Since he first swaggered into the gay consciousness in Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been a superstar in the waiting. Now, with a hat-trick of red hot roles about to be released, including Alexander alongside Colin Farrell and the new Woody Allen project, the Cork-boy done good is about to go supernova.

Welcome to the year in which Jonathan Rhys-Meyers - or the artist formerly known as the interesting, beautiful actor with never quite the right films - gets his just desserts. Exhibit 1) Vanity Fair. In Mira Nair's film of the Thackeray novel, he cads about as a delectable and ultimately dead rake, dastardly charming the knickers off a period lovely and behaving like the kind of disarming rouge you wouldn't strictly mind a bite of. It's the JRM turnaround year's opening shot. Exhibit 2) Alexander. His Oliver Stone number. Playing opposite fellow Irishman Colin Farrell. In a homoerotic slice of adrenaline-charged legend. Could the credentials get any more stellar? Well, as it happens... Exhibit 3) is his year's trump card - the film that will eventually make a full-blooded movie icon out of this deliciously lowly kid from Cork. We'll come back to that a minute. The plaudits for Exhibit 2 will inevitably go to Farrell and in Exhibit 1 he's sharing screen space with America's sweetheart Reese Witherspoon, so he may yet fall into his ever-the-bridesmaid's role. No matter. By 2006 he will be on everybody's lips.

Rhys Meyers first came to Attitude's attention as a drug-ravaged glam-rocker in Todd Haynes' epically misunderstood early 70s fictional rock biopic, Velvet Goldmine. But accompanying the never-hotter, post-Trainspotting Ewan McGregor and, indeed, McGregor's cock, somewhat deflected from his own individual prowess. He should've scooped up a mainstream league in Bend It Like Beckham, of curse.

But then the world decided to go unfathomably Keira Knightly bonkers for a while and he lost out again. So just as he most needs an equal footing opposite and ascendant screen goddess, he lands the lead role in what will come to be the most talked about film of the year. Jonny boy is going to take the male lead in W.A.S.P., a film shrouded in such secrecy that ht is only known by a strange acronym; it's title, plotline, subject matter and full cast list are being kept strictly under wraps, on pain of death (or something). W.A.S.P is the Woody Allen Summer Project, the first film that the most esteemable old Jewish New Yorker has deemed fit to shoot in London. Jonny's carrying it. Opposite Scarlett Johansson. Heat? On fire. Officially.

We love Jonathan. Of course he's a beauty, but it is not contained in this alone that his own story would always have to find itself documented on these very pages. It has homo overtones by the bucketful. Born in Dublin in 1977, little Jonny and his band of three younger brothers were the product of a deliriously fucked-up upbringing. Each fostered out, he ended up in County Cork under the auspices of an elder gay man called Christopher, who took on the role of surrogate father.

None of which ever bothered the boy. He now talks of Christopher with reverence, delight and an intuitive understanding of how his sexuality operates. In many ways, the undercurrent of his story is that he saved our hero of the hour. Kicked out of school, a little wayward to say the least, Christopher encouraged Jonny in his acting pursuits, eventually culminating in is first movie role, a bit-part opposite Albert Finney in the updated Oscar Wilde feature, A Man of No Importance.

From there on in, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has been laughing. He has a magnetic screen presence and one of the most live-wire individuals you could possibly encounter. His nervous system appears to be hot-wired to some weirdly pendulous adrenaline. Jonathan claims to be 'bi-polar,' which we obviously want to deliberately misunderstand, but don't. He's one of life's fidgeters. He is up and down in the space of a second. He can flirt for Britain (when Mira Nair gave him the part in Vanity Fair, she famously said to him, "OK Jonny, you can stop flirting now. You have the role"). And he positively shrieks 'broken wing'. And, of course, he's absolutely stunning.

What, we ask inwardly, as we sit for a post-shoot bevy in a fashionably run-down Shoeditch bar where all female eyes, and indeed, many male ones, instantly gravitate toward him, is there not to love?

How was the filming of Alexander?
It was incredible. It was an Alexander experience. Really, it was that huge, as huge as the man himself. I knew quite a lot about the story before I went into it but I didn't quite know the depths of him and that began to come out the more filming we did.

How much research do you do into something before you take on a job?
It depends. I play Cassander in it, but Cassander didn't actually appear until Babylon and so I couldn't do much research because there wasn't much to do. So I was given pretty much a free reign. Jared Leto had a character he could read about, which makes it a bit easier. I was more of a wild card.

What was Colin Farrell like?
Gorgeous, man. I worked with him first about ten years ago. We never hung out or anything but when we meet each other it's always lovely. He's a gorgeous, hard-working man. He's out there doing what he ought to be doing. He was very generous with his time. I'd say he was a leader, so he was definitely living Alexander.

Does the Irish connection forge something more between you than the other cast members?
Of course, it's a huge bond. But in Alexander we all have Irish accents. Oliver didn't want it to be American, he wanted it wilder and more feral. There's a lot of Irish actors in it.

Were you aware of the bisexuality in the story before you went into it?
Yeah, of course.

Stone doesn't shy away from it, does he?
No. The lover (Bagoas) is played by a Spanish dancer called Francisco Bosch. He was an absolutely beautiful boy. Really quite incredible. I've never seen anyone do things with his legs that he could. Physically, he was fantastic. And he's gay. It was a funny situation. When he first came in the bar and Colin saw him, he was introduced and Colin was like, "Fuck it, you're gorgeous. Just gorgeous." He warmed to it, but he's great like that. There's no hang-ups. He's a man's man, but as for snogging Francisco? He probably enjoyed it. Anyone would.

Do you think there's something more mannish about being comfortable with playing gay?
Yeah, Christ! I mean, it's people who have issues that hare homophobic, dead on. If they're not comfortable with it then you can pretty much guarantee that they're not comfortable with themselves. I remember bringing a mate of mine into the Astoria years ago for G-A-Y and he was so fucked up. Any time anyone came near him he's shit himself. He'd be like, "I'm sure this fella here's trying to ride me" and I was like'"for fuck's sake, you'd have to chat him up first, buy him a drink, it's no different from a woman." Maybe you're guaranteed to score a little bit more in a gay club. But that's the sort of attitude of people with problems. Nobody was even paying attention to him. They were too busy having a good time with a pair of fucking hotpants on and a bottle of poppers under their nose.

What are your feelings about Ireland and your own heritage?
I love it. It's a great country to be from. It's an amazing passport around the world. I really wouldn't rather be from anywhere else. You'll always get into a conversation with someone with an Irish accent. My Irish accent isn't as strong as it used to be. But it can still soften me up a bit.

Was the Oliver Stone role a pivotal one?
It would be, wouldn't it?

He was on your check list of dream directors?
Yeah. Most of them I've tried out for and haven't got the parts! I really wanted to play the part of the priest in Chocolat for Lasse Halstrom and I had long hair at the time and had a guitar with me and he said I was interesting but that he's already promised the role to Hugh O'Conor, another lovely Irish actor. Then I watch the fucking film and Johnny Depp's character is a fucking Irish-speaking guy with a guitar and pony tail, I thought, 'you cheeky cunt!' [laughs].

When did you first start thinking about acting?
When I was about 15. My famous tail is that I was picked up in a pool hall and immediately whisked off to start making films. But that doesn't happen, of course. I was up and down to Dublin all the time and I've been rejected more times than I could possibly fucking think of. I've been rejected more times than cigarettes that I've smoked. And that's thousands. All actors are. Even really, really famous actors don't always get the parts they want. George Clooney famously said that to get the part in Three Kings he had to basically fucking tie Mel Gibson up. Everyone still auditions.

