Matthew's real full name is Matthew Rhys Evans, he had to drop the Evans and use his second name, due to the fact that there was another Matthew Evans signed on that listy-thingy they have to join as actors. The other Matthew Evans specializes in impersonating the Queen Mum at supermarket openings, causing no end of hilarious mistaken identity situations for our Matthew R. Evans.
Born- St. Patrick's Day 1974 in the back of a taxi in Cardiff. Mr. And Mrs. Evans, forgetting about the Paddy's Day celebration, mistimed the big event and got stuck behind the parade. Little Matthew's first sight was of a band of drunken Irishmen leaning in the cab windows shouting "Name him Michael Collins! Name him Michael Collins!"
The Evans family was a close knit one, although with 17 children his folks would often forget and call him by the dog's name, to this day Mattie will often try to answer when he hears the words "Bloody Fleabag" At least that's his story, and he can't be budged from it.
Little Mattie had his first major traumatic experience when at the age of 8 he was viciously assaulted with a snowball thrown by a skinny lad with girlishly curly hair shouting "FIYAH!!" followed by "I SAID IT AND I MEAN IT!" Matthew told him to get real and take off that stupid straw hat because it made him look like a dweeb. Matthew's honesty helped forge a friendship that would provide him endless hours of entertainment slagging off this better known, and yet somehow less successful with women, hearthrob.
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His mate left him for The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts when he was in his last year of school, and he was distraught without his pal. He cheered himself up by having a brief but passionate affair with the school Dinner Lady, just to get in some practice for the older woman thing later on. And he got free chip butties and sticky toffee puddings in the bargain.
The next year Matthew joined his mate at RADA- nearly missing the audition though, due to his mate's ill advised decision to pick up a couple of Swedish hitchhikers on the way from Cardiff. The two told the panel at the school a clever and detailed story of being mistaken for members of Take That and mobbed by crazed fans outside of a Tesco in Reading. The board waived Matthew's audition piece and unanimously voted him in, figuring if someone could tell such a bald faced lie covered with love bites and smelling of pickled herring, then he must be one hell of an actor. Plus a few of them were women and the two of them were just so cute.
The RADA years were not easy ones for Matthew, not only was he consumed with his own studies, but he also had to look out for his older, and yet less sophisticated mate. In his second year he had to take a night job to finance his schooling. He told his family he was working at an all night chippy in Peckham, but we have done some extensive digging and discovered that he was really working as an escort for upper class ladies of a "certain age" in the better hotels of London. He was abruptly sacked, however, when he tried to bring his mate along on a job and the mate said to one of the women "Corr- bet you have kids older than us, don't you? You look like Matthew's Auntie Gert!" At this point Matthew told his friend "Mate- we have to find you a woman."
Shortly thereafter his mate did just that, and Matthew had a peaceful few years, his CV growing ever stronger, and although his mate was getting the more glamorous and visible roles Matthew got the juicier ones where he got to strip off and shag another fella on stage, play a drug addict, and get eaten in a giant pie in a film starring another Welsh actor of some stature. He and his mate drifted ever so slightly apart, each involved in their separate careers and love affairs, until one fateful day when Mattie opened his flat door to his mate, who- without a word- strode past him and dropped his mobile phone down the loo. His curly haired friend turned to him and said, "Well, I'm single now. Fancy dumping your bird so we can party and carouse and act like overgrown teenagers in national magazines?" Mattie shrugged. "What the hell?"
And the rest is history in the making...
brilliantly written by Josie from the basement
Official Press Biography
Matthew was born and raised in the historic city of Cardiff - South Wales. He was educated at primary and secondary school through the Welsh medium, which still remains his first language.
"We are men behaving relatively badly" ~Matthew Rhys
