{"id":10081,"date":"2018-10-11T05:39:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T09:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/"},"modified":"2018-10-12T10:03:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T14:03:52","slug":"matthew-rhys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Rhys"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh off his Emmy win, Matthew Rhys spoke to <\/em>TV Drama about the types of roles he is attracted to and what drew him to <\/em>Death and Nightingales, which\u00a0Red Arrow Studios International will be showcasing at MIPCOM.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a hectic few years for Rhys. The Welsh-born actor\u2019s hit FX series The Americans<\/em> came to a close after six critically acclaimed seasons\u2014and landed him an Emmy win for best actor in a drama series this year. Steven Spielberg\u2019s The Post<\/em>, in which he played whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, was nominated for a best picture Academy Award. He features in the upcoming blockbuster theatrical film\"\" Mowgli. And later this year he\u2019ll star as Billy Winters in Death and Nightingales<\/em>, a BBC Two and RT\u00c9 commission.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How did you come to be involved with Death and Nightingales<\/em>?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> I was going to say it came about in the usual way, but it didn\u2019t actually! I was very lucky to have worked with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish of The Imaginarium on Mowgli<\/em>, which is coming out this year. Death and Nightingales<\/em> has been a passion project for Jonathan, the producer, for many, many years, almost a quarter of a century. He said, I have this project I\u2019m doing, and I\u2019d very much like you to play Billy Winters. Then he said, It\u2019s written by Allan Cubitt, which certainly spiked my interest, just knowing him as a prominent television writer in the U.K. and now an emerging director. I thought, This is a great meeting of elements. So just reading the script was a done deal for me. Parts like this don\u2019t come along very often. I begged them if I could do it in the end!<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Had you read the Eugene McCabe novel it\u2019s based on? Did you read it as part of your preparation?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> I wasn\u2019t familiar with it and I didn\u2019t read it. I spoke to Allan very early on [about that]. I\u2019ve done a few adaptations now, and I\u2019m not that good at differentiating between what is the script and what is the original work. On one of the last projects I did, I started playing stuff that wasn\u2019t in the script, and the director kept saying, No, that\u2019s in the novel, not in the script. So I said to Allan, I\u2019d rather stick to the screenplay because then it\u2019s a lot clearer, and it\u2019s linear and purer for me. I said, If you want me to read it I will, but if not, I\u2019d love to just use what you\u2019ve written. And he said, Yes, absolutely fine.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Your body of work includes inhabiting a character made just for television in The Americans<\/em>, literary characters in Death Comes to Pemberley<\/em> and Death and Nightingales<\/em>, and a real person, Daniel Ellsberg, in The Post<\/em>. Is the creative process to prepare for each type of role different?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> It is really, and [I tend to make those choices] from quite a selfish point of view. I look at [a project] and go, Have I done this before? Is it similar to what I\u2019ve just done? I\u2019m basically just looking for something new and challenging, as most actors are. To be in a position where you\u2019re presented with a part that can do that is a great luxury. I was looking for something that was ultimately very different from Philip Jennings in The Americans<\/em>. That was part of why I did Death and Nightingales<\/em>, but not entirely the whole reason.<\/em> The depth of the character and certainly the complexity of it and the story were equal pulls.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Tell us about the character of Billy. What motivates him through the show\u2019s story arc?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> That\u2019s what I was so interested in. [As an actor] you\u2019re always interested in character motivation. There are a number of elements colliding for Billy, which makes his motivations very interesting. He\u2019s been lumbered with the mantle of continuing a lineage and a heritage and a piece of land, [against the backdrop of the] complexity of the religious divide in Northern Ireland. He has all this emotional turmoil bubbling away and eating away at his core. He\u2019s this man of the land, the doer, the stoic, hardworking, Protestant landowner. But at the same time, he\u2019s a boiling cauldron of emotion because of a betrayal. There are familial scars from his past that align and confuse him. So you see him processing a number of things, not always up to speed\u2014that\u2019s what makes for great drama.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen some of the images and it looks stunning\u2014and a far cry from where you are now in rainy Pittsburgh! What was it like filming against those gorgeous backdrops in Northern Ireland?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> It was great! Wales is home for me, but there\u2019s something very familiar about [Northern Ireland]. Working with that crew in that place, it felt a lot like home, which I enjoyed enormously. I found the accent to be like a beautiful T-bone steak to get your teeth into, equal parts enjoyable and challenging.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> You\u2019ve done a lot of period drama. Do you think that by allowing audiences to look back at the past, these shows can help us better understand what\u2019s going on around us today?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> I find at times in certain period dramas, you look back and think, Oh God, we really haven\u2019t learned anything! That makes for very depressing times. There are a number of elements in Death and Nightingales<\/em> where you think, All of these things are still very present, sadly.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> The way the show came together is a bit like an indie film model. There are two producers in The Imaginarium and Soho Moon, two commissioning broadcasters in the BBC and RT\u00c9, and then Red Arrow Studios serves as the distributor. Does having multiple partners behind the scenes impact anything on set?