Was acting always something you were clear in your mind you would do?
No, but there was an inkling that I could possibly be OK at it. And I didn't have many other options or opportunities to go for. I was kicked out of school, I didn't go to college, I didn't have a job, I didn't have any money. OK, I'll do it. I had no options. Which I feel really bad about. You know, some kids of 16 or 17 have dreamt about being actors all their lives, it's all they've ever wanted to do. I wasn't like that. I've made tonnes of mistakes in every aspect of my life. I've never sat down with a piece of paper and said I want to do this by that time and made a list. There's never been a great game plan. I'd just land myself in shit.

You feel the mistakes quite consciously?
Mistakes are fucking important things to go through, so long as you heed them. You have to be conscious of yourself. As an actor you have to be conscious of your emotions, your body, your health, everything. I'm an unhealthy bastard. I smoke too much, I work out a bit, but not intensely.

You look younger than you are.
[Laughs] Yeah, and long may that fucking last. I had a facial yesterday and my first pedicure. You feel a bit of a fucking ponce but only in that way you felt funny buying condoms when you were 15. It's like, just do it. Buy a pack of condoms and a fucking huge vibrator for your wife and a pair of dirty knickers and have a facial and a pedicure. We've got past all that now. That should be a fucking stag party. It beats kebabs, fruit machines and wanking off to a video, y'know?

When did you realise this was all working out quite nicely?
I've never thought, 'Oh, this is my career now.'

You have insecurities?
Huge ones. It's what actors do. They have insecurities. We're based on insecurities. It's a breeding ground for insecurity.

The first time you went on a film set was for A Man of No Importance, right?
Yeah. Man, was I happy to be on set. That was it. It felt a bit weird, really. It was strange just to look at myself in the mirror in costume and make-up. Just stunningly fucking weird. My first scene on film was with Albert Finney. Amazing. My first big film role was in The Disappearance of Finbar. It wasn't fun, I didn't get on too well with the other actor and I really fucking fancied the pants off the actress. It was all learning, though. Once I'd finished that I met Neil Jordan and he cast me in Michael Collins. I played opposite Alan Rickman on my first scene in it. You wonder why I'm insecure? That's why. I go on and do these things and just put my head in the place where I can do it and then go and bash my head against the wall later. It's an automatic thing. I can't explain it. At all.

Did you enjoy Vanity Fair?
I'll tell you what. I didn't read the book. I was a bit afraid of finding a depth to the character that wasn't in the script. I just wanted to work with the material that I had. I'll tell you what book I did read years ago, like when I was about 15, and I really wanted to play the part. That was The Motorcycle Diaries. [laughing] That fucking Mexican bastard [Gael Garcia Bernal, recent star of the film version]. Fuck him. Fuck them for making it in Spanish. Any part for a young handsome Latino is fucking sewn up now. See, that's where the insecurities come from! Between him and Diego Luna the whole job's sorted now.

Do you feel like a celebrity?
No, I never have done and I don't think I probably ever will do. I could go to fucking Chinawhite and see 50 photographers outside and not one of them would recognise me. If I had Jodie fucking Marsh on my arm I'd be fighting them off. That's celebrity, isn't it?

Fame is an end to itself now. It isn't about doing something. Great work if you can get it, you know?
Good on them. I've a huge fucking respect for Jordan. I really do. She took what she had and made a fucking fortune out of it. She might be tacky and tarty but she's done fucking well for herself. It's not her tackiness or her big fucking tits or her blatant raunchiness and exhibitionism that's bad about our culture. What's bad about it is our obsession with it. We get what we deserve. I admire anyone for trying to make a success of what they're doing.

Stardom is now all about 'it could be you', isn't it?
Exactly. Pop Stars, Pop Idol, Big Brother. Good on them. But I draw the like at Abi Titmuss. My brother Paul thinks she's gorgeous. I'm like, don't worry, she'd probably fucking ride you. But do I really need to see another member of fucking Blue in Chinawhite with some fucking tart in pseudo Manolo Blahniks on their arm dancing to fucking Kanye West? No. It's chip wrapper and they all know it is. I don't envy that life and I don't think they come out of it well, but if they're enjoying themselves, fair play.

Are you tired of talking about your upbringing? The whole 'gay dad' scenario?
It's in every article. The boy made good thing. I had an upbringing. That's it. It was interesting. I went to school, got kicked out, lived with another family. That's it. Most people don't have the fucking gumption to take the person out of the story so I become this thing that did certain things and my person becomes that story, if you like. The story's there, so it's easy to write without having to delve any further.

What's interesting to us is that is was a gay man in your paternal role.
Christopher? Gay as a fucking nut, yeah.

What was it that you warmed to in the family there?
It was that my family was so fucking dysfunctional that they seemed completely functional to me. And that they were very, very kind to me in a way that I had never known before. They didn't want anything back for that and that felt lovely. I accepted Christopher's homosexuality and didn't go 'ugh!' I'd be in Morocco with him when I was 18 fucking learning how to cruise on the streets.

Did you find it fascinating?
I didn't ask him questions about sex. But I was always comfortable with it. When I came over to London with him we'd end up for the afternoon having coffee on Old Compton Street, watching the world go by. It was something I never shied away from. If I was sitting around with a group of camp friends then anyone walking past would think that I was fucking screaming. I like that. It's good fun. I really get pissed off with people who aren't comfortable with it. You get it the other way round too. People who are in constantly gay company can get that heterophobia. Too much of anything is bad for you. I'm very much live and let live. I'd be an idiot not to be.

Do you like people, as a rule?
I sometimes find myself not being as interested in them as I should be and shying away from them. I'm not sure. It's an interesting question. I hope so.

How excited are you about the Woody Allen film?
Not quite as excited as everyone else seems to be. Not to do it down, but I can't tell you anything about it, really. We're all sworn to secrecy. I'm sure there's a few actors my age who think I'm a bit of a cunt for getting it. I'm sure I would have been the same if it had been someone else who'd got it. I was very lucky. To work with a man of that calibre is immense. The fucking pressure is huge. It's been going on for two years, really. I'd just done an audition in LA that I can honestly say was an absolute fucking disaster. I was really feeling sorry for myself. But then I got offered Vanity Fair. We shot that which was gorgeous. Then I did Alexander, which was insane. It totally kicked off. Oliver's a beast. He's a machine. He'd shoot for 15 hours a day, running on pure adrenalin. And it is ginormous. It was held together by god's fucking glue. In between filming Vanity Fair and Alexander my ears were perfereated, so I had to have an operation and was told not to do Alexander. So of course I did it. Then I took a little time off and I went on tape for Woody. I did that taping and it was sent over to America. I got a phone call from my agent, when I was wrecked, saying I had to meet Woody Allen tomorrow. Woke up the next morning, brass monkeys rattling in my fucking head. Went off to the meeting really shaky. I went in and was told the meeting was very quick. In walks Woody and he says, [very convincing Allen accent, here] 'OK, Jonny, I have a movie and I'm going to present you with a script. I'd like you to read it. If you respet the material, er, I don't do much rehearsal, so if you like it...let's work!' I'm handed this script, he leaves, I leave. I'm outside fucking shaking. I phone my agent and tell her I've got it and she says "Iknow." Basically, I had to go to the meeting to the role, but I already had it from the tape. I walked across the street to read the script, to know what the part is. I see my character's name on the first page and I'm in the first scene. I almost fucking collapse. Then I see my name in every fucking scene in the movie. I'm in every one. I have the male lead in a Woody Allen film. I broke down in tears. Bawled my eyes out. That was it.

