Jonathan Rhys Meyers on Double Dating: Rhys Meyers’ character in “Match Point” goes on double dates but in real life, Rhys Meyers says that would never happen. “No. I wouldn’t go on a double date with anyone. I find it the most tedious, boring, awful, torturous situations - like Chinese water torture.”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers on Working with Actresses His Own Age: Rhys Meyers said age doesn’t matter. “I once did a scene with a 9-year-old who was the best f***ing actor I’ve ever met in my whole entire life, a f***ing genius, and he blew me off the screen. Shirley Temple was a better actress at four years old than a lot of women acting at her time. I don’t think it has anything to do with age. Natalie Wood or Natalie Portman or Leonardo [DiCaprio]; I mean, mind-blowing performances.
It’s what the person has in them rather than how old they are. But it’s easy to work with people who are very talented and Scarlett [Johansson] is very, very talented. …I [worked opposite] an actor who couldn’t f***ing act at all and that was really frustrating, very frustrating. Eight takes later, the guy couldn’t hit his mark and I got frustrated. I shouldn’t have but I did. I think I went out and punched the side of a trailer a couple times just to calm myself down. And I’m sure I’ve maddened people. Tom Wilkinson once called me mad. I think he found me very frustrating.”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Analyzes His Character: Chris (Rhys Meyers) marries Chloe (Emily Mortimer) but lusts after Nola (Scarlett Johansson) in “Match Point.” Nola tells Chris the reason he can’t get his wife pregnant is because he doesn’t love her. Rhys Meyers believes that comment doesn’t accurately describe his character’s relationship with Mortimer’s. “I think you have to look at that from the perception of a slightly desperate character that Nola becomes during the course of the affair. There’s a slight sense of clutching at straws. Chris is always stalling and so there’s desperation in that also. You’ve got to think that she is the other woman. When she said, ‘You know the reason that you can’t get your f***ing wife pregnant is because you don’t f***ing love her. With me it’s love.’ That’s a very hurt woman. It’s sort of a way of speaking to somebody just trying to get through to them.”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a Gym Rat: He plays a tennis pro in “Match Point” and in real life, Rhys Meyers is athletic. “I’ve become a gym freak over the last year. I have been quite physical. I wanted to change my physicality as I got older to become less of a boy. I’m 28 years old now and I look a bit younger than my age. To get the roles that I want to get, the best roles for actors don’t really come until they’re 31-32, you’ve got to be a man before you play a man. So I thought in changing my physicality maybe would open a few more doors.”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Next Project: “Mission Impossible 3:” Rhys Meyers isn’t allowed to talk about the upcoming Tom Cruise movie, “Mission Impossible 3.” He can’t even confirm or deny if his character is a bad guy. But asked about working on the action scenes, Rhys Meyers really opened up and provided a wealth of information.
“Most of the action stuff is left up to Tom because he’s bloody good at it. He’s probably one of the best stuntmen in the world, when you think about it. It definitely opened my eyes because my next film I have a lot of action.
I realized while I made ‘Alexander’ that if you’re able to do your stunts, there’s 25% more screen time than if you let a stuntman do it. It means an awful lot in the job to be able to do that. If you can’t do stunts, you do cut down the screen time of what you do. This is why every stunt that Tom Cruise is involved in, it’s Tom Cruise doing it. There are no stuntmen.
He’s probably the best in the world at what he does. He’s done things that I think are incredible, especially one thing while we were doing ‘Mission Impossible.’ He rolls off the Vatican wall, which is 75 feet in height. And he comes down face first with a wire on and stops two inches off the deck. We were all, because it was a vast production, we had a few different crews. We were just about to turn over when we heard this. The first AD and everybody thought he’d hit the floor and bounced back up. Of course he keeps saying, he’s like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ And everyone’s going over, ‘Are you okay, Tom?’ He’s like, ‘That was f***ing cool!’
I said to him afterwards, he was talking about the pendulum shot that he was going to do. ‘That was so f***ing cool.’ And I’m like, ‘Cool? I tell you what cool is for me: a John Wayne triple bill on TV. Swinging like Edgar Allen Poe’s pit and the pendulum over a tank of sharks or whatever it may be on that day is not cool to me. It’s veritable madness.’ But he’s very good at it. It’s because he works so hard in his life. He breaks free in adrenaline and he allows himself to be put into this situation and tests of mettle. It’s very admirable. I’m not sure it’s a quality I share, but I admire it in people."
