Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Inside the Mind of a Maverick

Photography by Johnny Ghosts, Makeup by Fiona Connon

In a candid and wide-ranging discussion, Hollywood Hills Magazine Co-Founder Ariel Lavi sits down with Jonathan Rhys Meyers to explore the raw reality behind his most recent roles.

You were deep in the Thai jungle for Eyes in the Trees, covered in mud and heat. At a certain point in that humidity, does the "acting" stop and the sheer survival instinct of the character just take over?

"When you are working on a project like Eyes in the Trees - which is obviously set on an island in the Pacific - the atmosphere plays a huge role," Meyers began, reflecting on the immersive nature of the shoot. "It is not stated which island it is, but the fact that it is hot, uncomfortable, and muddy only adds to the feeling you have to portray as an actor.

"It is actually beneficial to be uncomfortable," he continued. "That discomfort helps you to perform in a more realistic, authentic way. You simply would not get that same feeling if you shot it in a backlot studio in Malibu or the Hollywood Hills. You will not get that same feeling from the artifice."

He paused, considering the balance between reality and film magic. "Obviously, there has to be a certain amount of artifice because it is a film, and that is what makes it interesting. However, the discomfort becomes a character in itself. When you carry that with you, it makes your movements slower; it makes your skin slightly more moist and uncomfortable. That physical state helps when you are performing. In between takes, it is a nightmare, but that is okay."

I know a few people from your film Eyes in the Trees, Natalie Burn for example.

"Oh, yes, Natalie," he said with a smile. "I was very fond of Natalie. She was also operating as an executive producer, and I found her to be a very comfortable person to work with."

Photography by Johnny Ghosts, Makeup by Fiona Connon

Acting opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins is intimidating, but his power often lies in what he doesn't do. Did you find yourself having to quiet your own performance to meet the terrifying stillness he brings to Dr. Addis?

"This is the second time I have worked with Tony Hopkins," Meyers noted, recalling his early career. "It was a strange experience because I worked with him when I was younger - I was 22 - on Titus Andronicus with Julie Taymor in Rome. It was Shakespeare, and I had a very different relationship with him than the characters have in this film. So, it was quite interesting. Obviously, his Dr. Addis is quite intimidating. All our performances were done via video monitors as he spoke to me.

"It felt like he was almost narrating my fear," he explained. "As he spoke, my character was drawn deeper into his world. It was as if he was reading a story that we were performing. He is acting in it, but it is almost as if he is imagining a dark, Wizard of Oz-type character who is operating this terrible situation for everybody.

"Anthony Hopkins does wonderful work. It is always interesting to work with somebody who has that amount of capability; you cannot help but learn. It is always an education. You learn how to do things you thought you knew properly, and then realize there are different, more complete ways to do them," he added humbly. "I find that as an actor - and I have been doing this for over 30 years - I know less about acting now than when I started, but I am more interested in knowing about it now."

The Island of Doctor Moreau is a cautionary tale about science without ethics. Playing a journalist witnessing these genetic horrors, did the script make you look at our real-world tech advancements with a bit more suspicion?

"Yes, but not only the tech advancement," he argued, expanding the scope of the conversation. "The greater 'macro world' is moving toward a single civilization, aiming to become energy efficient and interstellar. I think this is the goal. However, this project touches on the fact that no matter what humans achieve, they will always try to push toward the realms of perfection. So, the lack of ethics in Moreau's experimentations touches not only on technology but on our obsession with physical perfection and plastic surgery.

"How far does that go before we start turning ourselves into monsters?" he mused. "How far does it go until we stop changing just our faces and start changing our genetic code to be something else? What gets born of our pursuit of perfection? Sometimes you look at people who have gone to extremes of plastic surgery, and they almost look like creatures that Moreau could have made, but we are doing it to ourselves.

"I think this issue leads to a more interesting question than just technology: the human desire to manipulate their own physical form in pursuit of perfection, bliss, and almost a 'godlike' appearance. Eventually, we cross an invisible line from 'beauty' to 'monster.' From this perspective, I think this represents Dr. Addis: in the pursuit of genetic perfection, you create monsters."

He elaborated on the unpredictability of progress: "The problem with science is the unknown variables—the 'flux.' I might be able to tell someone that something will explode at a specific time, but I cannot judge the flux or predict exactly how the pieces of glass will fly. That chaos is where science and the unknown intersect. I think the film touches more on the human obsession with perfection and how that becomes monstrous. Technology is a factor, yes, but I think human nature is even scarier than technology."

