The Charming, Amusing, Surprisingly Low-Confidence Matthew Rhys

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0:34From the New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. The actor Matthew Rhys is on a tear. He starred in this year's surprise breakout hit Widow's Bay as a small-town mayor trying desperately to bring tourism to his sleepy island, despite locals warning that the place is haunted. Rhys also starred in The Beast in Me as Nile Jarvis, a New York real estate developer rumored to have murdered his wife. Both of those parts won him Emmy nominations this year. Yes, he's nominated twice. But as I found out when we spoke, it doesn't mean he's feeling secure in his career. We got into that and talked about some of his other memorable roles and about his life with his partner, Kerry Russell, who he fell in love with on the set of The Americans.

1:21Here's my conversation with Matthew Reese. But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you. You can now explore The Times for free without paywalls during your first month in The New York Times app. Just download the app and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, on to the interview.

1:43Matthew Rees, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the invite. So the best description of you that I've seen is actually your own. Oh, God. Yes. Here we go. Yeah, immediately panicked. All right. You said once that you are, quote, eternally seeking to channel the spirit of David Niven. And that, of course, is referring to the great leading man who has Welsh roots, I discovered. His autobiography, The Moon is a Balloon, is one of my absolute favorite books in the world. Agreed. Can you tell me what you meant by that? Yes, I feel my life or how I am in the world. I'm always really like a nervous Nelly.

2:23And I'm always like, oh my God, I said the wrong thing. I did the wrong thing. And then I look at Niven and he's always so quietly self-assured and calm and seemingly said the right thing, even when a naked person ran behind him at the Oscars. And I just wish I could be that person and say the right thing and be gracious and effortless and always think of others. And every time you read of an actor who worked with David Niven, they always say he was just so gracious to everyone and thought of others all the time and said the right thing and was calm. And I was like, God, I wish I could be that person.

3:00It's interesting the way that you view him because he is witty and charming and always said the right thing, but also maybe a bit frivolous, maybe a bit... Frivolous in what sense or with what? Well, I mean, you know, he was the perfect party guest. Yes. And in terms of his acting, he was a good actor. I wouldn't say a great actor. I'd agree. And when I think of your work, I think more of sort of the great Welsh actors, you know, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins and the OG Ray Milland. Yeah, yeah. You know, who were sort of brooding, dark characters. and so I guess what you're saying is David Niven in life and perhaps others in work?

3:42Oh absolutely absolutely and I would say that I would say Richard Burton is on par with Niven in that sense as to who I would aspire to be because Burton seemingly he was the first to kind of be very very un-Welsh to me which was arresting and inspiring. What is un-Welsh? I think we're a small country who have suffered for being England's neighbor, the small kind of cousin who's always ignored and put into the corner and kind of told what to do by England. And therefore, I think there's a great kind of subservience and insecurity to a degree nationally. And he was one of the first to kind of really, with this great confidence and hubris, going, I'm not going to be that.

4:32I'll take Hollywood by storm. I will challenge Onassis for the diamond. He was very un-Welsh in his... Bravado. Yes, yeah. And to me, it was like, wow, we're allowed to be that. I want to go just back to the David Niven thing. Yeah. Because you described being a nervous Nelly. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit? Like, what do you mean? Well, I think that just stems from the early days of kind of growing up in a school that was heavily into sports and being the only one who wanted to do acting. And then you go to drama college in, I went to drama college in London, and then being the kind of the young Welsh person.

5:17Like I've always, and now I'm just, you know, another fish out of water in America. I've always felt of slightly not fitting in. I know, and it's the boring actor's cliche. No. I've never fitted in. And I don't say it's a cross I've had to bear. I'm just saying there's a slight feeling of it. And I've never just, you know, all the stuff that me and my mob always moan about. I've never felt that kind of confidence, that self-assuredness that I always wished I had, which is maybe why we always pretend to be other people. You fake it pretty well. In so many ways, not just the acting. I'm interested in this period that you had where you had early success.

6:08You were in a stage play of The Graduate on London's West End, and then you had this period of not being able to find work. In your early parts of your career, did you ever turn anything down because you wanted to have a certain kind of career? Were you being choosy or were you just not finding the kinds of roles that you wanted? Oh, no, no. It was never choosy. Almost throughout my entire 20s, it was never a choice I had. There's only one job I turned down that I, to this day, bitterly regret, which was to play Hamlet. And I was 24. You turned down Hamlet. I know, because it felt like a mountain I was too young to climb.

6:55And I was like, I don't have the emotional maturity to play Hamlet at 24. And now, sadly, the Dane has passed. But yeah, I don't feel, you know, I'll ever get that chance again. You knew that you didn't have the emotional maturity? Yeah, I remember saying it to my agent at the time. I was like, I can't play Hamlet now. I don't have that in me. Maybe in five, six years, but not now. There's no way I could play it now. And then Ben Whishaw did it at 21. What do you feel like you have to have inside of you in order to play a role? Like what are you, I mean, when you were younger, did you feel like there had to be emotional material there for you to sort of be able to channel the person?