Are you aware of yourself as being quite an extreme person?
Of course I am. How could I not be? I'm totally bi-polar.

Has there been therapy?
Fuck, yeah. There's been tons of it. I've been in therapy since I was 11-years-old. I live in therapy. There's nothing wrong with people trying to get themselves sorted out and having an idea of who they are. When you look in the fucking mirror you don't see the same person everyone else sees.

Do you see your own superficial beauty?
No. I'd rather not. It's difficult to explain. I used to be really skinny. I feel a bit more manly now. Nobody sees themselves how other people see them, right? It's such a hard one to explain. You live with yourself on a day to day basis. You don't sit there thinkin, 'fuck, I'm nice to look at.'

Alexander opens 7th January, Vanity Fair opens 14th January, and W.A.S.P is due for release in the summer 2005!

Thankyou to Melissa (Darke Lilith on the jrm msg board) for typing and letting me use this interview!

Oliver Stone was being magnanimous. He had agreed to see an unknown young actor from Ireland. The American director was accustomed to deference, respect for his power and submission to his ego. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers, however, he got precisely the opposite.

“When I was 18 years old,” says Rhys Meyers, “I did an audition for U-Turn, and I went in and I told Oliver Stone that his script was shit and it would never make a hit movie. He told me to ‘F*** off’, and the producer rang me and said, ‘Jonathan Rhys Meyers will never appear in an Oliver Stone film’.” He laughs, adding: “And from what I hear of Alexander, I don’t.”

Stone had long forgotten the U-Turn audition when he pleaded with Rhys Meyers to take a supporting role in his latest movie, Alexander, based on the life of Alexander the Great. Rhys Meyers had not forgotten, though — it was one of the reasons he accepted the part. By the time he showed up for promo interviews, Rhys Meyers had yet to get around to seeing Stone’s controversial Greek epic. Moreover, the actor was in no rush to see it.

In the film he plays Cassander, a jealous rival of Colin Farrell’s Alexander. In one sense the part came naturally to Rhys Meyers: he only had to see Farrell hogging the limelight to experience Cassander’s envious emotions. But the 27-year-old actor thinks the movie was a waste of his time.

“I did it just basically to work with Oliver Stone, but there wasn’t enough work in it for me. I shouldn’t have done it. I actually made a point of cutting myself out of two major scenes because I didn’t want to be backroom dressing. I don’t think Oliver really knew what he was taking on.”

Rhys Meyers sprang out of nowhere in the mid-1990s, a fully formed exotic who seemed bound for stardom. Films such as Velvet Goldmine, in which he played an androgynous glam-rock star, proved that he had talent and charisma to burn. But something — or someone — interrupted his trajectory. It was Farrell, who had a small role in one of Rhys Meyers’s earliest films, The Disappearance of Finbar, who became a mainstream Hollywood star while Rhys Meyers was diverted into a succession of eccentric characters.

He played loners, losers and doomed romantics, scheming anti-heroes such as Steerpike in Gormenghast. His characters tended to be sinuously camp, vaguely decadent and slightly unwholesome. His attitude didn’t help, either. When he wasn’t berating directors, he was being voluble in his contempt for fellow actors and the movie business.

“You see some people making $10m on one film and then $100m the next. Orlando Bloom — give us a break. If the guy could string two words together . . . And still he’s earning $12m a movie. It’s a business: it has nothing to do with art. If you think it’s art then get out of it. Go join the Guggenheim. Not that art gives a shite anyway if you exist or not.”

Despite his misgivings about the film world, Rhys Meyers has hauled himself back onto the stardom express. After Alexander he played the lead in Woody Allen’s forthcoming, as yet untitled movie (it's actually called "Match Point"-Hannah), and this month starts work on an Elvis Presley biopic in which he is cast as the iconic singer. With such high-profile roles 2005 could be the year when Rhys Meyers finally goes global.

The actor has been watching and learning. Surprisingly, given that he spent six months looking daggers at Farrell, he is full of praise for him. “I auditioned for Tigerland (Joel Schumacher’s film about recruits training for combat in Vietnam), and I was furious when I found out that Colin was doing it. But then when I saw the movie, there was nobody else that could make it like Colin made it.

“He was like this beautiful, beautiful cocktail of Marlon Brando in The Men and Montgomery Clift in Red River. He was sensitive and attitude-ish — lawyer-ish — but at the same time so boyish, so sexual, so misled. He played it beautifully. I could never have done that. After I saw the movie I said, ‘Okay, I see what I need to learn’.”

With no formal training, Rhys Meyers has learnt acting the hard way, picking up tips from each successive film, watching other actors and mimicking their stagecraft. At the same time he has gone out of his way to work with certain directors: partly because of the kind of films they make and partly because of their influence.

“If people only knew what I went through. For every one film I’ve got I’ve been turned down for at least 1,500. I’ve been told, ‘F*** off’, ‘Piss off’, ‘You’ll never make it’, from every director in the world — except for the ones that matter. Oliver, he’s difficult. He’s as mad as a hatter. After I finished with him I went on to Woody Allen, and Woody Allen is a master. Stone is a novice in comparison.”

If Allen is the master, then Rhys Meyers plays the uncharacteristically obedient disciple. He refuses to divulge any details about the film, still officially called the Woody Allen Summer Project (officially, it is called Match Point). Set somewhere between upper-class English society and the world of competitive tennis, it stars Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson.

He lowers his voice to a dramatic, husky whisper, glancing around conspiratorially as if Allen himself were about to walk in and accuse him of breaking rank. “It’s not a comedy, it has nothing to do with comedy — and Woody Allen does not appear in it.”

He adds: “Woody is a master of working within himself. Woody knows what he is. Woody Allen really comes on set and if it doesn’t work that day, well it’s either his fault, the camera’s fault — whoever’s fault it is, it’s not working that day. With Oliver Stone it’s all on Oliver. He takes everything on. And that’s the difference, I suppose. Woody’s learnt to let things go, Oliver hasn’t. Oliver’s just like a tempestuous boy.”

Part of Rhys Meyers’s fascination is the way he never stops acting. He is always on, always performing and can shuttle through several personae in the course of a sentence. If acting is the expression of some primal need to please, it is easy to see why he is an actor, and easy to understand why he is so dismissive of celebrity.

“I do the work that I can do, but I don’t really care what people like,” he says. “I’m not keeping my pulse on what people are going to the cinema to see because the audience, they’re fickle.”

Earlier in his career Rhys Meyers used to complain that the movie world was, in his parlance, doing his head in. He had endured a difficult upbringing in Dublin and Cork, and the film business only seemed to offer more instability. Now he insists he is more grounded and makes an effort to sound more cynical.

“It’s not strange, it’s not new. If you want to work, if you want to be successful, you have to struggle, you have to travel,” he says. “You have to forgo relationships because they don’t work, which I’ve learnt to my detriment. You have to forgo friends.”

Rhys Meyers’s relationship with his homeland remains problematic. “Ireland’s too difficult, there’s just too many issues,” he says enigmatically, without further elucidation, though he identifies the moribund state of the film industry as a particular problem for someone in his occupation.

“I’m meant to do a film here with Gerry Stembridge, called Alarm, but I don’t think Ireland has a film industry any more. Irish people have not only priced themselves out of the film market, they’ve priced themselves out of the market completely. Now we’re hiring plumbers, carpenters, electricians, welders, farmers, feeders, cattle herders — everything from Poland. We get them cheaper and they work harder. And they haven’t taken to the drink like we have.”

As Rhys Meyers talks, his accent shifts register, beginning with a Dublin rumble then sliding into Corkonian. It’s tempting to think this is the actor’s original voice, but quite possibly he doesn’t have one. He has been a chameleon all his life and only now is he learning to focus his talent.

