As part of a stacked ensemble cast on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters,
Matthew Rhys plays a character, married gay lawyer Kevin Walker, who
has achieved a measure of stability and happiness in his personal life.
In John Maybury’s The Edge of Love,
Rhys plays much more of a spinning top — carousing Welsh poet Dylan
Thomas. Less a conventional biopic than a love trapezoid set against
the bohemian underworld of World War II-torn London and, later, the
Welsh countryside, the film costars Keira Knightley, Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller (below right). I spoke with
Rhys recently about tackling a national hero, Thomas’ melancholic
yearning for the past, and learning to embrace the “vagabond existence”
of an actor’s life. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: Did you have any fear or trepidation in tackling a historical figure like Dylan Thomas?

Matthew Rhys: Oh, enormous! Wales is such a small country anyway that heroes are few and far between, and literary heroes are almost non-existent. There are two, so to take on, in my mind, the biggest was an enormous pressure, really, and compounded by others always saying, “Oh, he’s never been put on screen!” Even my dad said, “Don’t mess this one up.” I was like, “Oh, my God.” What’s ironic is that because there’s relatively little television footage of him, people have their own image or idea of who he is, and that tends to be quite strong and well defined, so in the run-up to the film I had all these people pitching in their takes on who Dylan was.

BS: Did you find that advice was conflicting, or at odds?

MR: Absolutely. [Dylan] was a real rogue, there were elements of him that were quite naughty. And some hold him in that golden hero esteem that he could do no wrong, whereas others said, “You can’t shy away from what he was and what he did.” That came from John Maybury in many senses, because he wanted a true depiction of who Dylan was, and [not] a chocolate box depiction. There were some very real, painful things that went on in his life, and I think we captured that in the film.

BS: What was at the heart of his roguish behavior, as you describe it? Was he truly emotionally troubled, or just living out the grand artistic cliché?

MR: What I learned of Dylan, in the research I did, was that he was an intensely complex man with a lot of demons. He desperately hankered for the golden years of innocence and youth — he writes about it in poems like “Fern Hill.” He always looks back, and he was deeply melancholic for the past, which I think is a Welsh trait — because somehow the past is always better. He was loved beyond belief by his mother, because his mother and father had a pretty bad relationship, so she poured all her love onto Dylan and spoiled him, treated him almost like a child his entire life. Therefore every woman he encountered, I think he wanted that kind of relationship — he wanted them to mother him, and love him unconditionally and intensely. And that’s what led to certain infantile behavior — the way that he regarded women, which was set up by his mother.

BS: The film revolves around a sort of love trapezoid, with no sides seeming quite equal all at once. Naturally, that means a lot of flirting and carousing with your on-screen female costars, so what was it like working with Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley?

MR: We had a tiny bit of time for rehearsal, but I knew both ladies a little socially. I think what helped was that we started our filming in a relatively remote part of Wales, where we were thrown together in a hotel and the early bonding happened there, really, because we had no choice. I think what also helped enormously was that all four of the main actors had a great love of the script and a healthy attitude toward what the film should be, so we were willing to throw ourselves in and pitch in as best we could to make it work.

BS: One of John’s other films, The Jacket, is partially about a veteran dealing with post-traumatic stress. In The Edge of Love, in the relationship between Dylan and William, Cillian’s character, there’s something interesting and not often addressed in movies — the tension between men who have served and seen horrors of war firsthand, and those who haven’t. …Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but do you think there was a lot of shame or self-disgust on Dylan’s part?

MR: That’s an interesting question. I can’t completely answer for Dylan, but I think deep down there may have been that, because he was unfit to join (the Army), he had bad lungs, and he despised machismo, and anything that resembled that. He does have that scene with William where he talks about warriors and says that if he could have his way he’d tell God to bring him back as a warrior because this way, being that sensitive, is too hard. I feel a bit unqualified to answer on his behalf because there are so many different angles. He sort of resented those men under the guise of them being macho, whereas it could have come from somewhere a lot deeper, as you suggest. And there as a longer scene taken out, which I was sad about, where Dylan plagues William with questions about what the war was like, but all the time making light of his serious answers. He almost can’t deal with it.

BS: He obviously has a very strong sense of what he wants visually, yet I don’t think many would describe John Maybury as a visual stylist, per se. How would you describe him as a director?

MR: It’s a perfect marriage, really, because having trained and been a very successful artist himself, his eye for composition is stunning. When he works with (cinematographer) Jonathan Freeman, the two of them feed off of each other’s passion. But he also has an artist’s ability to talk with actors about emotion and through-line, and he gives you everything you want. In my mind he marries both approaches very seamlessly.

BS: Where does Brothers & Sisters stand?

MR: We finish shooting our season finale tomorrow, and then we’re done until July… if we come back. We’ll find that out at the end of May.

BS: Is that ever weird as an actor — that sense of pervasive uncertainty with regards to work, and your next job?

MR: The sooner you embrace that, the easier that is for your sanity. The sooner you accept and learn to love your vagabond existence in life, the easier it is to deal with the randomness of it all.

BS: What first set you on a path to acting?

MR: Funnily enough, the Welsh specifically have these national festivals twice a year that are pretty ancient, and they encourage the youth to participate in folk singing, dancing, poetry recital and a whole host of traditions, so I think as a Welsh child you’re plunked on a stage from an early age, and it was the sort of thing that I became accustomed to. I discovered a love of theater, really, and it went from there — that’s what inspired me to apply for drama college in London.

BS: Wales is famously grey, and windswept. Has California, and specifically what I call our big, dumb sun affected your favorite leisure time activities?

MR: In coming to California, I said to myself, “Well, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.” So I’ve tried to do as much as I can, and enjoy all that the outdoors will offer. I did a dirt bike course in the Mojave not long ago, and went rafting on the Kern River. So that’s what I try to do — take advantage of my time here and do some things I wouldn’t be able to do back home. And if there’s one thing I always seem to enjoy doing, it’s horse riding.