Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a mess, no question. How many time does one need to be arrested at the airport for being belligerent before you realize there might be something amiss? JRM recently sat down with a UK publication and chatted up why is in rehab for the third or fourth time, fame, family, teen years…
On his inner battles:
‘I just don’t want to be that fucking a–hole sitting in the pub and someone turns around and says, “See him there at the end of the bar. He could have made a f-cking fortune, but he went over to Hollywood and he just fucking p-pissed it up against the wall.”‘
On his crazy childhood and teen years:
Dublin-born but raised in Cork with his three younger brothers – mostly by his mother (his parents separated when he was three) – he admits that he was something of a rebel. He was expelled from school at 16 for truancy, and took to spending his days in a pool hall. There he struck up an unusual friendship with Christopher Croft, a farmer. The openly gay father-of-three offered Rhys Meyers a job on his farm and put a roof over his head. The pool hall is also the place Rhys Meyers was discovered by a casting agent. To this day, he credits Croft – whom he has described as a ‘nice man’ – with giving him some stability in his life. But he’s unwilling to discuss the exact nature of his relationship with Croft, or his mentor’s dark side. Last year, Croft was arrested in Morocco – where, coincidentally, the actor keeps a home – for drugging and sexually abusing a 15-year-old homeless boy.
Being in the industry as a teenager:
‘When you go all the way through from your late teens to your late 20s on film sets, it’s a very strange introduction to the world,’ he points out. ‘It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in – especially if, like me, you finished school early.’
On his 33rd birthday:
‘It’s time to start thinking seriously about things,’ insists the star of The Tudors. ‘I wouldn’t want to do the 20s again, you know? You go through your 20s sort of like a chrysalis in many ways, stretching into your own skin and trying to bust out of a cocoon. You want to be a butterfly and you just think of everything as, “Ooh, what fun can I have here?” But, after a while, you realise that things are getting in the way of you growing up and being who you really want to be. And when you look harder at exactly what it is that is getting in your way, you quite often find that it’s yourself.’
On fame:
‘That’s a funny thing, fame,’ he says. ‘People definitely do treat you differently. When you begin to be successful, people say, “Don’t go changing.” Well, that’s easy to say, but the fact is, you don’t change at all – other people do.’
I need a drink now.