His next challenge promises to be among his most interesting: giving it some Deep South bubba to play Presley. “I can’t ask Elvis how he did Elvis, I can only perceive how Elvis became Elvis. I’m trying to do my interpretation of how Elvis is. The more raw I can make it the better it’ll be.”

He lets the idea wash over him, as though for the first time. I’m playing Elvis from Cork. Can you imagine? They’re paying me a fortune. Jaysus Christ, imagine if I turned them down.”

Not that he’s about to. Rhys Meyers knows that his time has come: time to leave behind the quirky roles and androgynous weirdos, time to show what a chameleon can really do. Time to play the King.

Alexander and Vanity Fair is on general release.

taken from times online.com

Jonathan Rhys Meyers' androgynous beauty and precocious talent have ment that, at just 27, he already has an impressive list of credits to his name, including the recent Alexander, But with the release of Mira Nair's Vanity Fair this week, his star is set to shoot into the ascenbdant. In it, he plays the vain and arrogant George -a role perfectly suited to an actor who relishes dark characters. He First made his mark as the assassin in Michael Colllins and went on to star as a ruthless rock star in Velvet Goldmine. His portrayal of Steerpike in the TV Gormenghast was chilling study in gothic creepiness, a sharp contrast to hunky football coach Joe in Bend It Like Beckham.
In the absence of any formal drama training, his troubled background -he left his Cork home at 15 -informs his work, as do his insecurities. "He has the ability to extract sympathy from everyone around him." says Mike figgis, who directed him at age 16 in Loss Of Sexual Innocence.
He has just finished filming Woody Allen's new film with Scarlett Johansson and is getting ready to rock and roll as Elvis in a US mini TV series.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers struts into the bar in the slinkiest pair of tan leather trousers, lights a cigarette, fiddles with his cup and saucer and proceeds to throw out seductive glances with giddy momentum: part ingénue, part hustler. This is clearly a good time for Meyers. First up he has Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair adaptation in which he plays spoiled party child George Osborne. Then there’s his starring turn in Woody Allen’s top-secret London film with Scarlett Johansson. It’s about time. The actor’s livewire lost boy image is well established. From Mike Hodges’ re-imagining of the Brit gangster template, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, to the glam rock escapade Velvet Goldmine, his performance is never less than compelling, the dark jewel in a broken crown. Charmingly barmy and beautiful, the actor is sometimes so slippery you suspect that not even Jonathan really knows where Jonathan’s at.

Was it quite a girly environment on the Vanity Fair set? Mira’s got a strange almost hermaphrodite sexuality about her. When she’s with girls she’s very girly. With boys she’s very strident. I think she really enjoyed watching these men walk around in tight trousers, uniforms, high boots, cuffs. It was really sexy to her.

Do you enjoy playing with your sexual identity? Yeah, I s’pose I do really. Well I’ve got a very firm sexual identity because I know what I am, but then I’m comfortable with every other sexuality because of that.

You enjoy dressing up. I enjoy dressing up. I hate spending all my money on clothes. I could fit all my clothes in the world into a suitcase.

Mira Nair said you can switch on this George Osborne vanity and arrogance in the blink of an eye. What are you playing with when you do that? The idea of narcissism. I used to be a hell of a lot vainer when I was younger. I’d go to dinner and spend 40 minutes in the bathroom just adoring myself. No word of a lie. Now I’ve gone the other way. I have a shower, put some gunk in my hair and walk out. It’s not really up to me to have a perspective on how I look and whether I’m handsome or not. It’s up to other people. Sometimes I feel good about myself. Other times I feel rank.

So what’s it like watching yourself on film? Shite! I much prefer watching Johnny Depp. He’s so much more fascinating.

Do you feel quite settled in yourself? I have my days. I have other days when I’m an absolute gibbering mess. It comes and it goes, it really does. I don’t think anybody can say that they’re totally settled and sorted. Unless you’re sixty years old and you’ve bought the T-shirt. I just turned 27 in July, I can’t say I’m settled. But I have an idea of what I want.”

Even with no cameras around - and with a hangover to deal with - Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a great performer, as Vickie Maye found out.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers has seen better days. The eyes that (mostly female) interviewers fawn over are bloodshot. The chiselled cheekbones (that “enter a room before he does”, according to one Vogue writer) today merely serve to frame the dark, almost bruised-looking circles under his eyes. The hair hasn’t been washed, probably not even combed. The clothes -- jeans, a green T-shirt and a pair of socks -- look as though they were dug out of the wash basket , in the dark.

He’s supposed to resemble a sensual, androgynous, Calvin Klein model (yet another of the gushing descriptions with which he has been bestowed) but he doesn’t. Not today at least. Jonny, you see, is viciously hungover, courtesy of one too many jars in his native Cork the previous night.

“Jaysus Christ I was fucked. I didn’t take a drink til 12, but then from 12 on…” He groans, head in hands. There was a 4:45am wake-up call for a 7am flight to the capital, he continues, and here we are, in true rock-star style, one-and-a-half hours behind schedule. (He needed to catch up on some sleep, the PR apologetically explains. Bless.)

But his overworked liver isn’t the only problem. Rhys Meyers has other matters on his mind. The previous day, he learned that his ex-fiancee Cha Cha had gotten engaged. “Why is it that every girl I go out with gets married immediately?” he implores, listing a long line of ex-girlfriends, all of them actresses, who now, apparently, have rocks on their fingers. “I went out with Asia Argento, Toni (Collette), Rachel Leigh Cook, Estella Warren..” Later, in similar style, he gives an (unrequested) inventory of the great directors he has worked with.

For all the sass, the talk, the bravado and the devil-may-care attitude (comments like “if I had a thousand dicks I wouldn’t stick them in Britney” are a dime a dozen), Jonathan Rhys Meyers wreaks of insecurity. Maybe that’s why he feels the need to catalogue his conquests and achievements, to talk himself up, telling me, for example, that Oliver Stone -- regarded as one of the toughest directors in Hollywood -- “knew not to cross him” on the set of Alexander.

“One morning I picked up a piece of armour and threw it at him,” Rhys Meyers elaborates. “On my first day of shooting I had a horse accident and when we did the second battle scene he wanted me to be on a horse. I said I’d be more comfortable on the ground. He came up to me and gave me a bollocking and all that, but the next morning he came up to me and said, ‘You’re dead right.’ And I said, ‘Of course I’m fucking right.’

Later on he calls Stone a “fucking dickhead” for cutting his lines in Alexander by half. You have to hand it to Jonathan Rhys Meyers -- at least he’s honest. Ass-licking Hollywood pros always rhapsodise over their directors and their co-stars but Rhys Meyers, to his credit, simply tells it like it is. His anecdotes are peppered with (impressive) impressions of Oliver Stone, Colin Farrell, Val Kilmer, Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson. Even Mick Lally gets a mention.

Lally (yes, that Mick Lally; Miley from Glenroe) makes a fleeting appearance in Alexander and, according to Rhys Meyers, Oliver Stone couldn’t comprehend his thick, Irish brogue. Not one word of it. “He kept going up to Val Kilmer saying (Rhys Meyers hunches his shoulders, raises his arms to his ears and adopts a whiney, American Oliver Stone-like accent), ‘What the fuck is this guy saying?’ And Val is saying, ‘I don’t fucking know.’”

