Jonathan Rhys Meyers makes extravagant characters worth taking seriously. We value his conviction in Velvet Goldmine, even when Brian Slade remains difficult to know; the seriousness beneath the display is what holds our attention.
Fi1m perspective
In Velvet Goldmine (1998), Jonathan Rhys Meyers wears Brian Slade's extravagance without treating it as a joke. His glam-rock singer is convincing as someone a fan could build a life around. We were moved by the urgency Rhys Meyers gives Slade's wish to be seen differently. Director Todd Haynes allows that wish to look a little ridiculous without making it contemptible. The performance gives us a reason to stay through the film's cumbersome investigation.
That combination of attraction and distance helps explain the casting that followed. After a supporting role in Neil Jordan's Michael Collins (1996), Velvet Goldmine put him at the centre as a performer inviting devotion. The title role in the miniseries Elvis (2005) returned him to a singer, while Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) gave him the lead as Chris Wilton. Television then offered the longer stretch of Henry VIII in The Tudors (2007–2010). These were parts that needed his ability to make other people's fascination believable.
His own reservation about Slade is useful: he has said he became too caught up in the fantasy and should have played him as working class. In Velvet Goldmine, Ewan McGregor's Curt Wild loosens things up, and Toni Collette gives Mandy Slade a sharper emotional presence than the writing usually grants the others. Rhys Meyers's seriousness is valuable, but it does not solve the unevenness of Haynes's screenplay. The music, with contributions from Carter Burwell and Craig Wedren, lets us enjoy the performances before we have to interpret them. When the dialogue struggles to persuade us, the soundtrack often succeeds.
His later television work continued the emphasis on intense men in period settings, with Dracula (2013–14) and Bishop Heahmund in Vikings (2017–2019). The latter reunited him with The Tudors creator Michael Hirst. We would be wary of treating that casting as the whole of what he can do: Slade is compelling because the wish to become someone else matters to him, not simply because he looks the part. Begin with Velvet Goldmine, and allow for the stretches when the music has to do the persuading.
Biography
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is an Irish actor. Born Jonathan Michael Francis O'Keeffe on 27 July 1977, he adopted his stage name early in his career. His film debut was as Collins' Assassin in Michael Collins (1996).
He is known for roles in Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Match Point (2005), Mission: Impossible III (2006) and as Henry VIII in the television series The Tudors (2007–2010). He won a Golden Globe Award for playing Elvis Presley in the 2005 miniseries Elvis.
