December 21, 2005 - Ask any actor in Hollywood to name the directors they’d love to work with and, chances are, Woody Allen is somewhere on that list. One of the hardest-working directors, with a release (and sometimes two) almost every year since his 1969 directorial debut, What’s Up, Tiger Lily, Allen shoots fast and expects his actors to keep up with him. He chooses the actors that work for his film and gives little guidance on set. If you find yourself in a Woody Allen film, chances are he saw something in you that he thought would work for that particular film.

Match Point stars Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Chris Wilson, a tennis pro at a prominent English club who befriends one of his clients, Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode). Tom invites him into his rich family, where Chris soon charms Tom’s mother Eleanor (Penelope Wilton), his father Alec (Brian Cox) and sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Chloe and Chris quickly embark on a romantic relationship, but Chris’s interest is swayed by Tom’s sexy American girlfriend Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). Chris becomes infatuated with Nola and, despite continuing his relationship with Chloe, eventually persuades her to sleep with him. After Nola and Tom’s break-up, she leaves London, but a chance meeting a few years later with Chris re-ignites the same old flame. Chris is now married and fully ingratiated into the Hewett family. He cares for his wife and enjoys the lifestyle the family affords him. He loves Nola. Circumstances will ultimately force him to choose between financial security and love.

Rhys-Meyers and Johansson were on hand in Los Angeles recently to speak about working on the film and their impressions of the Woody Allen experience.

[...]Allen has a reputation for giving his actors very little guidance. Rhys-Meyers comments on the production: “It’s strange this film was not difficult to make in any way. It was the easiest and most relaxing film I’ve ever done. I never really thought of it as a comedy in a way. There wasn’t really anything comical in it. There were some comical moments of course, but that’s not really what this film is about. I think Woody wanted to make a dramatic film. He didn’t try to over intellectualize it. He didn’t try to make the characters more complex then they already were. It’s a very straightforward story that is logically directed and simply told, which makes it even more fascinating. Simple is more fascinating than trying to over-complex something or over intellectualize something, because you become over analytical about story that’s very simple.

“As far as shooting it, Woody is a very, very, hands off director. That’s because if he was a young, unproven director it would be awkward, but he’s a proven genius. You can feel you can trust him. So, when he casts you in a movie, he doesn’t cast you so he has to sit there for three hours a day and explain a scene to you, because that would bore Woody. He casts you because you are 80% the character when you wake up in the morning. You only have to bring 20% to work and fill in the dots. And that’s pretty much what it is. He knew what he wanted from all the people before he cast them in the film.”

Rhys-Meyers’ character is a very manipulative individual. He knows how to get what he wants by twisting those around him. “He’s a flawed man,” admits Rhys-Meyers. “He’s much like any other man. Regardless of how healthy the relationship is, all men look at other women. All men have desires for other women, it’s just whether they act on them or not.”

“All women look at other men too,” adds Johansson. “I think it’s a huge misconception and it’s interesting that Woody touched on it, because it’s true. Because, the character is very confident and we agree to have this affair, and we do, but it’s particularly – maybe it’s not even in this country, but it’s a worldwide thing – that women don’t desire other men outside of their marriage or look at other men. And they do.”

Rhys-Meyers continues, “I couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t. And in this day and age, that there is this misconception that men look at other women more than women look at other men or desire them more. Bull***t. It’s easier for a woman to get laid then a man to get laid quite seriously. (Laughs) A woman can get laid if she goes to a nightclub. So, it seems like it’s more on a plate for a woman than it ever is for a man. So, I completely agree with that point of view. It is desirable. But, in context of what I liked about the character, I liked some things. He’s a good person in a bad situation. He makes some choices that are moralistically defunct, but he’s a human being and that’s what makes Woody so brilliant. Because Woody takes one relationship or two relationships or three relationships and encompasses all the world’s problems. You can deal with most of the problems in the world in the relationship between two human beings. He’s a humanist at his core. Even though he says, ‘Oh, I don’t like human beings. They bother me…’”

Source: movies.ign.com

No need to rush off and see it
By Zane Henry

December 28, 2007 - August Rush is an overblown, underwhelming scarp of rose-coloured fluff. The toothachingly sweet fare will probably go down well with festive audiences. There is probably someone out there who would enjoy this kind of woefully sentimental dross, but that person is not me.

The film takes aim at the mid-point between a fairytale musical and wholesome family drama, but lands in a barren wasteland of maudlin mawkishness.

Classically trained cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and rowdy rocker Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) share a night of passion, but are cruelly separated by fate. The product of their tryst is a baby boy.

In a bid to protect her future, Lyla’s father sends the infant to an orphanage and tells her that he died.

Evan (Freddie Highmore) grows to be a young orphan with a prodigious musical aptitude. He yearns to find his real parents and soon departs the orphanage for the bright lights of New York. Here he meets Wizard (Robin Williams), a Fagin rip-off who wants to use Evan’s musical skills for commercial gain.

But fate seems determined to bring the family together. I, for one, couldn’t care less. The film is so bad that it made my skin itch. The actors look pained as they struggle through the morass-like script.