He may be hungover, but Rhys Meyers still gives a good performance. After a sluggish start, he’s animated, alive, flirty (holding my eye for a second or two longer than he should) -- and very funny. At one point, midway through our interview, he bolts from his seat in the lavish suite on the fourth floor of Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel. He strides into the adjoining bedroom -- he needs to get a coke, he shouts after me. The remnants of the three empty bottles he’s already put down are being used as an ashtray. Coke and cigarettes -- his hangover staples. He pops his head round the doorway. “It’s a bit like a council flat, isn’t it?” he says of the luxury suite. I tell him he obviously hasn’t been in many council flats lately. Not since he was a child anyway.

Rhys Meyers had a tumultuous background to say the least. Jonathan O’Keefe (Meyers is his mother’s maiden name) grew up in a council house in a rough area of Cork. His father left the family home when he was three, he was expelled from school aged 16, and went to live with his adopted family, the Crofts, at their farm in Buttervant,Co Cork. Their house is still home to him (second only to LA, he tells me). His mother lives in a house he owns in Glanmire in Cork but “she’s a nightmare” to live with. Rhys Meyers is noticeably reluctant to talk about his upbringing and discovery, but admits he haboured no ambitions to become an actor.

The story goes he was spotted in a local pool hall as a teenager by casting agents for The War of the Buttons. He didn’t get the part, but his big break came when Neil Jordan chose him to play the role of the assassin in Michael Collins a decade ago. He hasn’t stopped working since. Velvet Goldmine promised fame and fortune four years later, but despite his acclaimed performance, the film bombed. His role as football coach Joe in 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham, however, finally brought success and recognition. These days, he says, he can’t escape attention from fans, even at home in Cork, the city that was once his anonymous refuge.

“Oh Jaysus it’s a nightmare in London, New York and, to a different extent, here. Ireland’s become like that,” he says. “They know myself, Colin, Cillian (Murphy). That’s it. They don’t know Stuart Townsend as much. He lives in LA and goes out with a South African bird -- that’s about it.”

“I go playing pool in Buttervant and they’re like, ‘What are you doing here?’ “It’s the only place I can go and say, ‘Fuck off.’ (He puts his head in hands.) But it would be worse if they didn’t (approach me).”

He camps it up both on and off the screen, not that this deters his female devotees. “Because of doing Velvet Goldmine I was always seen as quite camp and quite homosexual,” he says. “Ewan (McGregor, his co-star) hated doing it, hated playing anyone gay. He’s really really insecure with his sexuality.”

He toys with, even encourages, rumours of his bisexuality. I ask him about a quote he made in the past: “Sometimes I speak to girls…and the question comes up, ‘Are you straight or gay?’…I give them a wry smile and a little wink.” So, what’s the reality? Rhys Meyers winks, gives me a smug, self-satisfied grin and changes the subject.

Straight or gay, Rhys Meyers has recently found love. He is currently in a five-month relationship with a “beautiful girl” (reportedly Reena Hammer whose father owns a spa at the top of Harrods).

If fame truly bothers him, he’s in serious trouble. With the release of Alexander today and period drama Vanity Fair alongside Reese Witherspoon next week, he’s about to become a lot more recognizable. And the work just keeps coming. Two days after our meeting he flew to New Orleans to play Elvis in a new movie. Meanwhile his summer was whiled away in London, playing the lead alongside Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen’s latest (and, as always, secret) movie, apparently the director’s best work since Annie Hall. Was Johannson an incredible actress to work with? Rhys Meyers hesitates. Yeah, he replies, reluctantly and unenthusiastically. Because she’s an ingenue, he concludes.

She used to play these tricks on Woody. He’s 70, so he goes to sleep on the set, so she used to put stickers on him saying ‘My name is Roger’ or Denis and he’d walk around all day with these stickers without even knowing. Rhys Meyers is in hysterics. The experience was beautiful, he says, compared to the Alexander shoot.

It was boring, he says of Alexander. He looks up, disheartened, explaining he had been vying for a bigger, meatier part, that of Hephaistion, Alexander’s lover and best friend. It went to Jared Leto, leaving him with the role of Cassander. For me, yeah, it was. I wasn’t doing enough. I knew that when I was starting it, that it wasn’t enough, but I did it to work with Oliver.

He wanted Jared Leto. I would have loved to have played him because I would have played him a hell of a lot more ambitious than Jared did but also I’d be much more possessive of Colin, more vicious.

Vanity Fair was beautiful in comparison, the total opposite to Alexander. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with Alexander, I just wasted a lot of time. I could have done a hell of a lot more. I should have turned it down and said, ‘Unless I’m Hephaistion, no way.’ I love Jared but he’s quite moony as Hephaistion. I don’t regret it but it’s not one of the highlights of my career.

Surely the battle scenes, drenched in graphic blood and gore, were a challenge to shoot?

They were and they weren’t. You have to be brave, you know. As for (pre-filming) boot camp, I fuckin’ hated it. Jaysus, waking up in the morning with hardly no food, sitting out there with a load of fucking actor arseholes.

That last comment excludes Colin Farrell. I learned things from Colin because he’s a very good actor. He gave his bollocks to it. He’s gorgeous, he really is.

We met when he was 19 and I was 17 (Farrell had two lines in The Disappearance of Finbar; Rhys Meyers had the lead role) and he was already a movie star. Everyone knew it. It wasn’t a presence; it was the way he looked. All the girls were wetting themselves and he was going out with the most beautiful girl in Dublin at the time.

When we meet, almost a month after Alexander’s US release, Rhys Meyers still hadn’t been to see it. “Am I even in it? I expected to be shite in it. I thought Oliver fuckin’ hated me, he shrugs. It was hammered, he says later of Alexander’s US release. I was in it enough to be noticed and not enough to be criticized.

But I’m kind of getting to that point where I just don’t care what people think of me. I only care what the people who love me think. I’ve done 31 films in eight years and I’ve worked with some great directors and I don’t care if somebody likes it or not. I’m not even doing it for myself -- it’s just I don’t give a shit.

The sign of success is when you’re happy with yourself, when you stroll into a room and just don’t care. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, it seems, hasn’t quite made it yet then. ##

Thank You to Vannessa for this transcript and picture. ^_^

It isn't my birthday	There are some sticks in there	I wouldn't call it an honour, would you?...	It'll just be ANOTHER BOOZE UP.	It isn't my birthday	It isn't my birthday
				playing Blind mans Buff with lulu
	fighting	fighting	Fighting	Fighting	being hurled away

Jonathan Rhys Meyers
In 1998 Jonathan Rhys Meyers exploded on to the screen playing an androgynous glam-rock star in Velvet Goldmine. Since then he has proved his versatility with a variety of eccentric characters in films such as Ride with the Devil, Titus Andronicus and Vanity Fair. He now commands leading roles; see him next opposite Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's untitled London project (it's actually called Match Point!- Hannah), and playing Elvis Presley in a biopic for CBS Television.
Favourite films: Lawrene of Arabia, The servant, Angel Heart
Defining Moment: 'the rape scene I did in I'll sleep when i'm dead'
Gratest Influence: 'Dark Bogarde and Peter O'Toole -They both have such a sence of elegance. And Richard Harris because his brilliance never reached its full potential.
Survival kit on set: 'Cigarettes, Water, Berocca.'

Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers gets all shook up playing the King in CBS’ four hour miniseries, Elvis. ELLE give Meyers a pop quiz on the pop legend.

Are you an Elvis fan?
I’ve become one. Like John Lennon said, before Elvis there was nothing. He basically invented rock n roll and sex as an industry. He brought it right to television screens. When you compare Perry Como and Elvis Presley, it’s like comparing Jay Leno with Johnny Depp.

