I'm the new Mr Darcy... but Colin Firth would beat me in a wet cotton shirt contest! Matthew Rhys speaks out about landing the hottest TV role of the year
By JACI STEPHEN
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Who would win a wet cotton shirt competition – Colin Firth or Matthew Rhys? That was the question on many viewers’ lips when it was announced that, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride And Prejudice, Rhys would play the role of Mr Darcy.
He will star in a three-part BBC adaptation of the P. D. James sequel, Death Comes To Pemberley – a murder story that imagines the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Darcy six years on.
Cardiff-born Rhys, 38, ponders the question while sitting in West Hollywood’s stylish Pali Hotel – and it doesn’t take him long to give his answer: ‘I’d say Firth.’
The new Darcy: Matthew Rhys, pictured as John Jasper in the BBC drama The Mystery of Edwin Drood, will play Mr Darcy in the BBC adaptation of P.D. James's sequel to Pride And Prejudice, Death Comes To Pemberley
It was Firth’s Darcy, emerging from the lake, all tousle-haired and with a white shirt clinging to his muscled torso that set female hearts racing in Andrew Davies’s 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel.
So can we also hope for a repeat performance of the iconic scene from Rhys? ‘Definitely not. Colin is so rooted in the national psyche, it would be almost sacrilegious to try to do it – it’s a level of comparison I wouldn’t want. He looked good. Really good. It’s not as if he looks bad now, but that scene resonated so much.’
No one would mistake Death Comes To Pemberley for Austen’s original. However, comparisons between the leading men are inevitable, not least in the physical similarity between the two – handsome, great eyes, and the ability to hold a fixed expression that makes the ladies swoon.
Rhys was chosen, says Ben Stephenson, head of BBC drama, because of his good looks and a ‘likeable but dark edge’ as an actor: ‘We did not want a Milk Tray advert kind of handsomeness.’ Filming begins this later month.
Rhys feels apprehensive at taking on a role so fixed in the minds of viewers and says: ‘It’s also what I found when I played Dylan Thomas.’ He is referring to 2008’s The Edge Of Love, in which Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller competed for the poet’s affections.
Sequel: But Rhys admits he thinks Colin Firth, who played Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride And Prejudice alongside Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet, pictured, would win a wet cotton shirt contest
He adds: ‘Everyone had an idea about Dylan, even though there had never been any footage, so nobody really knew. It’s the same with Darcy. So many people love Pride And Prejudice – they have a very strong idea of who or what Darcy should be.
‘Coupled with that is the fact that Laurence Olivier played him, Colin Firth nailed it, as did Matthew MacFadyen, so there are instant comparisons to be drawn. My saving grace is that it’s not Pride And Prejudice, it’s Pemberley. It’s several years on and he’s a very different Darcy.’
He is indeed. P. D. James’s Darcy is not the brooding, arrogant, misunderstood man of yesteryear.
Fatherhood has mellowed him and there is a much greater warmth to his personality. He has found everything he ever wanted: love, a wife, children. All is well at Pemberley – until Elizabeth’s younger sister Lydia arrives at a ball with some shocking news.
Filming the adaptation of Death Comes To Pemberley by P.D. James, which is set six years on from Pride And Prejudice, begins later this month
Anything remotely sexual (‘at least, on screen,’ says Rhys) is definitely off the agenda for Darcy and Elizabeth six years after their marriage.
But the couple have two children, so something must have gone right (‘although you can’t categorically say that both the kids are his,’ Rhys adds). The toned-down nature of the couple’s attraction can be attributed to the adaptation being a family show.
Rhys is intensely private about his personal life but admits he is currently single. But he believes that we are all searching for that one special person. ‘I have romantic, rose-tinted notions that someone’s out there – I just wish she’d hurry up and knock on my door.’ Rhys clearly has a place in his heart for the man he is trying to get to understand – not least, in the love department.
He says: ‘I think Darcy comes from somewhere else. First of all, when I approach a character, I never try to give them negative characteristics. I always try to look for where the empathy lies – justifications. I think with Darcy, it’s all to do with Pemberley and the name he’s inherited.
‘He’s incredibly duty-bound and he’s incredibly honest – which is why Elizabeth first hated him.’
Rhys may see his own romantic nature in Darcy, but he is less sure whether he shares the man’s moral core. ‘It’s been tested . . . I struggle. I’ve not always been as well-behaved as I should be. Darcy has a strong sense of honour – that’s why they call what we do acting.’
Rhys may see his own romantic nature in Darcy, but he is less sure whether he shares the man’s moral core. ‘It’s been tested . . . I struggle. I’ve not always been as well-behaved as I should be. Darcy has a strong sense of honour – that’s why they call what we do acting.’
Rhys has already enjoyed working on one period drama for the BBC – starring as the enigmatic choirmaster John Jasper in last year’s The Mystery Of Edwin Drood. And viewers can catch a very different Rhys in The Americans, currently on ITV on Saturday nights.
Last week’s first episode averaged two million viewers – more than double what US imports normally attract. It is the story of two KGB spies in an arranged marriage who pose as Americans in suburban Washington during the Cold War era.
Elizabeth Jennings – the female spy played by Keri Russell – remains firmly loyal to the motherland. But Rhys’s Phillip Jennings is increasingly attracted to the American way of life, which his two children – oblivious to their parents’ true identity – have embraced.
It is an astonishing performance by Rhys and has earned him a nomination at the American Critics’ Choice Television awards tomorrow night. He will battle it out with fellow Briton Damian Lewis for the Best Actor award.