7:39Exactly. You know, obviously Hamlet's going through so much at the time. I just felt I haven't worn enough shirts. I haven't lived a life yet in order to kind of... And you can't pretend? Isn't that accurate? I don't mean to tell you your business. Oh, believe me how right you are. Yes. And I look back and go, why didn't I just pretend? I think, you know, we do kind of put Hamlet on a plinth and we kind of see it as this Everest that can it be summited, should be summited, because it's there, it should be summited. And it was for me. I was like this, you know, it was just one of those roles. Do you think it was low self-esteem?

8:21Without question. I think any number of other actors are going, of course I'm going to do it and I'll do it well. And I was like, I can't do that. That's not in me. I can't do it. I bitterly regret that. You mentioned something. You studied at RADA, which is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and that's sort of the highest echelon acting school. What would you say the sort of main differences between American acting and British acting or the acting that you, I mean, I have thoughts about this, but the acting that you kind of were brought up in? Because just hearing you say that, that you kind of needed some emotional material to do it.

8:57Yeah. I mean, that speaks to a philosophy of acting that I'm wondering what it is exactly. What do you think that philosophy is? Is it more American? I would say it's more American. I agree. I agree. And we were taught by a New York acting teacher at Wilder Rada called Doreen Cannon. She was from the kind of royalty of New York acting schools. So like method acting. Stella Adler. Yeah, she'd come through that. So she, yes, that was her ethos and that was the way we were taught. It was this great subversive moment in the Radha history whereby Americans were brought in to teach acting. You know, it kind of, let's reinvent the wheel here.

9:37Yeah. And how did that inform how you learned how to act? I loved it because also as much as I was watching Richard Burton, the huge heroes for me were Brando and De Niro and Pacino. So all of a sudden I felt like I was getting an insight into their world, the way they did it. And I grew up watching their movies. So all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, we're getting the secrets. So it was very exciting to me. It was getting away from this idea that it was pretense. It suddenly became very real. And in a way, I suppose, a little more, this is a self-justification of dressing up for a living, but kind of more worthy or noble that if you do it for real, it's not facade, which is a little more humiliating.

10:19Well, there's a lot of debate now because female actors have talked about how this is a male conceit to be a method actor. that it's because, you know, men are much more comfortable, you know, navel gazing and women have to use their brains in other ways. I mean, what do you think about that sort of debate? I agree. I agree that the term has become this kind of pariah now for bad behavior. And what I loved about the training we had at college is that they stripped the myth from it. They're like, look, it's like a switch. It's like a toolkit. So there's no self-indulgence. There's no kind of being rude to people.

11:00There's no doing push-ups before a take. You know, if you're playing Macbeth, you're not going to become the king of Scotland. So it's like it's giving you a toolkit that you can call upon whenever you need it and when you should need it. But it also makes it a lot more clinical, a lot easier. There's no, you don't stay in character. There's no reason to stay in character between action and cut. That's it. You don't do it? No. No. No. We were taught a method, but I'm not, I suppose, in the modern term, I would say is a method. I've never once stayed in character. You don't go home and speak in an American accent?

11:37I do sometimes to annoy the kids. And they're like, oh, stuff it. Or if I order food on the phone, I do an American accent. Because sometimes you're like, it's just quicker. The kid's like, why are you doing that? Yeah. All right. I want to talk about your Emmy-nominated roles. First of all, congratulations. Thank you very much. 19 Emmy nominations for Widow's Bay. Unbelievable. It's... Unbelievable. Part of what is obviously so unique about the show is this blend of horror and comedy. Yeah, yeah. So first on the comedy, I saw the casting director recently said about you that no one knew how good you were going to be in a comedy role, which made me wonder why you were cast, by the way.

12:18But, you know, they said you'd never really done a role like that before. No, no. I mean, did you doubt yourself? Why did you want to try to do comedy? Because you're not known as a comedic actor. No, and I didn't. I always wanted to kind of give comedy a go. And then the script came in and I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And original and weird and quirky. And I was like, is this comedy or is this kind of part you're going to play for real? And then I met with Katie Dippel and Hiro Murai. And Hiro said, look, we're not playing this as a comedy. It has to be played as a drama. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

12:51Like it'll become self-conscious and farcical. So you have to play it for real. And I was like, oh, great. And I said, yeah, the pressure was taken away and I didn't have to think about it being a comedy. Is that why you've steered away from comedy up until now? No, I just think. Because I've seen you in roles where you're yourself, right? Yeah. And you're funny. Well, thank you very much. I also think I have what they call the Celtic lid. You know, I have slightly hooded eyes like Robert Mitchum. So you don't have a face for comedy. People think you're kind of downtrodden and serious all the time.

