When I talk to Matthew Rhys he’s on the set of Brothers
and Sisters. The hit US TV drama about a dysfunctional American family in which
he stars as Kevin Walker a 35-year-old gay lawyer. They're right in the middle
of shooting series two and you can already watch the results on E4 on Wednesday
nights. The show reads like a who’s who of American TV dramatis personae:
Calista Flockhart, Rob Lowe, Rachel Griffiths.
“
I'm just waving at Sally Field now!” says Matthew when I ask him how
it's all going. “It’s all the clichés – we have a
great cast, a great writing team - so the work is good. It's almost everything
you’d want, everything you'd hope for really.”
It can’t be that easy playing a gay guy seeing as he’s straight
though? “It was never an issue for me,” he says. “I’ve
played gay characters before, but what I loved about Kevin was that he’s
a character who had no whiff of gay cliché; not driven by his sexuality
or defined by it. They wanted to make him a normal person who just happens
to be gay. So there’s no real issue about playing him.”
“
The only difference is I kiss men,” he laughs. The consummate professional
- he takes that in his stride too. “The first job when I had to do it
I was 21 and I had to do quite a full-on love scene with another man onstage.
We were both naked as well so that's probably about as tough as it could get!
Everything since has been really easy.”
In his latest venture on the big screen though, Matthew has been kissing women.
Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller to be precise. (Tough job eh?) He stars as
Dylan Thomas in much-awaited movie The Edge Of Love which was filmed on location
in Wales last summer and directed by award-winning director John Maybury. Playing
the part of Wales’ greatest poet was a dream come true. “It was
the part you would kill to play,” he agrees. “But also one you
absolutely feared. I grew up from an early age very much aware of Thomas. I
remember seeing a production of Under Milkwood and studying him at school.
You know we have great literary figures in Wales but he is by far the most
accessible and iconic, so it was a huge responsibility.”
In the film, Thomas is married to his long term lover and soul mate Caitlin,
played by Sienna Miller. But being a destructive, drunken genius, he can’t
help flirting with other women. The story centres on Thomas’ conflicting
desires for his wife and his childhood sweetheart Vera (played by Kiera Knightley)
and the strangely deep friendship that Vera and Caitlin strike up despite competing
for the affections of the same man.
A starring role as the bloke in a love triangle with Keira Knightly and Sienna
Miller. Did Matthew err, enjoy it? “The trickiest part was turning up
and just looking at them all day. That's what became a chore!” he laughs. “The
four of us got on really well. Those two are up for a laugh, which is always
great. They’re consummate professionals but both of them bring a great
sense of fun to the set, which is what you want.”
So was he able to make up his mind? I ask if he prefers blonds (Sienna) or
brunettes (Keira). There's a gaffaw of laughter down the line from LA. “I
have no preference,” he says.
The central relationships in the film are, unsurprisingly, complex and fragile. “Dylan
and Caitlin’s relationship breaks my heart,” explains Matthew. “They
loved each other so intensely and they hurt each other so intensely… they
would be tit-for-tat with each other in their infidelities because it hurt
them so much. One of the most tragic things I think is that when Dylan died
Caitlin got on with her life and moved to Italy and remarried. But on her death,
in her Will it specified that she should be buried next to Dylan. That for
me just breaks my heart. Tragic.”
All quite intense stuff, but the girls knew just the thing for unwinding at
the end of a hard day’s filming. “They brought an exceptionally
fine selection of good wines to set,” says Matthew. “I mean they’re
end of the day drinkers… They’re not ploughing into bottles of
wine at lunchtime, but at the end of the day when they called ‘wrap’ we
enjoyed a good glass of vino. I felt indulged and spoilt.”
The film's defining moments take place in Wales and they’re gripping
stuff. Much of the action was shot in New Quay and Lampeter often in the exact
location where actual events took place. Matthew was delighted to come back
to Cymru. “As much as I was nervous about playing Thomas,” he says, “to
go to a beautiful part of West Wales in early summer to play Dylan Thomas with
such a great group of people… I had the time of my life.”
Presumably he misses Wales, now he’s based full time in LA? “Oh
yes. People, food, places, all of that,” he explains. “It just
catches you at the oddest moments. You just think ‘God, I would love
a bag of chips from Top Gun in Whitchurch’ or ‘I’d just love
a pint in the Fishguard Arms’. I'm very lucky that there’s a good
group of Welshpats out here, but I do miss Welsh and Welsh humour – it’s
very unique. And simple things. LA is very dry so I miss the greenness. I miss
the actual landscape. I miss rain. When it rains here I love it. It just reminds
me so much of home.”
The Welshpats in LA also follow Welsh sport big time. Matthew and best mate,
fellow Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, got up at the crack of dawn at the weekend
to watch the Welsh rugby team get beaten by South Africa. “Glad I got
up at 5am to watch the Springboks give us a lesson in rugby. That was great!” he
deadpans. “By the end we were just laughing. It's classic Wales. We win
the Slam with such conviction… then we say ‘OK, let’s see
what’ll happen in South Africa’ and it’s like ‘Of course,
they are rather good! Why would we think we could beat them?’ They are
machines. They are so physical. Maybe it’s in the water down there – they
are huge."
They also follow Joe Calzaghe’s exploits. “I’ve been a Calzaghe
fan from the day he knocked down Eubank,” says Matthew. “When the
fight with Hopkins came up Ioan and I launched this campaign to get ringside
seats. It was relentless. And we got them.” But that wasn't the end of
the story. “They said 'We've got good news and bad news. We’ve
got you the ringside seats… but you're sitting next to Hopkins’ family.’” He
laughs. “My god they were tough-looking people. Ioan has a more level
head on him. When Hopkins was showboating, Ioan could feel me getting angry.
He was like, ‘Keep calm. Don’t say anything!’ But then Hopkins
was pretending Joe hit him with a low shot in the nuts. I couldn't hold back. “Why
don't you f**king grow a pair first!” I shouted. Then I was like… ‘Oh
god. Now I’m going to die.’”
It might have been a good idea to keep his anger in check a bit more at the
big fight, but right now he actually needs to get nasty. He’s about to
shoot his next scene on Brothers and Sisters. “I’m about to have
an argument with my boyfriend,” he explains. Here he is chatting away
full of good humour, but when he hangs up on me he has to turn into a ranting
boyfriend. How will he do that? “There are lots of little things you
learn over the years and in college,” he explains. “You wind yourself
up by cursing and stuff and thinking of things that wind you up. After a few
years you have quick little triggers. It becomes second nature.”
So what is his trigger, I wonder. "Funnily enough - and I can only say
this to your publication - sometimes if I’m not getting angry enough
I’ll sing God Save The Queen. That always gets me going!"
The Edge of Love starring Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley and
Cillian Murphy is in cinemas now. Find out more at www.edgeoflove.co.uk
Living on the edge
Welsh actor of the moment Matthew Rhys talks to Jeremy Head about playing Dylan Thomas in new movie The Edge of Love… (and the time he nearly got his lights punched out)