TNT Cinema
Nicholas Michael
May 1, 2001
Shooting to stardom with main roles in the films Titus and Peaches, Matthew Rhys talks to Nicholas Michael, who finds him badly hung-over, rather pleased, and very down-to earth.
Matthew Rhys seems a fairly ordinary bloke. At least until you've seen the names he has worked with, and heard about the speed with which he has progressed in his acting career. At only 24, Rhys has already starred on stage with Kathleen Turner and on screen with Jessica Lange and Anthony Hopkins. Asked whether such a promising acting career had been his ambition from childhood, Rhys seems slightly bemused as he reflects on his own theatrical beginnings. His reply of "I did a play when I was seventeen and thought, y'know, this is alright. But I always thought I'd go to university and do the 'proper thing' really" is about as down to earth as you can find. Chatting rather sparsely about his career to date and how he feels about his success, Rhys comes across as deeply happy with how things have gone in life thus far, and is looking forward to even greater things. The cause of his initial reticence eventually turns out to be a rather acute hangover, and, as he pours me and then himself a glass of water, one can't help but think of Rhys' character in his latest film Peaches, the friendly, unassuming, Frank. He brightens at the mention of his first feature as the lead star, and enthuses about its merits, explaining why the cast worked for virtually nothing.
"It [Peaches] really is different - it doesn't rely on any conventional plot work or anything like that. That's what attracted me to the script initially. To fund a picture like that is very difficult because, you know, you try and pitch it and they say 'well, what happens?' and you're like 'well...nothing much.' The film itself relies on the dialogue, so to finance a film like this was difficult, so it was done for a very low budget, but that's why the actors did it, because it was a great script. It's a great challenge for a new actor, this sort of script."
In Peaches, Rhys manages to capture well the likeable but lazy nature of Frank, whose post-graduate worries about the prospect of having to settle down and get a real job are at the centre of the film. Does he feel a certain affinity with that character? "Yeah, yes, definitely, and I certainly know a few Franks, or certain elements of Frank in a lot of people. Another reason I liked the script was its very strong grasp of boys at that age, and the certain insecurities that come with leaving college, or looking for jobs and women, and the bravado that comes with it."
Far from the chronic under-funding that plagued Peaches, Rhys' starring role in the Shakespeare adaptation Titus saw him working at the top end of the movie business, alongside the top stars, this time with fellow Welshman Anthony Hopkins. It was a chance most only dream of, yet being a huge fan of Hopkins and never having met him, the prospect must have been intimidating for the young Rhys. "Yeah, enormously. You know, usually you're reading through some film in some pokey office with the cast. With this thing it was in this enormous room, with this enormous table, and there's Hopkins and there's Jessica Lange and you're like, 'Oh my God!' I mean working with Hopkins was a dream come true, and he lived up to it as well. Watching him doing it, it was something else."
Last summer Rhys played Benjamin in The Graduate, opposite Kathleen Turner, and it is discussing this that his predilection for theatre begins to come to the fore. It was an early school performance on the stage that first attracted him to working as an actor, and having successfully progressed into film Rhys remains enthusiastic about a theatrical career. Ideally for him, the future would involve working in both spheres: "Doing The Graduate was great. I loved it. It had been a long while since I had been on stage, and so it was quite daunting. It was the West End, Kathleen Turner, and a part that has been immortalised by Dustin Hoffman, so yeah, I was shitting myself, but yeah, I totally enjoyed it."
Rhys' humility and self-depreciation belies a very talented actor, as his list of credits shows. Tipped, since his roles on Broadway and then in Titus and Peaches, as the "next big thing," I ask whether his success over the last couple of years has felt as fast as it looks on paper, or whether in his eyes such success was hard earned and a long time in coming. "Yes and no to be honest. It's been over a period of four years since I left drama college and I've done a body of work and I have worked hard, but yes, it has been quite quick and sort of quicker than you'd expect, and you do look over your shoulder and think, 'Fuck, where's the catch?!' I'm bad in that respect in that I always think that for every good there’s a minus side, so that as everything gets good I always think there's going to be a bigger comeback. I suppose it's pessimism, but I always look over my shoulder. I mean the better things go, the more you think about it. I remember Hopkins was saying... he seemed to think exactly the same: that the better things go the more you think you’re getting away with it. I certainly didn't expect to be here four years ago, and so in that regard I still pinch myself a bit."
The feeling Matthew Rhys has of coasting on a finite wave of luck and big breaks makes a lovely change from the blatant egotism and brash self-confidence of many successful young actors in his position. The impression one gets from him is not one of naïveté, but of someone aware of his own success, and grateful for it. Going on the evidence to date, Rhys has deserved his rewards, and is certainly able for the roles he has won. Nonetheless he himself remains uncertain. "I don't know. Because it's such a nebulous profession, you do question why you and not someone else. I mean to use a cliché, if you're a great cabinet-maker you can understand why, and the proof is in front of you. But when they say [regarding acting] 'Oh, they chose you because you were good' you sort of say, 'Well, why am I good, what did I do that was good and how can I do it again?' And the pressure gets bigger. The more people see of you the more they expect of you. The expectation gets bigger and the pressure gets greater. Y'know, I sound like an old hack, but this business is fickle and you know how obsessed everyone, especially the British press, is with the next 'hot young thing' - I mean they trot them out every week, and so I would take all that with a bucket of salt really. [Press attention] makes you feel uncomfortable, yeah, I can't say I've been comfortable with it. But it's only been very brief, fleeting moments that I've had to put up with, but when it's there, it makes you sweat." Matthew Rhys seems to have a rather glittering career ahead of him, something which doesn't seem to have sunken in yet or, and this appears more likely, has sunken in but has not been allowed to fluster him or swell his pride. Rhys remains, for all the attention, with his feet firmly planted on the ground, wondering what all the fuss is about, and enjoying it as it comes.
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