It isn't the first time Rhys, 26, has played a sick, twisted individual. In Titus, he sported bleached-blond hair and tattoos to play Demetrius, 'a sort of rapist-sadist nutter'. But it isn't all cruelty and darkness: in the soon-to-be-released Peaches, which follows a group of college friends as they face the 'real world', he plays a loafing slacker who really doesn't want to have to grow up or do a hard day's work - something he says he can relate to.
And let's not forget his stint as Benjamin Braddock ('a bumbling nerd, really') in the first London run of The Graduate on the West End stage last year, opposite Kathleen Turner. He found being seduced by a consummate professional rather frightening, he admits. 'She is very powerful and present. It was great but very daunting. But it is comforting to act with someone like that, someone who takes command.' His dream project would be a Welsh version of Braveheart, however unlikely it sounds. 'I'm a sucker for action films and westerns,' he says. 'I'd like to be the baddie - you'd have a laugh.'
