly.

It has to have that element of is it really going to happen which J.J. brought to this "Mission Impossible." There's no guarantees in this "Mission Impossible" which is really nice. At any point it's touch and go. So you can imagine from the start of it, Oh yeah, Tom Cruise goes to save the world. But that's not necessary what this is about. JJ wanted to make not Ethan Hunt’s character goes to save the world, but Ethan Hunt's team goes to save another human being.

Q. Essentially that's my next question. There seems to be much more of a team effort in this particular installment in the franchise. Was that quite welcome for you? As much as all you characters are individuals, you work extremely well as a team, and it's not as if you are just there to support Tom on his mission. It's very much a team effort. How welcoming was that for you, and equally how welcoming was both Tom and J.J. stressing that to you both?

KR. I think Tom was incredibly generous. He had a way… I was definitely the novice in the action territory, and he had a way of making me feel absolutely capable and necessary to that moment, and I think that was incredibly generous of someone at his level. I just think it comes from him having so much fun doing what he does, and he wants you to have fun. He really genuinely wants you to be having a good time. He's like, Isn't this great? And you're like, It is!

Q. And likewise, I guess if you pick on J.J., he seems an equally enthusiastic character to work alongside Tom. How giving was he in terms of allowing you to do, you know, enhance on your character? I’m sure it was molded for you, but how much could you bring to it and how enthusiastic was he to change things around, add things to it that perhaps you may suggest?

JRM. I could have done anything I liked. Really. And if J.J. liked it as well, it would be in the film. And if J.J. didn't, then it wouldn't be in the film. He's really open like that. Because J.J. is a deeply, deeply intelligent guy, and a deeply intelligent guy knows that he doesn't know everything and that when he casts an actor in a film, the actor will have their own particular ideas of how best to instinctually play this part. And Tom and J.J. are so similar people, both in their humor and their enthusiasm and their ability to take a situation and create an imaginative scenario for these characters to exist in. Yet, at the same time, getting moments of who they really are.

This is the first time you ever see Ethan in this Mission Impossible series be a vulnerable person asking for help. People are always asking him for help in the other two Mission Impossibles. And this time he needs his friends, and his friends arrive there for him. And I think Ving Rhames was so good at playing Luther. There was an emotionality to him, a caring about the character of Ethan Hunt, and that was so beautiful to watch in the film. Because this is what J.J. did. He took a franchise that's already established, a serious action movie, and then threw world class actors into it to give real performances. I mean Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, all in an action movie?

Q. And yourselves included.

JRM. Sounds like I want to see it.

Q. Indeed. Tell us a little bit if you will individually. Obviously you've got different roles within the team. But did you go through different individual training for the skill sets that you had to have? How vigorous was it? How long did it take? Equally, how much fun was it?

KR. I definitely did a lot of training for this. I mean months. We did months on the actual stick fight. The Philipino stick fight that Tom and I had to do which was really cool. It was a lot like dance, which I have a background in, because you're basically learning choreography and learning to not hit the bamboo stick into Tom’s face and then get fired. (laughs) So that was interesting.

That took a long time which was very fun. And training with world class fighters which is also very cool. It's so rare. When did you get to meet these people? So there was that. I also had a lot of weapons training. I had to learn to assemble a machine gun blindfolded within 30 seconds which was very fun.

Q. Your best time?

KR. My best time was 13 seconds. Thanks very much.

Q. 13 seconds?

KR. Harry was very proud of me. My gun trainer. Weapons trainer. Yeah, I had a ton of training. But that's why you want to do an action movie. Because you do, even though you can’t really do that stuff. When you're doing it, you feel like such a bad ass.

Q. And likewise, Jonathan, from speed boats, helicopters. Is it a tough life?

JRM. Yes, it was. All in a day's work for a lad from Cork. But no, I didn't have as much training as other people. Like there was physical training. I went to the gym every day, but that was because if you're in a big action movie you want to look right. And I had a little training in the helicopter. But it's very limited what you can do.

From an insurance point of view, they were never going to let me really fly the helicopter through those windmills. So that’s kind of difficult. I did feel a little bit like the pacifist agent because I never pull my gun nor hit anybody during the film. At one point, I almost suggested to J.J. that once I walked past the Vatican guard, I'd punch him just so I could hit someone in the movie. I wanted to just hit something. I wanted to be that tough action guy. But when I saw the film, then I realized that there was something else that he required from Declan that wasn't. Because he had Maggie Q who is all of that. She's like Tom, female version of him. Maggie was throwing herself out of buildings, kicking people, punching people, shooting machine guns.

KR. That was so cool.

JRM. She actually did the out of the helicopter when she's hanging off. That was more dangerous than you'd see. Even though it's a helicopter within a studio, it's under very extreme circumstances. She was actually thrown out of the helicopter, and she's hanging on.

She's been doing this for year. She told me that she did a film where they hung her out of a building 12 stories up by her ankles, and then someone passes her a machine gun, and she has to do a hit. But it's in Hong Kong, and they do it for real there. So she was very well versed. So I felt kind of like the wimp agent. But it turns out that I didn't seem like the wimp agent in the film. So long may it last. Thank you, J.J.


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