Best known for his part as a gay lawyer in the US drama Brothers & Sisters, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys has done a full role reversal (and downed a lot of the black stuff) in order to play Wales's most famous "selfish, promiscuous alcoholic ", Dylan Thomas. He talks to Michael Dwyer.
PREPARING to play Dylan Thomas in The Edge of Love, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys read biographies of the subject and all his writings, listened to recordings of him and met Aeronwy Thomas, the daughter of the author and his wife, Caitlin. And Rhys piled on the pounds, achieving a remarkable resemblance to the jowly poet.
"All of that came from your country," Rhys says. "I used good old Guinness to put on the weight. I enjoyed that part of the research."
When we talked in London on Monday, two days before the world premiere of The Edge of Loveat the Edinburgh Film Festival, Rhys had reverted to his slim, handsome self that's familiar to viewers of the hit US TV series Brothers & Sisters, in which he plays gay lawyer Kevin Walker.
Taking on the role of fellow countryman Dylan Thomas presented Rhys with the greatest challenge of his career to date. "I imagine it would like one of your boys playing Joyce or Yeats," he says.
"Of course, you have such a wealth of literary icons in Ireland whereas we don't have quite so many in Wales, and Dylan Thomas is top dog. I certainly felt the pressure. When I read the script, I knew it was a golden opportunity. The plotline is about all four characters, and the focus is on the two women.
"The fact that Dylan Thomas is just one of the four is the perfect under-the-radar way of being able to portray him without doing a biopic about him. It's that weird thing, though. As soon as I read it, I was dying to play the part. Then, when I got it, I realised that I had to take on the responsibilities of playing him. That was compounded by all the comments other Welshies made, such as: 'Oh, you're playing Thomas. You can't mess it up.' So I threw myself into the research."
Set during the war in the early 1940s, John Maybury's visually arresting movie addresses the turbulent marriage of Thomas and his Irish wife, Caitlin MacNamara (played by Sienna Miller) - whom he describes as "the queen of Ireland" - and their relationship with Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) and William Killick (Cillian Murphy), the soldier Vera marries.
There is nothing sanitised in the film's portrayal of Thomas as a selfish, promiscuous alcoholic. "As with any genius, he was a complex man with many flaws," says Rhys. "One of the things that kept coming up in my research for the role was the childlike quality he had. If he wanted something in a sweet shop, he'd go after it without thinking through the consequences, and that stayed with him in adult life.
"It wasn't that there was any malice in him, but if he saw something he wanted, he would go for it. It was like a see-saw; the way he could create such great beauty in his writing and cause so much damage in his day-to-day life."
Does Rhys anticipate negative reactions in Wales? "Yes, I do. But it's not as if it's untrue. He was a rogue, and Caitlin was no angel. They were true bohemians, and quite brave for that time period. Their love for each other was so intense, but they had a tit-for-tat relationship that was a destructive element and equally as intense. Their infidelity would crush each other, but they would just do it in order to get back at the other."
On seeing the film, it seems unimaginable that Lindsay Lohan was originally chosen to play Caitlin. "You can see that she would have had that wild quality that MacNamara had, but I don't know," Rhys says diplomatically. "And Sienna does such an amazing job in the role. When I heard she was playing Caitlin, it just made perfect sense to me."
The drama revolves around the four main characters in a film where everyone else is peripheral. "That was demanding for the four of us," says Rhys. "There were very few easy days. There were a few nice moments, especially when we come to Wales, but as a piece, it became very intense. Then again, the writing was so strong and so beautiful that you never had to force any emotion on it to make something work. All you really had to do was say the words."
By coincidence, The Edge of Lovewent into production at a time when two other Dylan Thomas projects were being planned. Dylanwas to feature Kevin McKidd and Kelly Reilly as the writer and his wife. Miranda Richardson and Michael Sheen were lined up to play the pair in The Map of Love, which Pierse Brosnan intended to produce.
"It's unusual to have three films planned about the same two people around the same time," says Rhys. "But then, what a pair Dylan and Caitlin were. I'm not sure about Dylan, but I know The Map of Loveis a much heavier biopic of Thomas and his relationship with Caitlin. I see no reason why they don't make that, even though we've already made our film. Sheen is playing Brian Clough at the moment, so I think he would be in perfect fighting weight to play Thomas after that."
Now 33, Rhys is the son of two teachers and grew up in Cardiff. He made his stage debut as Elvis Presley in a school musical and went on to study acting at RADA in London. His early films included two productions in Ireland, the micro-budget urban-relationships movie Peachesand the 18th-century romantic drama The Abduction Club.
When he was 25, Rhys took on the daunting role of Benjamin in the original London stage production of The Graduate, with Kathleen Turner as his seducer, Mrs Robinson. Does he feature in Turner's recent candid memoirs? "I don't know. I should check that, shouldn't I? We got on very well. I'm probably not in the book because I was too terrified of her to step out of line. I was young and a bit green at the time, and she's a taskmaster. She strives for perfection and if she's not getting it from others, she will let you know. I liked that about her."
Three years ago, Rhys turned director for a documentary he regards as his proudest achievement. "The Welsh colonised an area of southern Argentina back in the 1860s," he explains, "when 30 young Welshmen rode from the Atlantic to the Andes. In 2005, their great-grandsons wanted to do the same trip. When I heard about it, I thought it would make a great documentary. I rode on horseback with them all the way. My initial plan was to bring a crew, but they didn't want that. They said I would have to do it by myself, so I packed myself on a film-making course and learned the basics."
What's the title of the documentary? Rhys pauses and looks rather embarrassed. "Well, I sold it to the BBC and they got to choose the title. It only went out on BBC Wales, but they called it Matthew Rhys: Hollywood Gaucho. It was one of the worst bloody titles!"
Rhys has started work on the third series of Brothers & Sisters. "The cast is phenomenal," he says. "We socialise a lot. We've become that cliché where we take on family roles within the cast. Sally Field clips us around the head if we're being too stupid. She's mom on screen and off. I love Calista Flockhart. She has the driest wit. She makes me laugh a lot."
His best friend in the cast is Dave Annable, who plays Kevin's soldier brother Justin. "God bless Dave. We were over in Dublin for a chat show a few months ago, and we were asked what we wanted to do there. Dave said he really wanted to see the Guinness factory. The next morning there were two VIP passes for us at the hotel. We had a great day at the brewery. Dave and I had such a good time that he wants to go back. He's coming to London next month and will link up with me in Cardiff. We'll drive to Fishguard and take the ferry over to tour around, probably doing the Ring of Kerry."
Without giving too much away about the second series of Brothers & Sisters, which has yet to be shown on RTÉ, the storyline involves his character, Kevin, getting married to another man. Is that a first for US network TV?
"Well, we're the first hour-long drama to show a civil union between two men. There is a lot of kissing in the series, but that's the limit for the ABC network. They can't do anything more than that. But they've pushed the envelope, which is very progressive of them. It's all good."
The third series of Brothers & Sistersstarts transmission in the US in the autumn. What can we expect? "We never know because we're only told week to week what's coming next," says Rhys. "But I think there might be an adoption story involving my character and his partner."
And how does Rhys get in character to play a gay man? "Well, I played a gay man in a play when I was 21 and again in the film Love and Other Disasters. You just close your eyes and think of Michelle Pfeiffer or whoever.