Did you study the albums and movies to prepare?
I did my research. But I wanted to do and interpretation, not an impersonation. We’re only going up to the ’68 Special, so it’s all about young Elvis. I wouldn’t have done this if I had to go through the whole jumpsuit era, Young Elvis was sexy, new and vibrant. Old Elvis was basically shattered, broken and disillusioned.

How’s your Elvis voice?
You know every single guy in the world has an Elvis impression; it’s like having a dick! To get the voice, it’s really all about speaking with manners and grace.

Can you do the lip curl?
I can. The only problem is that I do it on the opposite side of my mouth.

Did he really do that a lot?
Not at the start, but then I think he figured out that was part of what turned people on. So he played it up.

Ready for some trivia?
Wait, let me find my Elvis encyclopedia.

No cheating.
Okay darlin’, I’ll play fair.

When was Elvis’ birthday?
January 10th. Or 11th

Or 8th. You were in the right week.
Right, I got the week. I actually arrived in America on his birthday, so I think I got confused with jet lag and all that.

What was Elvis’ first single and first feature film?
That’s All Right (Mama) and Love Me Tender.

Both right. What was Elvis afraid of?
Apart from rejection, poverty, and all those things? Umm [Thinks for a while] Being alone.

Wow. That’s probably true. I had flying, though.
No way! He had his own airplane called the Lisa Marie! Someone’s bullshitting you, Trust me, it’s being alone. – Leigh Belz

Elvis airs on CBS on Sunday May 8 at 9pm and continues Wednesday, May 11 at 8pm

Thanks to Karry for transcripting this interview :)

ELVIS LIVES -TV Times 30th Apr -6th May 2005

Pilgrims at Graceland must have been rubbing there eyes when they visited Elvis Presley's old residence earlier this year. The king himself appeared to be alive and well, striding round the lawns of his beloved Memphis home.

As it turned out, the apparition was actually Bend It Like Beckham actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The Dublin-born star was filming a major American mini-series about the life of the worlds greatest rock 'n' roller.

Despite his close resemblance to Elvis, Jonathan admits he was daunted by the prospects of playing the King. 'there is a challenge in playing one of Americ's biggest icons,' he says. 'Where does an Irish person get the temerity to play Elvis Presley? 'When I told people at home that I was going to play Elvis, first i got a giggle as if I was telling them a joke. Then when they found out I was serious, there was a look of horror!'

A documentary featuring Interviews with Elvis's former Wife Priscilla, his daughter, Lisa Marie, new pictures of Elvis and previously unseen fottage is to be shown on ITV1 soon. The Min-series is likely to be shown later in the year

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From The Heart -US TV Times 6th-12th May 2005 There probably isn't a more intimidating assignment for any actor than to portray one of the most scrutinized and well-documented legends in music history: Elvis Presley. And for 27-year-old Irishman Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the title role of a new two-part CBS miniseries entitled Elvis wasn't exactly an opportunity he jumped at. "It was just kind of stunning," Rhys Meyers recalls about being offered the role. There was a little bit of fear. Everybody knows Elvis. And I'm Irish; I'm not from America. That was my No. 1 hesitation.
"Then afterwards, I thought 'Well, you know if I'm going to be afraid of things in my life, then it's all going to be pointless. I have to take a risk.' So, I enjoyed the risk-taking. I thought, 'You know, why not play Elvis? It was great. Who gets to be king?'" Fortunately, Rhys Meyers rise to the challenge and sparkles in the role.

Filmed in Memphis, Tenn., and New Orleans, and produced with the co-operation of the Presley estate, Elvis treads a lot of familiar ground.
The miniseries zooms in on the golden years. It chronicles the story of Presley between the ages of 18 and 33, focusing first on his poor upbringing and his musical influences and then tracing his rise to international fame.
The production features some stellar performances from a strong backup cast, too. Among the pack: Camryn Manheim as Presley's mother, Gladys; Robert Patrick Patrick as his father, Vernon; Rose McGowan as famed Elvis co-star and lover Ann-Margaret; and Randy Quaid as Presley's crusty manager, Col. Tom Parker.

For Rhys Meyers, gearing up to play Elvis involved a lot of obvious basic preparation - listening to hours of music and studying a tremendous amount of film footage to get Presley's mannerisms down right.
But the re was much more to the entire process for the actor.
"In playing Elvis, I think it starts with the heart more than anything else," Rhys Meyers points out. "You've got to lover his story first. You've got to love his joy in what he used to do and his love for his family and the people that wee really close him."

As for Presley's humble roots, Rhys Meyers, who began his acting career when he was only 16, didn't have and trouble identifying with that, either.
"I was also form a very poor family, so I could understand the 'not having' and really striving to get 'things,'" he says. "When Elvis first started out, he wanted a Cadillac car - very simple things."
Still, there were some surprising aspects about Presley that Rhys Meyers uncovered during his work on the production.
"His humility was huge, even though he had a hug ego, too," Rhys Meyers says. "His humility with other people and his love for his fellow man were phenomenal. He hated anybody to be upset. He hated anybody to be left out, and I really like that about him.
"Elvis was a bit of a joker, a bit of a prankster, and was constantly trying to put people at ease, He was quite a nervous person himself, so he was always constantly moving. His mind was always running 10 steps ahead of him."

But, even though Elvis always appeared spontaneous in public appearances, Rhys Meyers that really wasn't he case at all.
"It was about 'uncontrollable control,'" the actor says, "Elvis never did anything without really thinking it through first, He made it [seem] a if it was natural. He made everything spontaneous, but it wasn't."
A prime example is the re-creation in Elvis of the notorious performance of the song Hound Dog on Milton Berle's TV show.
"It was very famous, because they said he was so 'lewd' and so 'sexual' in that performance," Rhys Meyers says. "But everything in that performance was rehearsed to a tee. But he made it seem so natural.
"That was part of Elvis' energy. He could bring 'spontaneity' to any situation."

A big thankyou goes to Karry for sending me the Newpaper article and for typing it up :-)
Please do not take this article without asking me (Hannah) first -e-mail link in bottom frame

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Return of the King -Canadian TV Guide 7-13 May

Forget the accent, the swagger, the dancing and even that incredible voice. For Jonathan Rhys Meyers, when it comes to playing Elvis "it starts with the heart. You have to love his story," the Irish actor says, rolling his R's deliciously.

Producers of Elvis, is a four-hour mini-series airing over two nights, had unprecedented access to archival footage, and Meyers even shot some scenes at Graceland, Elvis' legendary estate in Memphis. This is thanks to the recent sale of the majority of the Elvis Presley Estate to Robert Sillerman, a multi-media entrepreneur who also now owns 19 Entertainment (the Idol franchise). Not that any of these business dealings meant much to Meyers, who originally turned down the plum role down.
"It was fear," he says "I mean, I couldn't really get it through my head, they wanted me to play Elvis", He said.

When the producers couldn't find anyone else, they went back to Meyers and found him more receptive.
Those who know the actor from the hit Bend It Like Beckham know that Meyers is not a ringer for Elvis -certainly there are people who look more like the late idol -but somehow the Irishman nailed the Southern hero's signature moves and even his patterns of speech.

"Those [dance] scenes are very rehearsed, yes" he says, "but they were rehearsed!" Meyers says Presley's seemingly natural gyrations were actually carefully choreographed.

While Meyers had to work with the dance and dialogue coaches, other aspects of Elvis story were familiar to him. "When you're poor, you're poor," he says, pointing out that Elvis famously told his mom all he wanted was to buy her a house and a Cadillac. "I brought my mum a house with my first few paycheques, though I didn't get a car for quite some time," Meyers says with a laugh as he remembers his jalopy, tied together with string.

Speaking of Elvis' parents, his dad is played by Robert Patrick and Camryn Manheim makes an astounding transformation into his mom Gladys, perhaps the most important woman in Elvis' life.

