Even the charms of being seduced by Kathleen Turner cannot stop Matthew Rhys dreaming of his native Wales.
Most men can only dream of being seduced by Kathleen Turner, still one of Hollywood's hottest stars. Matthew Rhys is about to undergo that experience six times a week for the next three months - and he's absolutely terrified.
Rhys isn't scared of Turner, despite her formidable reputation. What worries him is the magnitude of his next acting challenge; playing Benjamin Braddock in a new stage adaptation of The Graduate.
Charles Webb's story of toy boy sex in smalltown America outraged sensibilities and turned Dustin Hoffman into an overnight sensation when the film version was released in 1967 and it remains a favourite today.
For a 25-year-old in his first leading theatre role, it's a hard act to follow. "It's a fantastic part and I still have to pinch myself sometimes, but the higher profile the job the more pressure to succeed - and the criticism is that much higher profile too. Not that I have any particular policy about reading reviews as I've not yet had a big enough part to merit any," he says, with disarming modesty.
He admits to having been intimidated by Turner at first but three weeks into rehearsal, that has subsided. "It's like having a game of tennis with a legendary player - it raises your game. I'm relishing the challenge, which sounds a cliché but is true."
The admiration is clearly mutual, Turner was recently quoted as saying that good actors are like dancers and that when she saw Matthew on stage "he just danced".
Hoffman's legacy is harder to overcome - his stuttering, stumbling Ben was a classic - but Cardiff-born Rhys had the good sense not to watch the film.
"Obviously I know all about it," he says, "and part of me is curious to see it, but I have a much stronger feeling that I shouldn't - as instead of finding my own performance, I might be drawn into doing it in a certain way just to be different.
"Benjamin is such a great character to play; this disillusioned guy who's worked really hard for four years to get a degree, mainly to please his parents, and then thinks, 'What about me?' He just wants to feel alive . His is a rite of passage story that fulfils a lot of young men's fantasies.
"The story is set in California in 1964, which was not in the throes of the Swinging Sixties as we think of them now. The values and morals of the Fifties were still prevalent then, which made such an affair much more shocking. It's harder to generate that kind of response today but I still think the play can have enormous shock value."
While Ben Braddock may be an ingénue, Matthew Rhys, for all his boyish good looks and self-deprecation, is already a seasoned talent. This year alone he can be seen in five films and blushes when you list them. "Well, they're mainly small parts..."
Maybe, but they include big films such as Peter Hewitt's comedy Whatever Happened To Harold Smith? which opened last week and Julie Taymor's version of Titus Andronicus, starring his compatriot and hero Anthony Hopkins, which is out in May.
Then he has just completed a drama series for Granada called Metropolis, due to be screened next month. Based on a group of twenty-somethings living in London, it is touted as the next This Life. Rhys describes his character as "Jimmy Porter's grandson - the angry young man of our generation".
His success is hardly unexpected - at 17 he went to RADA, won the Patricia Rothermere Scholarship and had starred in his first Welsh film, House Of America, with Sian Phillips, before completing the course. After that came another Welsh film, Bydd Yn Wrol (Be Brave), which allowed him to act in his native language and won him a Welsh Bafta. Since then he's barely been out of work.
What has steadied him along the rocky road to recognition has been a strong work ethic inherited from his family. His father is a headmaster, his mother a teacher of disabled children and his sister a BBC broadcast journalist. Matthew always knew that much was expected of him. "My parents were supportive of my going to RADA, although I'm sure they had their doubts. I do take a lot of pressure on board myself."
Another stabilising factor is his friendship with Hornblower star Ioan Gruffud, with whom he has shared a flat since arriving in London seven years ago. They have been friends since junior school.
"In the early days it was very important for me to be able to go back to the flat and speak Welsh to Ioan, it was like going back home.
It might have become difficult if only one of us had been successful but, touch wood, we've both done well and we're really proud of each other. He's my soulmate, really."
He has never hidden his soft Cardiff brogue ("nowadays a Welsh accent is accessible and accepted") and feels he is working at a time when there seems to be a flowering of Welsh culture - both films and music. Welsh actors are all the rage - Rhys Evans, Jason Hughes, Andrew Howard, Michael Sheen, Mark Lewis-Jones, Nia Roberts. "We're quite a big group and yes, all good friends." His girlfriend, however, is not an actress, he says with a hint of relief.
"It's really important for me to keep my links with Wales strong. I love my country," he says. He and Ioan go home as often as they can to watch rugby and he hopes to make a film about Llewellyn, the 12th-century prince who fought the English. "It's a wonderful epic story that needs committing to film. It's horses and swords basically - I enjoy a good swashbuckle."
Rhys seems relatively unaffected by success and claims not to have any fans yet ("just my mother"), is in no rush to do the classics ("they intimidate me") and seems to think, as many actors do, that one day he will be somehow found out and that all the acclaim will vanish.
"I once read an interview with Anthony Hopkins in which he said that part of him still kept waiting for someone to knock on the door and say, 'Sorry, we meant Terry Hopkins, not Tony Hopkins'. I knew exactly what he meant."