I never liked Freddie Highmore’s pre-pubescent sanctimony and I like him even less after this film. Rhys Meyers and Russell should’ve known better. Williams hams things up to breaking point.

Spare yourself. If you liked Oliver Twist or Annie, you may like this.

Source: tonight.co.za

IGN FILMFORCE: You initially turned down the role of Elvis, correct? What changed your mind about the project?

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS: Well, I never really turned it down. The circumstance surrounding it was I was in London playing the lead role in a Woody Allen movie this summer, and the project came around. But here I was concentrating, I was so involved in the Woody film, that I couldn’t really give my time to concentrate on the Elvis. So, I completed the Woody Allen film and then my friend Mary Jo came over to London, who was casting, Mary Jo Slater, and she said, “Jonny, there’s a script about Elvis, and we want you for the part of Elvis. Here’s the script, see you in Louisiana – Bye!” And I read the script, and it was a great script. It was a wonderful story. And of course it was a chance to play The King! How many kids get to play The King? I couldn’t really turn it down. I couldn’t have turned it down, really, because I would have always thought to myself, “Hmmm, I would’ve really liked to have been Elvis Presley.” I hear I might get laid someday because of it.

IGNFF: What was it about Elvis as a character that appealed to you as an actor?

RHYS MEYERS: Well, because he was a phenomenon, of course. Very, very talented, but he was also very contradictory, because he was very raw, very talented, white boy from the South, singing rhythm and blues in the 1950’s, getting all the girls hot under the collar. But at the same time, he was a mama’s boy, a great humanitarian, and a devout [Christian]. So, you know, he had that dichotomy. That’s very interesting to play.

IGNFF: What was the toughest part of playing Elvis, do you think?

RHYS MEYERS: To get that energy. Because Elvis did a lot of things. Most people ask, “What was harder? The dance moves? The guitar playing? The singing or the lip-synching?” I’ll tell you what it was – the energy. If you’re playing someone like Elvis Presley, the Elvis Presley that I know from reading and researching, you do it from the heart. So, I had to really put myself in those shoes. It was very, very hard, having to pretend to be Elvis Presley, because I’m an actor doing it, but unless you wake up every morning being Elvis Presley, you really don’t know what that feels like.

IGNFF: What sort of research exactly did you do? Books, or did you watch all of his films? What exactly did you do to prepare for the role?

RHYS MEYERS: I watched documentaries, Elvis ‘54, Elvis ‘56, The Great Performances, Elvis in the Army, Elvis and June, which is about him and his relationship with his girlfriend, June Juanico, which has a lot of footage of him, Red West and the boys just hanging out on boats and shooting air rifles and stuff, which was really good stuff. There’s actually this great sort of home movie in it, where they’re shooting air rifles, and Elvis is holding out a packet of cigarettes for Red West to shoot it out of his hand. Which is really funny, because it’s his right hand, and if he shoots his right hand – that could’ve been the end of his career. He didn’t give a care.

IGNFF: One-handed Elvis. That would’ve changed history.

RHYS MEYERS: Yeah, it was a really strange experience, because he went down to Biloxi, Mississippi, and he spent three weeks living down there in the house and he was hanging out with his friends. He was dating this girl, June Juanico, and they were sort of like going to get married. And, what he didn’t know was those three weeks that he took off on holiday, he had become an international phenomenon over that three week period – without him even knowing it. And so when he came back from Biloxi, that was the end of their relationship, because he had to go, he just took off. He was just like, his whole performance had blown up.

IGNFF: I’ve done a little reading on your background, and you seem to come from sort of a hard scrabble background yourself. Did any of that help you understand Elvis’s ambition or sympathize with him more? The fact that he was a working class kid, basically trying to claw his way to the top of the entertainment industry?

RHYS MEYERS: Yeah, of course. I know, I saw the things I have in common with Elvis and I latched onto them, like he was a poor boy from Mississippi, I was a poor boy from Cork. We didn’t get on well at school, either of us. We weren’t liked by the students particularly. We were very, very different in the way we dressed, in the way we looked. We both bought houses for our Mama out of our first big paycheck. We both daydreamed and then went and fought to make our dreams a reality.

IGNFF: Something that every Elvis biopic that I’m aware of has not really delved into is the subject of race. You kind of touched on it earlier. A lot of African Americans seemed to view Elvis as a crock, as kind of a thief of their culture and their music. First, does the CBS mini-series touch on any of that at all, and how do you feel about those sorts of charges against him?

RHYS MEYERS: You know, I don’t think that’s particularly true, and I think that’s a little bit unfair, you know what I mean? Because you know, he had a lot of that rhythm and blues, which was like essentially black music, and it was coming over from West Africa, and it grew out of that. But, Elvis was a Southern boy, too. He didn’t own a plantation or he didn’t own a factory. He was a poor boy. He was as poor as any other folk. He didn’t care about race, color, creed, religion.