The mini-series covers the early parts of the Presley's life, ending with the famous 1968 comeback special. For Meyers, it's the right place to stop.
"Everyone knows the Vegas Elvis." Meyers says he wouldn't even be interested in playing Elvis in those later years. It's not the real Elvis.
He was unhappy, he wasn't himself."

As a result, the mini-series features the incredible music that first influenced Presley, as well as some of his most famous performances. Rose McGrowan (Charmed) plays Ann-Margret, his Viva Las Vegas co-star (with whom he had an affair), while unknown actress Antonia Bernath takes the role of his child-bride, Priscilla Beaulieu. While the Elvis Presley Estate co-operated with the producers, neither Lisa Marie nor Priscilla will comment on it, and Meyers says he never had any contact with the Presley family beyond the use of their archives.

While Meyers says he was aware of Presley's legacy before this role came to him, he learned a lot about the man while filming his early life. What surprised him the most was Elvis' humility.
"His love for his fellow man, and his joy in what he did so well. I don't mean to say he didn't have an ego. He did and it could spark at any time, but he also had humility".

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40-Love Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

He's lanky and looks dangerous, with his ice-blue eyes and wax-white complexion.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who plays an Irish tennis pro flirting with the British upper crust in Woody Allen's dark new drama, "Match Point" (Dec. 28 US, 6th January 2005 UK), greets a visitor at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles wearing a layered grunge look: beat-up leather jacket over hooded sweatshirt over T-shirt and ripped bell-bottom jeans.
His cowboy boots are hand-tooled and look as if they cost a fortune. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, 28, has starred in period films (Alexander and Vanity Fair) and the CBS mini-series Elvis as Elvis himself. He's lived at the Chateau Marmont Hotel for the past three months filming Mission: Impossible 3 with Tom Cruise. His character is still a myestery but based on pictures, photographer/reporter. JRM's next lead role is in Nicolas Roeg's kinky-sounding Adina (Plotline :: A philosophical horror film about a new race of immortals who depend on sex to maintain their youth. It explores the idea that there is no linear time -- no yesterday, today or tomorrow.
Everything that ever has happened or ever will happen is happening right now - simultaneously)

Pictures and Article taken from: Just Jared

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"The Tinker Man" from Issue 2 of UK "Wonderland magazine" December 05-Jan 06 Issue Heralded as one of Britain's brightest young actors, Jonathan Rhys Meyers already has an impressive CV that should have seen him make the big time long ago. Somehow it has eluded him. Until now, reckons Nicholas Barber

The summer before last, Jonathan Rhys Meyers was slaving away on Woody Allen's latest film, Match Point, a job that required him to spend a fair amount of time rubbing baby oil into Scarlet Johanssen's back. "It's all in a day's work, really," says the actor who put his all into the scene. "Just like changing a lightbulb. I hurt my hand the day before, so I had to had to make sure I hid my swollen hand - a little bit of insider info for you. It does look really sexy, though. I remember seeing the film at Cannes, sitting next to Scarlett, and my girlfriend was sitting in the row behind. When it got to that scene, she was kicking the back of my chair. I turned round and she said, `I'll fucking kill you!"'

This is not the kind of juicy story I was expecting from Rhys Meyers. Maybe I hadn't quite grasped the concept of acting - the whole pretending-to-be-someone-you're-not idea - but I assumed he'd be a little more like the character he plays in Match Point. The film is an operatic update of The Talented Mr Ripley, The Age Of Innocence and Allen's own Crimes an Misdemeanours, and it stars Rhys Meyers as an` Irish tennis pro ("Which would never happen, by the way," he notes. "I have never heard of an' Irish tennis player.") who tiptoes up the social ladder to the heights of the English aristocracy, but risks it all by having an affair with his brother-in-law's American girlfriend - the aforementioned Ms Johanssen. Throughout the film he radiates a forbidding frostiness. With his upper lip curled into a permanent sneer and his icy eyes veiled by feminine lashes, he could be an alien being who's here to stud an inferior race. And it stands to reason that someone who looks as if he's just wandered off Michelangelo's sketchpad must be similarly cold-blooded in real life.

He’s not like that at all. Even though he is on the phone from the Chateau Marmont in Los - Angeles. Rhys Meyers chinwags as freely as if race to face in a bar. He's as unguardedly mouthv as his mate Colin Farrell, with dash of Graham Norton's primly camp bitchiness thrown in, volunteering a sensational anecdote about a famous acquaintance at the drop of a hat, usually employing several accents and several more swear words, and rounding it off by crooning an Elvis number or doing an impression of some Irish country folk having a knees up. It doesn't take long to be reminded that this Dublin-born z8-year-old was expelled from school at 15 for truancy and did his first audition in a pool hall in Cork without ever having been to drama school.

"God no!" he splutters, at the mention of formal training. "Spend fucking two years trying to be a tiger? `Be the tiger! Rarrr!' Fuck that! I know some great actors out there who will just never be movie stars, even though they're very handsome and very talented. On film, it's something you are or you're not. It's not something you can acquire or learn at drama school."

Flashback to 1998, and you'd guess that a movie star was something Rhys Meyers definitely was. He was a 19-year-old unknown when he glittered alongside Ewan McGregor as a Bowie clone in Velvet Goldmine. And soon afterwards he was cast as Steerpike in the BBC's prestigious Mervyn Peake adaptation, Gormenghast. A bucketful of leading roles were his for the taking.

It didn't quite pan out like that. Rhys Meyers has worked with big-name directors ever since, appearing in Ang Lee's Ride With The Devil in 1999, Mike Hodges I'll Sleep When I'm Dead in 2003 and Oliver Stone's Alexander last year. His celebrated cheekbones have also popped up in several frothy mainstream hits, notably Bend It Like Beckham and Vanity Fair. But he's always lurked somewhere in the supporting cast, with nothing like the profile he had when Velvet Goldmine came out. Now, at last, his name is being penciled onto the A-list, and this time he feels like he's earnt it.

"If I'd been offered million dollar roles and become a superstar at the age of 22, I probably wouldn't have a career by now," he says. "But I've been doing this for almost 10 years. I've done my streetwalking, cap in hand for auditions. I've done that. Overnight success takes longer than one night, and a lot of it has been drudgery. I've had great times, too.

Incredible experiences. But I wish I'd taken a photograph of every fucking car park I've ever lived in, because I've lived in car parks all over the world, from Swansea to Singapore. That's all you see as an actor: car parks and trailers. I've got more affinity with an itinerant tinker than a big star, you know what I mean?"

All his car park time paid off three times over in 2005. In Match Point he has a role so central that, while most actors in Allen films are only allowed to read the scenes they're in, Rhys Meyers' ubiquity meant that he was one of the few to have the whole script. "People would come up to me on the set and whisper, `What's the film about?' And I'd say, `I’m not telling you. Just play your fucking part. And go home."'

No male actor, bar Woody himself, has ever had such a major part in one of his films, but despite spending "the first two weeks concentrating on not getting fired", Rhys Meyers found his experience of an Allen set to be a relaxing one. "I think he's one of the most exceptional film directors," he says, "but I wasn't a Woody Allen freak, so that made it easier to work with him. I wasn't idolising him, even though there was this iconic figure on the set every day. He was just the old guy eating a muffin and telling me what to do."

