Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Page 3

C: You’ve been linked to several beautiful co-stars. Three months on a set with private trailers seems tailor-made for affairs. How difficult is it to not have on-set romance?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Not difficult at all. If you’re playing a part where two people are lovers, once you have sex the chemistry is gone. That energy, the anticipation, the desire, the want, it disappears. So don’t have sex with your co-star. If you do, wait until you finish your film.

C: I’ve read everywhere that you grew up in poverty. What did poverty look like in County Cork, Ireland in the ’80s?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: In Ireland in the ’80s, nobody had money. So when I said I grew up without money, [the media] wrote “grew up in poverty.” They try to paint the most Dostoyevskian picture possible—grew up in abject poverty, scraped himself up out of the gutter, dragging himself… It’s all fantasy. I never stood in a line for bread.

C: You mentioned the importance of your body as an actor. It’s your tool. In some sense it belongs to the people who pay you money to sell movie tickets and cable subscriptions. I was wondering how that dynamic might affect your drinking problems—
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Don’t dance around the question. Just ask it.

C: Is abusing alcohol or drugs a way to reclaim control over your own body?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers:  Certainly, absolutely 100 percent. And once people stop things like drinking they start focusing on something else. You have to fill the void. Why not fill the void with bettering yourself? Because you’re not going to the pub, and you’re not drinking with your mates, you’re going to the gym. It’s my way of “drinking.”

C: How difficult is it to stick to sobriety?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: I’m 30 years old and Irish and I’m shooting in Dublin. Not drinking is difficult. But it’s difficult anywhere. If you’re in the middle of the Gobi Desert, if you want a drink you’ll find one. It’s just a life choice.

C: Does being in the entertainment industry make it even more difficult?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: It’s a human thing, not an industry thing. Of course, when you have a lot more money and your ego is pumped, you sometimes can think that you’re invincible. Maybe there’s that element in the entertainment industry.

C: How conscious was the decision to bulk up and distance yourself from the frail androgynous typecasting?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Yeah, I wanted to change as an actor. There is a time for being a pretty, thin, 19-year-old boy. It’s about how you get parts at that time. It’s very difficult to cast 19 to 24, because you’re not quite a kid and you’re not really a man yet. You haven’t had life’s experiences.

C: Does it help in the quest to become a big Hollywood leading man?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Of course. There’s very few big Hollywood leading men who don’t go to the gym. And for now, I want to know what it’s like to be the leading man. It’s good fun. I like the responsibility.

C: Do you actually enjoy working out?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: I’m one of those terrible people who actually really enjoys it. It allows for your mind to switch off as well and you’re just concentrating on your body. Also, vanity has a lot to do with it as well, because it’s a vain thing.

C: You’re not the standard obese Henry VIII. What do you feel being a young, fit king has brought to this classic role?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers:  It opened him up to different generations who might start getting interested in characters of that time. But once they flip through the history pages they’ll see what he actually looked like. I mean, as a young man he was very thin, because if you did that much hunting and fucking, you’d be fit too. He didn’t cut as trim a figure by the time he died. He was probably 300 lbs. of pure fat and ulcerated leg.

C: Young women looking through textbooks expecting to see a young hot guy are going to be very disappointed.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Tragically disappointed.

Photographs by:  Matt Doyle
Styling by: Kelly McCabe

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