Irish Charm wins Hears and Roles: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Posted by Administrator on May 3rd, 2006
“Am I a sex symbol?” young Irish actor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers asked in the March edition of Australian OK! Magazine. “You don’t live with me so you don’t know!”
The dark-haired, blue-eyed actor with the pointed chin and trademark pout has certainly set women’s hearts aflame everywhere, whatever he says! But he is not just relying on his good looks to get ahead. His performances, especially in his two latest movies, “Match Point” and “Elvis” have impressed critics and audiences alike.
28 years old, Meyers was born on July 27, 1977, in Dublin with a heart condition and baptized quickly because his family thought that he might not survive. After months in hospital, he struggled through only to face a tough childhood.
His mother left when he was only 3, leaving his father to raise Jonathan and his three younger brothers, Jamie, Alan and Paul. He didn’t do well at school and was expelled at the age of 16. From then on he hung around pool halls where, surprisingly, he was discovered by Hubbard Casting. Meyers began his career with a Knorr soup commercial but soon obtained roles in films, including “Michael Collins” in which he played a tough young assassin, “The Killer Tongue“, “Finbar” and “Samson and Delilah”.
His big break came at the age of 19 when he played the fictional glam rocker, Brian Slade in “The Velvet Goldmine.” In Washington D.C. Sidewalk’s review, Meyers was described as “… radiating intensity and attitude more than emotion,” and “perfect as an ultimately vacant icon.” A talented musician as well as actor, Meyers also sang some of the songs in the film.
Recently he took on the huge role of playing American pop idol, Elvis, for which he won a Golden Globe and excellent reviews.
In Woody Allen’s film, “Match Point” Jonathan plays a young Irishman impressed by his wealthy girlfriend’s life in London’s Belgravia. His bete noire arrives when he falls for the beautiful American girl, Nola (Scarlett Johansson) who is going out with his girlfriend’s brother. His attraction to her could ruin everything for this character, Chris Wilton, who doesn’t want to give up his expensive lifestyle. He is described by Meyers in an interview by Graham Fuller as Machiavellian. (The Hotsy Totsy Jonathan Meyers)
In the same interview, Meyers also admits to being Machiavellian and being able to turn on his charm ‘like tap water’. However, although he once said that he only took up acting because ‘it kept him off the streets and out of jail’ now he approaches his career with passion.
Surprisingly the Byronic-looking young actor has said that he doesn’t understand women, and he was caught in a fight with his girlfriend, Reena Hammer, last December. However, when his co-star, Scarlett Johansson, was ‘left battered and bruised after a love scene shot in freezing cold rainwater with co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers for Woody Allen’s new movie “Match Point”, in which the pair play passionate lovers Rhys-Meyers sent Johansson flowers after the outdoor scene got a little out of hand.
Clearly this charming Irish actor has a big future ahead of him, both in acting and in romance!