13:24Like if I have a brighter eye, I might be better for comedy. But it's not something I've overtly or consciously avoided. I just think, as in so many times with this profession, you can slightly get put into your little category and you stay there. Right. When you had to go and play the character, did you think, Like, all right, I have to play this for real. And by the way, other actors who do do comedy say that you have to play it straight. Like in any comedy, you have to be completely committed to the bit. Because if not, it seems silly. But this is obviously like a fantastical world. Yes, yes.

14:04And so how do you commit to the bit when you're having to be chased by, you know, killer clowns and horny sea hags? Almost the same. What was great was, I was going to say, oh, God. Say it. Well, okay, because I hate talking about my process. I like it. Okay. So part of the method I was taught is when you approach a project, your character should have a super objective. What is the one thing throughout the whole project he desperately wants? So I thought if I give myself a very strong super objective for this, for each scene then there's a scenic objective that feeds the super objective. So I go, okay, if my super objective is I want my son to flourish, to bloom, to succeed on this island, every action leading into that super objective has to be me going, I have to make this island succeed.

14:56So it gives you this kind of focused zeal when the madness is around you. And that's what helped me kind of, when there's kind of borderline farcical madness around you, if you have this one driving force in your mind, it tends to, for me personally, it helps me kind of keep me slightly on this path, on this keel that I can stick to. And then it makes the playing of it more real for me, if that makes sense. It does. You know, it's your motivation, right? Everything. Yes. I said the M word. Yes. So that's what I. So that's what I. Okay. Thank you. That's what I try and do. So on the horror front.

15:34Yes. I want to start with just like a big premise, which is, you know, film and our cultural touchstones say something about us and the moment that we're living in. Yeah. And I think, you know, when superhero movies were really having their moment, we wanted things to be black and white. We wanted to be saved. We wanted someone to come and sort of make everything okay. And I think what this moment might be telling us is that things aren't what they seem. That there's things happening behind the scenes that are beyond our control and aren't particularly nice either. I mean, why do you think horror is having such a moment?

16:12Have you thought about it? To a degree, but I haven't come up with anything as erudite as that. But I would... Do we just like to be scared? I mean, maybe I'm just giving too much of a thing. No, no, because I think it's interesting as to why there's this kind of wealth of horror that's doing well. So seemingly it's kind of more, slightly more societal than anything else. Right. And I would agree because I would have thought in these times of kind of such turbulence, you would almost want the superheroes more because you just need to believe in that kind of universal sense of justice that something or someone ultimately will do the right thing or overcome the bad thing.

16:58But it is. We're in this strange time of kind of constantly being, oh my God, this is terrible. Shocks to the system. Yes. The things we're seeing are horrific, but yet seemingly nothing changes or stops. So it makes perfect sense that we'd find it in our fictional entertainment. Do you think about the cultural moment when you're playing a role like this? like what it's feeding into, how it might be received in the world? Well, the big conversations about Widow's Bay was like, how are they going to take this? It's like we were always going, what is this tone? When my agent said, this is horror comedy, I was like, whoa, what?

17:43No. And then I read it. I was like, oh, that's pretty great. I didn't think it was pretty great. I thought it was fantastic. And I was like, I know I want to do it, but how is that going to be received? Like that could be, we could die on our asses with this one. Do you know anything about series two, what's going to happen? Anything about the real mythology that you can tell people who are going to watch this and want to know? I can tell you wholeheartedly, I know nothing. And I'll say this much. I'm not even sure Katie Dippold knows. Because they've only just gone into the room for season two.

18:17And I was like, I was texting her, what happened? She goes, I don't know. so they're going to sit down for a long time try and figure it out so this is one of my really big pet peeves as a viewer which is we have to wait to know if a series is a hit before it gets picked up again and then there's this long lag time and by that point you know you're kind of forgotten everything about the momentum and the thing that you liked and you're seeing now all this reporting about viewer drop off you know beef running point Netflix series because that happens. I mean, isn't there a better way? There has to be because this new model is crazy.

18:56And that's what everyone says. It's like, now we have to wait over a year for the next season. I'm of the same opinion. You watch one season and you're like, wait, what? How long? Are you worried about losing momentum? Yeah, yes. I just hope those editors who do previously on Widow's Bay, you know, kind of a great, just before we break season two, are reintroducing it. But that's not the best answer. All right. The Beast in Me was your other big hit this year. You're nominated for an Emmy for that, too. You play a super rich mogul who is suspected of killing his wife. Yeah. Have you thought about how much you're playing a character that's hiding something?

