INTERVIEW
It didn’t take much Method acting for Jonathan Rhys-Meyers to show awe at the lifestyles of England’s super-rich for the new Woody Allen movie “Match Point.”
Having spent time in an orphanage in Ireland and getting kicked out of high school, Rhys-Meyers grew up in a world more paper plates than silver spoons. Getting tapped by Allen to play a working-class tennis teacher with a scrappy past was a return to roots.
So when “Match Point” luxuriates in a genteel country house outside of London, lined with leather-bound books and surrounded by manicured gardens, the look of awe on Rhys-Meyers’ face is perfectly natural.
“I thought, this house is bigger than my whole postal code back in Ireland!” said Rhys-Meyers, in a telephone interview from London. “In the space of one huge drawing room, we would have 20 families living. With parking!”
That unreadable look of wonder on Rhys-Meyers’ face is crucial to all of “Match Point,” opening in Denver next Friday and hailed as a return to top dramatic form for Allen. Rhys-Meyers, 28, plays Chris, who meets the son of a wealthy family while giving tennis lessons, then starts dating the daughter and working his way up the business ladder through nepotism.
It’s never quite clear whether Chris has attached himself to the family out of love or unbridled ambition. Things grow murkier as Chris betrays the wealthy daughter (Emily Mortimer) in a torrid affair with another ambitious outsider, played by Scarlett Johansson.
“You don’t know Chris’ past, and you don’t know his future,” said Rhys-Meyers. “It does make him a cipher. Woody asked me to think about it; do you think he’s purely evil, or is he just a normal guy who makes awful choices?”
Rhys-Meyers clearly thinks Chris is the latter, a victim of moneylust and sexual fervor as much as he is a perpetrator of ruin. Good intentions, filtered through Rhys-Meyers’ boyish good looks, allow the audience to sympathize with a character who jumps off the cliff of civility.
Rhys-Meyers could sell the part of Chris because he believes in his heart that the character loves his wife, he said. It’s only when he looks at the bombshell that is Scarlett Johansson’s Nola that “everything goes out the window,” Rhys-Meyers said with a laugh.
No need for fakery there, either. Another key to “Match Point” is for Nola to have a face and body that men would do stupid things to conquer. Launching the third of his laudable Woody Allen imitations, Rhys-Meyers recalled a conversation between shots where the writer-comedian praised Johansson for her knee-weakening effect on men.
“You’re like a cartoon character. You’re like Jessica Rabbit,” Rhys-Meyers recalled Allen saying.
“That’s the hard part of my job,” Rhys-Meyers said. “Emily Mortimer on the one hand, and she’s like an elegant rose, beautiful and classy. And then Scarlett on the other. Yes, I’ve got big problems.”
The biographical legend on Rhys-Meyers is that he was discovered by a talent scout while hanging out at his usual Irish pool hall. He had small and obscure parts for years, including an assassin in “Michael Collins” (1996); he sang his own material for the glam-rock tribute “Velvet Goldmine” (1998).
His biggest break came as a soccer coach in the surprise international hit “Bend It Like Beckham” in 2003. That helped bring roles in “Vanity Fair” and “Alexander” in 2004. Last year he played Elvis on TV.
Even in his difficult childhood, Rhys-Meyers said, he dreamed of being an actor along the lines of Peter O’Toole in “Lawrence of Arabia.” Little did he know, he said, that “it’s a very tough world. No one can tell you why you don’t get work. ‘Don’t you get it? Because I didn’t get cast, that’s why!’ To other people, an out-of-work actor is just lazy.”
The nod for “Match Point” wasn’t exactly a casting call, but a confirmation notice, Rhys- Meyers said. He was told to “put something on tape for Woody.” A meeting soon followed, at which the American director said the leading role of Chris was his as long as he could “respect the script.”
On set, Allen doesn’t hold acting seminars or offer extensive advice. “He wouldn’t cast an actor who he had to sit down with for three hours and walk through the role. He’s very trusting,” Rhys-Meyers said. Rhys-Meyers was already a big fan of Allen comedies like “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall,” but he had never seen the darker, much-praised dramas such as “Crimes & Misdemeanors,” whose plot closely resembles “Match Point.” Once he won the part, Rhys-Meyers made sure he saw no more Woody Allen movies.
“I loved Woody Allen, but I didn’t iconize him, because I found if I did, I couldn’t work with him. If I’d gone off to watch ‘Crimes & Misdemeanors’ or ‘Sleepers,’ I’d have been too flustered. I completely ignored the fact this is the great Woody Allen,” he said.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