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> You are aware of it, but it doesn\u2019t affect anything. What\u2019s great is you have producers like Jonathan Cavendish who will say, Whatever it takes, we\u2019ll get it made. If you get the right people to make it, it doesn\u2019t matter where the money comes from. If it needs to get made, it will get made. I\u2019m always in awe of that can-do attitude and that tenacity. How did you not just give up 20 years ago when you were trying to make it? They believe in these projects, so whatever it takes to get it made, they\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Are you more interested now in these limited series versus a long-running commitment like The Americans<\/em>?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> No, if another project like The Americans<\/em> came along, I\u2019d happily jump on it! I have no qualms about that. You know, I look back at The Americans<\/em> and I think, What a luxury to have 75 hours of television for this incredible story.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How do you juggle your TV and film projects?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> Not very well! It\u2019s always a bit of a scramble. Lots of early-morning flights, late-night flights and muscling dates to work\u2014and very patient agents and producers!<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> You directed a couple of episodes on The Americans<\/em>. Is that something you\u2019d like to do more of?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> Very much so. It\u2019s in the same vein of what I said about looking for new challenges. I enjoy the challenge of directing and storytelling\u2014and beating actors into submission!<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Tell us about your working relationship with Allan Cubitt on Death and Nightingales<\/em>.
\nRHYS:<\/strong> Like Jonathan, Allan\u2019s [wanted to do] this project for years. He shaped and molded it so much over time. He came to production with an incredible vision of exactly how he wanted it. And then, which is so<\/em> rare, not just for directors but especially <\/em>for writer-directors, he says, Billy is whatever you want to make him, or however you see him. And he literally lets you shape it in any way you want. He\u2019ll guide and at times say, What about this? It\u2019s almost to the point of you going to him and saying, This is what I\u2019d like to do, and he\u2019s like, Great, do it! It\u2019s something I\u2019ve almost never experienced, that freedom and trust he has in you as an actor to say, You\u2019re playing the part, it\u2019s your character, you do what you want. So to be able to do that and be trusted to do that was revelatory to me and incredibly liberating.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Is there an intensity to your preparation, and even your performance, because you have such a limited amount of time to tell the character\u2019s story? As opposed to having more of a slow burn over 10 or 12 episodes in a season?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> That\u2019s absolutely right. You hit the ground running. I don\u2019t envy Allan from a writer\u2019s standpoint, trying to elbow everything into three hours. But I think he did incredibly well. But yes, you\u2019re up and running very quickly. In a shooting sense that is a little tough, because you don\u2019t have the time. You\u2019re hitting the punchy scenes early, so you have to come in prepared.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Red Arrow will be busy selling this around the world at MIPCOM. What aspects of the story do you think will resonate with global audiences?
\nRHYS:<\/strong> There\u2019s so much. At its core, it\u2019s a complex love story, which I think everyone can relate to, especially when it\u2019s as complex and as unrequited from Billy\u2019s point of view. You see the tumult that religion and land bring. I think those big issues are instantly accessible, given that they\u2019re still going on and so present everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Emmy-winning actor speaks about the types of roles he is attracted to and what drew him to Death and Nightingales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,70],"tags":[2513,2515,2379],"class_list":["post-10081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-death-and-nightingales","tag-matthew-rhys","tag-red-arrow-studios-international","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nMatthew Rhys - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew Rhys - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Emmy-winning actor speaks about the types of roles he is attracted to and what drew him to Death and Nightingales.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-11T09:39:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-12T14:03:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MatthewRhys-300-200x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/\",\"name\":\"Matthew Rhys - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-11T09:39:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-12T14:03:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Matthew Rhys\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew Rhys - TVDRAMA","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew Rhys - TVDRAMA","og_description":"The Emmy-winning actor speaks about the types of roles he is attracted to and what drew him to Death and Nightingales.","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/","og_site_name":"TVDRAMA","article_published_time":"2018-10-11T09:39:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-10-12T14:03:52+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MatthewRhys-300-200x300.jpg"}],"author":"Mansha Daswani","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mansha Daswani","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/","name":"Matthew Rhys - TVDRAMA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-10-11T09:39:03+00:00","dateModified":"2018-10-12T14:03:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/matthew-rhys\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew Rhys"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/","name":"TVDRAMA","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad","name":"Mansha Daswani","description":"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}