With The Paralytic and your previous work in Wifelike, you are becoming a significant face in the sci-fi genre. What is it about these high-concept, futuristic stories that captures your imagination and makes you want to explore these worlds?

"I made Wifelike back in 2022," he recalled. "The concept was strong: at what point do people start creating the perfect woman or their own robots? Obviously, Ex Machina touched on this incredibly well. It explores what is going to be part of our future, and now it is almost part of our reality. There are certain societies of men, certainly in Japan, who have locked themselves away from physical contact with people and have AI girlfriends.

"It starts with AI girlfriends and proceeds to a level of connection and communication. But at what point do humans decide they want to make that corporeal? To physically possess it? And what are the ethics in this subject? For a robot to be a successful AI for functions like sexuality and companionship - as we have in Wifelike - it has to be AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). How do you control what happens when it starts to have feelings? Or rather, when it starts mimicking feelings because it is trained to do so?"

Turning to his latest project, he added, "What interested me about the concept of The Paralytic was the idea of a clever scientist who established his own startup and was taken on by K Industries to explore working with the thalamus directly to interconnect with the spine using an Axio chip. This would allow paralytic people to start moving.

Photography by Johnny Ghosts, Makeup by Fiona Connon

"He starts testing it on himself - not because he is paralyzed, but to test the effect on his thalamus, his amygdala, and his concept of reality. That is a very interesting thing. What happens when the scientist becomes the 'guinea pig' for his own purpose? How do they survive the process of their own genetic testing? Obviously, these things never end well, but I like the concepts.

"We call them 'science fiction' movies, but they are simply science now because it is happening," he observed. "There is a legitimate reason why film is effective at predicting the future. When you are in the film industry, you have access to immense resources. Take Close Encounters of the Third Kind as an example. When Steven Spielberg was developing the concept, his status in Hollywood allowed him to pick the brains of the world's leading scientists regarding the reality of extraterrestrials and technology. Because filmmakers have access to people with their fingers truly on the pulse, you often see things on film that become reality ten years later. They simply have access to the knowledge."

Your character in The Paralytic has the enigmatic name of "Carpenter." Without giving away the mystery, did you enjoy the opportunity to play a character who holds the cards, driving the plot forward with a sense of capability and strength?

"Definitely. 'Carp' is driving the story forward, but it is out of the necessity of desperation," Meyers clarified. "Carp is also grieving; although we do not see it in the film, it is made clear that he has recently lost a child.

"He is in a very isolated place when you meet him. You do not meet his character pre-testing; by the time you spend time with him, you realize he is testing on himself. So, his behaviors are not always predictable. He has strength, but his strength is rooted in his desire to do something good. The problem with trying to do something 'really good' is that if you do not consider it from every point of view, it can end up really bad."

He paused to reflect on the morality of the role. "It raises questions about the consequences of desire. If I desired to heal someone so much that I was willing to do anything - including hurt myself and, in turn, hurt them - is what I am doing ethical? It raises the question of whether Carp is an ethical person or if it is ego. There is a fine line between ethics and ego. Thinking 'I can heal the world' is a massive responsibility and perhaps an egotistical claim. What happens when someone else, out of the necessity of desperation - like the character Poppy - puts all her trust in the 'all-knowing, all-seeing' doctor, only for that trust to be failed? Not because he betrayed her, but simply because he lacks the skill. He is human, not a god."

For The Room Below, you are teaming up with Alyssa Sutherland who is having such a fantastic moment in her career right now. What was it like collaborating with her to build the suspense and energy required for a thriller of this magnitude?

"I found Alyssa Sutherland to be a very interesting lady," he shared. "I had briefly seen her perform in Vikings - I was also in Vikings, but we never worked together as I came much later in the story. I was interested to meet her.

"When I arrived in Australia to start the film, it took me a day or two to understand who she was and how the character was. But what I got out of her was extraordinary," he emphasized. "Within 24 hours, she had almost possessed me in a strange way, without doing anything. She reminded me greatly of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. I started to imagine her in many different ways because she is very statuesque and beautiful, yet she is playing a character who is not trading on her beauty at all. She has serious psychological problems, but they are presented in this ethereal, physically perfect form. It was a great juxtaposition. I found her at times to be incredibly elegant, almost like a young debutante, and then at times, her character became a possessive matriarchal figure. She dashed between these states throughout the performance. I found her fascinating to work with."