Also in 2005, Rhys Meyers received an Emmy nomination for his starring role in a mini-series about Elvis Presley - the reward for a schedule of 16-plus-hour days during a Louisiana winter. "Hard fucking work, that," he says. "I remember one scene that we started shooting at two o'clock in the afternoon and I didn't walk off that set till twenty past seven in the morning. That's a long fucking day. And the last shot I did was a close-up. They always do that. [American showbiz drawl] `Yes! It's 6.15 in the morning! Let's get Jonny's close-up!' I was like, `Fuck off! Close-ups are eight in the evening, just before dinner!"

If an Emmy nomination and a Woody Allen film on the festival circuit weren't enough, this has also been the year of his first absolutely certain, copper-bottomed blockbuster smash. As we speak, he's shooting Mission: Impossible 3. And while he'll be executed on sight, probably, if he reveals anything about his role, he doesn't mind sharing his wide-eyed appreciation of `the Tom Cruise machine'.

"You're talking about arguably the most successful, most famous and probably the richest actor of all time," he gushes. "So it's quite extraordinary to see the Tom Cruise machine pushing forward. It's a finely. finely tuned machine. People see the image of Tom in the newspapers - the millions of dollars, the beautiful girlfriend. But what's extraordinary is actually seeing Tom at work, seeing how much he loves life. He doesn't drink or smoke cigarettes - nothing will interfere with his ability to live life."

When Neil Jordan cast Rhys Meyers in Michael Collins in 1996, he wrote that he'd found an actor "who looks like a young Tom Cruise", so it's perhaps inevitable that Rhys Meyers sees his co-star as something of a role model. What in particular has he learnt from his lookalike?

"It's his production savvy," he says. "He's been on so many film sets, and been in so many big movies. And maybe I've learnt about courage from Tom, as well. He does all of his own stunts, so I'm learning how to block out any fear - because, essentially, the more stunts you can do, the more screen time you have. I'm considering taking a stunt course after this. I tried one stunt in Mission: Impossible 3 where I'm supposed to be climbing up these rafters, 50 feet up, and I just couldn't do it. Because not only did I have to climb up the rafters, I had to do it looking as if I was walking down the street with an ice cream in my hand. You've got to make it look comfortable. I can't be up there looking as if I’m about to vomit."

Tom Cruise aside, he has another role model in mind. "Eventually I'd love the Daniel Day-Lewis scenario," he says. "Get to the point where you're getting four or five million a film, then just do one film every five years, and make sure it's brilliant and you get nominated for an Oscar. And then go away to the Irish countryside in between times and make shoes. That's the plan for me."

Nicholas Barber is film critic for the Independent On Sunday
Photography: Matthias Vriens
Magazine Website: Wonderland Magazine

A big thankyou to Gail at Mystic Bliss for scanning and typing up the interview.

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Updated December 2005:
More picture this time from Just Jared.com

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"6 Degrees of Seperation Jonathan Rhys Meyers -Daily Mail Weekend Magazine 17th-24th December 2005 (Thursday 22nd December)

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Bend It Like Beckham, bbc1, 9pm)
Has been filming his role as the villain in next year's big-budget sequel Mission: Impossible III with star
TOM CRUISE
Who's set to become a natural father for the first time with fiancée and new Scientology convert
KATIE HOLMES
Who was with the Muppets In Space in 1999 as was
ANDIE MACDOWELL
Who spent Groundhog Day in 1993 with
BILL MURRAY
Whose co-star in 2003's Lost In Translation
SCARLETT JOHANSSONN
Can soon be seen in Woody Allen's new, London set-romantic drama, Match Point, starring opposite
JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS

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Jonathan Rhys-Meyers on BBC1 Breakfast 19th December 2005

I videoed this programme and my brother David, did the transcription of Jonathan's interview at BBC Breakfast:

Sian: Jonathan is here. Hello Jonathan.

JRM: Good Morning.

Sian: You're a tennis coach in the film aren't you?

JRM: An ex-professional tennis player, who ends up coaching at Queens club.

Sian: Tell us a little bit about the plot. Obviously, you and Scarlett Johannson getting on very well, after you teach her the finer points of ping-pong.

JRM: For a moment we do get on very, very well. I play this ex-professional tennis player, teaching at Queens club. Starts teaching a young man called Tom Hewitt. Ingratiates himself in Tom Hewitt's family, who's, you know, very, very wealthy family. Marries the daughter, played by Emily Mortimer, wonderful performance, and then meets Tom's fiance, Nola Rice, played by Scarlett Johannson.

Sian: And nicks her.

JRM: Well, not necessarily. He marries Cloe and embarks on an affair with Nola Rice.

Bill: And goes for a long walk in the rain, catches up, well who knows what happens next.

Sian: We do, we've seen it!

Bill: It's a love story and a drama and one or two other things as well, isn't it? It's complicated. It's not a comedy.

JRM: It's certainly not a comedy, no. I quite like the fact that it wasn't a comedy. I don't think I would have been in it if it was a comedy; I'm not a comedian.

Bill: Really?

JRM: When I got the script I realised that it must be slightly darker.

Bill: Yes.

Sian: What's it like working – well, I was going to say working with Scarlet Johannson, doesn't look like work to me actually!

JRM: Really, no really it was murder.

Bill: Well, you got very wet, and presumably you had to do lots of takes to kiss Scarlet Johannson, and lots of wet shirts.

JRM: Quite a few wet shirts. Actually, no I don't think so, I think I kept the same one on, I think I wanted to stay in the moment.

Sian: Stay in the moment!

JRM: Wouldn't you?!

Sian: Yup! When you got the script from Woody – I mean, to be asked to be in a Woody Allen film what an incredibly privilege. What were your first thoughts?

JRM: Well of course, the first thought every actor has, when you get the phone call from Woody Allen, that it must be a mistake. But then I went and met Woody. He was very, very humble, very very shy man. He said he was making a film in London, he didn't do much rehearsal, and let's work. He gave me the script, and I say yes to the film. Of course I'm going to say yes to working with Woody Allen any time. But I didn't realise what the film was about; I knew that it wasn't a comedy. So I took the script, and I opened it, and I thought to myself: if I have 4/5 good scenes, in a Woody Allen film, that's as much as any actor can hope for. And it ended up I had 4/5 scenes in the film that I wasn't in!

Sian: Yes, exactly.

Bill: And you were in with great actors. Brian Cox, James Nesbit, and you mentioned Emily Mortimer.

JRM: Emily Mortimer, Matthew Good – he gives an outstanding performance, Scarlett Johannson, who's just like a super-star. Penelope Wilton. It was wonderful, just fantastic. And because of Woody Allen's stature, because of the legend that comes with Woody Allen, he gets incredible actors to come in and do these small parts. But of course they don't know what the film is about. So James Nesbit kept asking what was it about, and I sort of smirkingly wouldn't tell him! So he didn't actually know what the film was about until last night, until he went to see the film. And I think, because of Woody, you bring your best performance, regardless of what you're doing. I think that's why the perfomances in this film is getting so much recognition.

Sian: You're doing so much at the moment. You're in Elvis, which comes out here -

Bill: You ARE Elvis!

JRM: Yeah, I play Elvis Presley, yeah.

Sian: Nominated for a Golden Globe, for best actor. That's fantastic.

Bill: How's your Mississippi accent?

JRM: It was fine. I think I have ditched it.

Sian: So you just have it for the role, and then get rid of it?

JRM: I did my best to get rid of it, because I moved from Elvis straight onto Mission:Impossible.

Bill: I'm amazed you found the time to stop by!

JRM: Well, you know, very nice invitation, I thought I'd come. Nice tea!

Sian: Was it? Good. Well I'm glad you have nice tea – we have horrible tea! Thank you so much for being with us.

JRM: It's been my pleasure.

Please do not take this transcript and pictures without asking me first please (e-mail link in bottom frame)

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