Huge hit: Matthew Rhys also stars as Philip Jennings alongside Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, pictured, in the hugely successful The Americans being aired on ITV
In The Americans, Rhys is superb. He moves through different guises and accents with ease, and between love scenes and scenes of extreme violence with a fluidity that one minute has viewers’ hearts pounding, and the next melting for his character’s tenderness.
The show is a huge hit in the US, where Rhys was already a star following his portrayal of gay Kevin Walker in Brothers And Sisters, which ran for five series.
The role required him to engage in relatively explicit sex scenes with his lover. But he says there was only one thing he found difficult about the scenes: stubble. ‘That was the first thing I remember thinking. Then you just approach it as you would any part.’
He will be taking his clothes off once again in The Americans. His seeming lack of shyness and undoubted good looks have turned Rhys into a sex symbol on both sides of the Atlantic – an observation he greets with uproarious laughter. ‘It continues to make me laugh,’ he says. ‘I don’t know anyone who genuinely believes they’re a sex symbol.’
He hasn’t always been confident about his looks, either. ‘I was massively self-conscious as a kid,’ he adds. ‘I had bad skin, bad acne and the multitude of insecurities that every teenager has. I overcame them by pretending to be other people. It was a natural progression into this ridiculous business.’
Big roles: Matthew Rhys pictured as Dylan Thomas alongside Sienna Miller who played his wife Caitlin in the 2008 film Edge Of Love
Rhys says it took a long time for him to feel comfortable about playing sex scenes and developing the confidence to take his clothes off in front of the camera.
‘The first job where you have to do that, you’re terrified – you just feel so vulnerable,’ he admits. ‘The second is pretty scary, too. By the third time, it’s more familiar. You just think, “I’m going to have to do this.” ’
It’s a far cry from the shy 25-year-old who, in 2000, could not bring himself to look at 45-year-old Kathleen Turner’s naked body when he played opposite her in The Graduate on the London stage.
What he did learn, however, was how to develop his American accent as Turner would always correct him when he got it wrong.
These days Rhys’s accent could easily pass for a native’s – and is undoubtedly a factor in his having been able to land top jobs in the US, where so many other Britons have failed.
‘Hollywood is like an asylum,’ he says. ‘It’s an industry-driven town and it’s like Klondike – that gold-rush fever. Everything is possible, and I love that about the place. It is the land of eternal optimism and it’s great. You can chase your dreams – you can follow your dreams until your last day. There is that thing in the air, that mercurial thing that anything is possible here.
On the stage: Matthew Rhys pictured 13 years ago as Benjamin Braddock opposite Kathleen Turner as Mrs Robinson, in the stage version of The Graduate in the West End
‘But on the flip side, where I come from, you carry your sack of salt on your back because you take a pinch of it every second of the day.’
Rhys’s modesty is abundantly apparent in his ability to recognise external factors that have contributed to his success. ‘I don’t say this glibly, but so much of this business is luck – massive luck. I’ve just been incredibly lucky in the parts that I’ve been given – and in the timing when they’ve come about and I’ve been able to do them.
‘As much as you sit down at the beginning – when you leave drama school and say, “This is what I want my career to be” – there’s no way on God’s green earth that it’ll pan out the way you want.
‘And another great liberating day is when you realise you have very little control over your career unless you’re Tom Cruise. A-listers are the only ones who can say, “This is what I’ll do next.” You’re at the mercy of the gods.’
When he finishes filming Pemberley, it’s straight back to New York to film series two of The Americans, which is already being tipped to pick up dozens of awards – including several for Rhys. At the moment, the gods are smiling very kindly on him.
- The Americans, ITV, Saturday, 10pm
RHYS, SIENNA AND THE HOLLYWOOD 'TAFFIA'
Co-stars: Matthew Rhys and Sienna Miller at the world premiere of The Edge Of Love at the 62nd Edinburgh International Film Festival
On screen, Matthew Rhys’s love life has veered between turbulent triangles, older women and gay relationships.
He was seduced by a naked Kathleen Turner in the critically acclaimed stage version of The Graduate. And he was often seen in steamy clinches with co-star Luke Macfarlane when he starred as Kevin Walker in hit US drama Brothers and Sisters.
Rhys was then involved in a tempestuous love triangle when he took on the role of Dylan Thomas in The Edge Of Love, caught between wife Caitlin, played by Sienna Miller, and first love Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley).
Rhys remains tight-lipped about his real-life romances, but they have not been short of drama either – particularly one involving Ms Miller herself. They enjoyed a brief romance in 2007 until she ditched him for Welshman Rhys Ifans.
Ifans was said to have been branded a ‘traitor’ by Rhys and Fantastic Four actor Ioan Gruffudd – all three were members of the so-called ‘Hollywood Taffia’ – when he and Ms Miller got together.
Until then, the three men had been firm friends. Rhys hit the headlines again when Ifans and Ms Miller split the following year amid rumours that the Notting Hill star was jealous of Rhys’ closeness to the blonde actress. But Rhys categorically denied the pair had rekindled their relationship.
However, Rhys made no secret of his fondness for Ms Miller, now a mother-of-one and engaged to actor Tom Sturridge.
‘Sienna is so fun-loving, a real free spirit, which comes from not really caring what other people think,’ he said at the time. ‘But, unfortunately, classic things came between us like distance. We spent so much time apart.’
Before Miller, Rhys dated Jude Law’s publicity agent, Ciara Parkes, in 2000. Parkes, a glamorous blonde, was ten years older than the then 25-year-old Rhys, leading to comparisons with Kathleen Turner’s Mrs Robinson.
Now Rhys is an eligible bachelor and admits he thinks that it’s time he settled down.
‘It’s time to grow up,’ the actor said. ‘It’s easy to forget about it in LA as it’s such a transient place. But yes, I should get married – as my mother tells me every Sunday.’
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