Playing the retired detective, you have to be the anchor of logic in a world going mad. Is it difficult to maintain that grounded skepticism when the "monster" is standing right in front of you?

"My character, the retired detective, is a broken man," Meyers explained, delving into the psychology of the role. "He is almost caught in a 'life glitch' where he lost his son. This is his connection to Alyssa's character, but he is on a loop - he cannot quite break the monotony of returning to the same situation every day. It is like Einstein's definition of madness: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

"He cannot seem to break this state; he is in Samsara the whole time. He is in a constant loop because he cannot find his son. He is mentally trapped and trying to find a resolution that simply cannot come. He is like a planet that has lost its orbit, and he tries to lock onto her character as a sense of gravity that does not exist in his world. She is so fierce that she starts to magnify him into her world for her own reasons."

You have spoken so fondly about living in County Wexford and your connection to the Irish soil. Does having that peaceful, grounded community to return to make it easier to balance the high-energy demands of your global film career?

"I am very comfortable in the countryside," he admitted softly. "I live alone on a farm. I find I need to spend a lot of time on my own and in nature. I like going to cities for the conversation, energy, art, culture, aggression, and love that they bring. When I work in them, I devour all of that. But when I return to the countryside, that is when I get to really work on myself on the inside.

"I am someone who is constantly in progression - a conscious progression," he continued. "I am aware of myself every day, from my morning to my evening. I consciously choose to be in my own country because that is where I get my energy. There is a homogeneity there. The air is important to me; the silence and the time alone are vital for me to confront myself. As an actor, I am my own tool of operation. I have to work on my imagination and my ability to feel things, and I think time on your own is a very important part of that process. I find people exhausting after a while. I am sure you find me exhausting too!"

Music has always been a key part of your artistic soul. When you are back home, do you still find time to pick up the guitar and play just for the joy of it, and does that musicality influence how you approach the rhythm of your dialogue?

"I certainly think music helps me when I have to do different accents because it is about changing the notation of your voice," he noted. "A day without music is an impossible day that I do not ever want to live.

"It is very important for me to play the guitar. I never travel without one. Sometimes I bring it to the set, sometimes I don't; but every time I don't bring it, I crave it," he confessed. "When you are playing music, you are engaging a different kind of intelligence. It allows you to be linear in a way that meditation or yoga might. The act of playing an instrument from note to note allows the circuits in other parts of the brain to stop functioning. Music allows you to get linear and lets the rest of the brain absorb other information. Playing music can help me learn a script subconsciously by focusing my mind, allowing the other doors to open more freely."

You have worked with some of the true giants of cinema, from Robert Altman to J.J. Abrams. As you look toward the future and your own plans to direct, is there a specific lesson or philosophy from those experiences that you are excited to bring to your own set?

"Yes: Don't fight with Robert Altman," he quipped, before sharing a lesson learned the hard way. "I ended up having an argument with him when I was young—I think I said the wrong thing—and missed out on doing Gosford Park.

"Robert Altman is an inspirational director. I didn't know until years later that he was the first director to use radio microphones. Before that, you could only use the boom, meaning you had to wait for one actor to finish a line before you spoke. The radio mic allowed for overlapping conversations, making everything seem more natural."

His eyes lit up as he recounted a legendary industry story: "There is a story about when he did McCabe & Mrs. Miller. They built this incredible, pristine Western set. Altman looked at it with the producers and said, 'This is amazing.' Then he asked to be left alone to look around. He drove to a gas station, bought a few gallons of gas, went back to the set, poured it over the structures, and lit it on fire. He waited ten minutes, then called the fire brigade. They dowsed everything, and then he brought his cast in. He gave them tools - hammers, saws, nails - and told them to fix up their houses. That is how he achieved that burnt, black wood texture, almost like Egon Schiele's paintings. It was a metaphor for his film: two romantic, wild characters trying to rebuild a life out of the wildest of environments. Those calculated, intelligent risks are always inspirational.

"Directors like Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, and Polanski came out of that strange twilight in the late 1960s when the big studio films like Hello, Dolly! weren't working anymore," he concluded. "Suddenly, Easy Rider - a low-budget independent film - became a breakout hit, followed by Rosemary's Baby. For a ten-year period, the 'lunatics were in charge of the asylum,' and we got an onslaught of incredibly artistic movies: The Godfather, Mean Streets, Dog Day Afternoon. In that period, Robert Altman was able to burn his set down and get away with it. That is the kind of risk-taking that inspires me."

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