IGNFF: And it’s not exactly a mainstream sort of – the fact that he was going around playing black music and dressing the way he did, and behaving the way he did in the heart of the segregated South, during the height of the McCarthy era doesn’t really seem like something that an out and out racist thief would do.

RHYS MEYERS: No, no – he wouldn’t. He loved rhythm and blues music, and he was playing it. The difference, and why probably some people would say that and the slight bitterness of that comment, is that Elvis made millions doing it. And, because of America in the 1950’s, he was white – he was more commercially viable. That’s what maybe those comments come from.

IGNFF: Also, Elvis never really left any sort of written record or autobiography so most of the stuff we know about him we can either take from the few comments that he did make to the press, or just from other people’s recollections. But, he never had the opportunity – or took the opportunity to really tell his side of the story. I think if he had, a lot of those issues would’ve been cleared up. The few times that he did go on the record, he did acknowledge that that brand of music had already existed and he was just putting his own spin on it and having fun.

RHYS MEYERS: He was listening to WDIA, which was the black station of that time, playing people like Big Arthur Crudup, Wynonie Harris. He was listening to all these guys. This was the music he liked to play. You could say the same thing, that the Rolling Stones stole rhythm and blues.

IGNFF: Exactly.RHYS MEYERS: I think it’s just a point of petty commentary – made even to Elvis, when he was alive, and he just said, his answer to it, and mine, too [in a Southern drawl] “That’s just plain ignorant, man.”

IGNFF: You’re doing a great job with the accents, I’ve noticed. Was that tough for you to get the accent down or it just kind of came to you?RHYS MEYERS: I worked on it, I worked on it. I kept the accent for the entire film.

IGNFF: I noticed you do your interviews in character for the most part.RHYS MEYERS: Yeah, that wasn’t the reason – I did that for fun, really. Especially that one where I’m sitting in Elvis’s office. I said, [in Southern drawl again] “If I’m sitting in this office, in Elvis’s chair, I’m going to be the king.” But it was very funny, because that didn’t show on TV. At the end of the interview, a guy from Memphis was interviewing me and he said, “You’ve got that accent down, man.” I said, [in his regular voice] “Really? What accent was that, boy?” Just to put him off, and that got a little bit of a belly chuckle, rippling through the audience.

IGNFF: Now there’s been some talk that CBS might do a follow-up to this, if it were a ratings hit, since yours only goes up to 1968. Would you be interested in reprising the role? I know you’d said something about not wanting to put on the weight for it, but you could always get one of those Nutty Professor fat suits, like Eddie Murphy had.RHYS MEYERS: I’m not so sure. We’ll see how this one goes, first. But, [Southern accent returns] “By goll will they pay for it, son.”

IGNFF: I couldn’t let you go without asking you – there’ve been some rumors online a few years ago that you were a contender for the role of James Bond. I know that the young James Bond is kind of what they’re going for with Casino Royale – did you ever audition for James Bond? Any truth to any of that?RHYS MEYERS: No, I think it’s all bull****. But, you know, maybe if they’re going for a younger James Bond, they might come to me. However, I’m not so sure they will. But, you know, if they did, I’m not saying I wouldn’t play James Bond – who wouldn’t want the chance of being the world’s greatest, super spy agent? It’s not a reality for me at the moment, but get back to me in a little while and it might be. I don’t know.

IGNFF: As long as you wear your blue suede shoes doing it.

RHYS MEYERS: [Southern accent] As long as I wear my blue suede shoes, man. And if I can do it with that Mississippi accent, I might. I might be Bond, James Bond. I like to Shake, Rattle and Roll. That’d be funny, though, wouldn’t it?

IGNFF: That would certainly reinvent that franchise. I wanted to let you know, I was one of those 200 hopefuls that went to the open casting call [for the role of Elvis] in L.A. I did it for the hell of it, for my job, I’ve been a lifelong Elvis fan. I remember standing in line, and I kind of knew going to it that the casting call had to be a crock, because there’s no way CBS was going to hand four hours of primetime over to some unknown off the street …

RHYS MEYERS: Oh, I don’t think that’s entirely true. Because when I spoke to [director] Jim Sadwith, he told me this only at the end of the film, but they actually had a kid, called Ashley Clark, who was from the South, an incredible player, Country and Western player, and they auditioned him when I wasn’t interested in July. They auditioned this kid. Jim said he was excellent, but he wouldn’t do it because the kid wanted to be a minister and would not say some of the dialogue. He wouldn’t say damn or anything like that. He was as good as Elvis, in a different way, Jim said, it was in a different way. But, yeah, there was a kid that could have done it.

IGNFF: That’s ironic, because the guy who played Elvis in that 1990 TV series, Michael St. Gerard, he’s a minister up in New York. Elvis seems to have that effect on people – they seem to walk away and join the priesthood. That’s not going to happen to you, is it?

RHYS MEYERS: No, I was going to join the priesthood when I was a young fellow. I kind of went the other way. I was going to join the priesthood, and then I said, “Nah, I wanna be king instead.”

Source: movies.ign.com / Originally published on: May 5, 2005