19:34I was obviously in advance of this interview just going through a lot of your work in The Americans. Obviously, you were a Soviet spy pretending to be an American and many other things along the way. Beast in Me, you're a murderer pretending to not be a murderer. Yes. Widow's Bay, you clearly know more than you let on about what's happening on the island. why are you drawn to those particular roles and why do you keep getting them yeah that's even more disturbing um i always think when when when the character has something else going on it just gives you so much more to play than something slightly shallower or more artificial it just kind of layers it in a way that um other parts can't you you've you've got so much going on And it sometimes in a way takes you out of the acting, if that makes sense.

20:25You're playing so many things, you start forgetting about the kind of artificiality of it all. I saw a clip where you were discussing The Beast and Me, and you said menace and rage is where I like to live. And we had a big debate as to whether you were kidding or not. Yeah. Were you? But if you look at your career, I mean, that's not untrue. No, no. I'm sure the kids will say that's where I do live. No, no, I was making a joke. Because your upbringing seems to have been so happy, was it? Yeah, yeah. It was. I mean, you've talked about it was stable and fun. You were out, you know, in the farm and you were out on the sea.

21:09Yeah, yeah. It just seemed like a lovely kind of time. Yes. You don't seem to have some sort of dark origin story. No. And so I'm wondering where the attraction to darkness comes from. Right. So like those, it's in the shadows the interest lies. I'm a firm believer of that. It's like, oh my God, what's that about? What must be that like? And the kind of rage stuff, you kind of go, I hate to say it. Sometimes I find the rage stuff easy to fake because it's just sort of volume and passion. That's about it. and I think for men it's this weird little tap you can find quite easily you know you can fake that quite easily if you're just kind of passionate and loud enough Speaking of those dark and layered roles I want to ask you about a role you played in the HBO show Girls in 2017 Yeah I just re-watched it and it's an episode titled American Bitch and you played Chuck Palmer a famous author who'd been Me Too'd for taking advantage of younger women and Hannah, played by Lena Dunham, goes to his apartment, just giving the synopsis, after writing about the allegations.

22:21And what follows is this incredibly complex performance. And again, you're playing this sort of charismatic, powerful, deeply manipulative person. And you have this intellectual argument with her about the agency of women and what was really going on for you and how you have been misunderstood. understood um and then at the end you expose yourself to hannah yeah and physically physically yes yeah physically yeah um the look you give in that scene at the end is really quite something i mean it it was amazing watching it again can you tell me what you remember working on that episode and what you understood about the character then yes and and um you know lena was incredible in in that she kind of i hope i'm not speaking out of turn on her behalf but she kind of explained um what had happened to her um so it was drawn from uh truth uh so she gave me this the background to this, where this kind of piece of fictional writing came from in a very detailed way, which helped enormously.

23:39And then, which I've never done before, we rehearsed it like almost like a play. We went to the location and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, which is utterly luxurious in television where you just, there is no time. So I just remember thinking wow we have all this time to get this right because it definitely needs to be got right especially at that moment right it was the subject of a huge discussion yeah did in in that discussion with her were you trying to honor her memory or were you trying to be um you know interpret the character in your own way no more exactly that trying to honor exactly what she'd written and kind of place it in a very real way.

24:28But also she was interested in the real discussion of it, that he couldn't just be villainized off the bat. There had to be some kind of true discussion or discourse within this event that leads to it. She wanted the kind of push and pull of both sides for it to land in a very real place that ultimately then would hopefully pay off the ending a lot more. Yeah. I mean, it did, obviously. But what was that look? Because what strikes me seeing it now is that, you know, it was this moment in time where we were just starting to have the conversation about consent and power and abuse. Yeah, yeah. And Lena and the show's creators talked about it, you know, the after episode discussion and talked about how they wanted the role to be nuanced.

25:23But watching it now for me, he's just a straight up bad guy. Yeah. Yeah. And, um. But to me, that's what the look is at the end. He goes, it doesn't matter what we've discussed. Ultimately, this is all I want to do. That all that kind of quote unquote discussion and, you know, kind of back and forth is meaningless because once that happens, because ultimately that's all he wants. Yeah. You also got to choose a prosthetic penis in that role. I actually didn't. I was given the choice. Right. And I thought, I can't choose my own because I don't know. I was like, somebody else choose it. Because then I can't be judged about my choice.

26:10Is that the strangest prop moment you've had? Without question. Okay. I've never encountered a tray of prosthetic penises before. And the prop master going, do you want to, would you want to? And I was like, no, you choose some, just something. I spoke to Richard, the director, and went, why don't you pick what you think will help aid the shot at the end?

26:36After the break, Rhys and I speak about starting to date his longtime partner, Kerry Russell, while co-starring on The Americans. Sometimes when we would argue, I'd bring that into the scene, and the director's like, what is going on? You're meant to be getting on really well. And I was like, and vice versa, you know. So she's far more mature than me.

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