London Calling, With Luck, Lust and Ambition
By A. O. SCOTT
New York Times, December 28, 2005

Because Woody Allen’s early films are about as funny as any ever made, it is often assumed that his temperament is essentially comic, which leads to all manner of disappointment and misunderstanding. Now and then, Mr. Allen tries to clear up the confusion, insisting, sometimes elegantly and sometimes a little too baldly, that his view of the world is essentially nihilistic. He has announced, in movie after movie, an absolute lack of faith in any ordering moral principle in the universe — and still, people think he’s joking.

In ”Match Point,” his most satisfying film in more than a decade, the director once again brings the bad news, delivering it with a light, sure touch. This is a Champagne cocktail laced with strychnine. You would have to go back to the heady, amoral heyday of Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder to find cynicism so deftly turned into superior entertainment. At the very beginning, Mr. Allen’s hero, a young tennis player recently retired from the professional tour, explains that the role of luck in human affairs is often underestimated. Later, the harsh implications of this idea will be evident, but at first it seems as whimsical as what Fred Astaire said in ”The Gay Divorcée”: that ”chance is the fool’s name for fate.”

Mr. Allen’s accomplishment here is to fool his audience, or at least to misdirect us, with a tale whose gilded surface disguises the darkness beneath. His guile — another name for it is art — keeps the story moving with the fleet momentum of a well-made play. Comparisons to ”Crimes and Misdemeanors” are inevitable, since the themes and some elements of plot are similar, but the philosophical baggage in ”Match Point” is more tightly and discreetly packed. There are few occasions for speech-making, and none of the desperate, self-conscious one-liners that have become, in Mr. Allen’s recent movies, more tics than shtick. Nor is there an obvious surrogate for the director among the youthful, mostly British and altogether splendid cast. If you walked in after the opening titles, it might take you a while to guess who made this picture.

After a while you would, of course. The usual literary signposts are in place: surely no other screenwriter could write a line like ”darling, have you seen my copy of Strindberg?” or send his protagonist to bed with a paperback Dostoyevsky. But while a whiff of Russian fatalism lingers in the air — and more than a whiff of Strindbergian misogyny — these don’t seem to be the most salient influences. The film’s setting is modified Henry James (wealthy London, with a few social and cultural outsiders buzzing around the hives of privilege); the conceit owes something to Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley books; and the narrative engine is pure Theodore Dreiser — hunger, lust, ambition, greed.

Not that the tennis player, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), seems at first to be consumed by such appetites. An Irishman of modest background, he takes a job at an exclusive London club, helping its rich members polish their ground strokes. He seems both easygoing and slightly ill at ease, ingratiating and diffident. Before long, he befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), the amiable, unserious heir to a business fortune, who invites Chris to the family box at the opera. From there, it is a short trip to an affair with Tom’s sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), a job in the family firm and the intermittently awkward but materially rewarding position of son-in-law to parents played by Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton.

When ”Match Point” was shown in Cannes last spring, some British critics objected that its depiction of London was inaccurate, a demurral that New Yorkers, accustomed to visiting Mr. Allen’s fantasy Manhattan, could only greet with weary shrugs and sighs. Uprooting a script originally set in the Hamptons and repotting it in British soil has refreshed and sharpened the story, which depends not on insight into a particular social situation, but rather on a general theory of human behavior. London is Manhattan seen through a glass, brightly: Tate Modern stands in for the Museum of Modern Art; Covent Garden takes the place of Lincoln Center. As for the breathtaking South Bank loft into which Chris and Chloe move, it will satisfy the lust for high-end real estate that has kept the diehards in their seats during Mr. Allen’s long creative malaise.

In this case, though, what happens in the well-appointed rooms and fashionable restaurants is more interesting than the architecture or the décor. Mr. Rhys-Meyers has an unusual ability to keep the audience guessing, to draw us into sympathetic concord even as we’re trying to figure him out. Is he a cipher or a sociopath? A careful social climber or a reckless rake? The first clue that he may be something other than a mild, well-mannered sidekick comes when Chris meets Tom’s fiancée, an American actress named Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), in a scene that raises the movie’s temperature from a polite simmer to a full sexual boil. (The scene also quietly acknowledges a debt to ”A Place in the Sun,” George Stevens’s adaptation of Dreiser’s ”American Tragedy.” The parallels don’t stop there. Mr. Rhys-Meyers’s hollow-cheeked watchfulness recalls Montgomery Clift. Which makes Ms. Johansson either the next Elizabeth Taylor or the new Shelley Winters. Hmm).

What passes between Chris and Nola is not only desire, but also recognition, which makes their connection especially volatile. As their affair advances, Ms. Johansson and Mr. Rhys-Meyers manage some of the best acting seen in a Woody Allen movie in a long time, escaping the archness and emotional disconnection that his writing often imposes. It is possible to identify with both of them — and to feel an empathetic twinge as they are ensnared in the consequences of their own heedlessness — without entirely liking either one.

But it is the film’s brisk, chilly precision that makes it so bracingly pleasurable. The gloom of random, meaningless existence has rarely been so much fun, and Mr. Allen’s bite has never been so sharp, or so deep. A movie this good is no laughing matter.

There are some wonderful podcasts that have been posted on the official website for “Match Point”, featuring more interviews with Jonathan and his co-stars (thanks Shelia). Be sure to check them out!

And some good news to report! Jonathan has been offered and accepted a role in “August Rush”, a film set in New York City and to be directed by Kirsten Sheridan. Filming begins next year in New York and co-stars Freddie Highmore and Robin Williams. “August Rush” is a fantasy love story set in Central Park, where an orphaned musical prodigy uses his gift as a clue to finding his birth parents.

Jonathan attended the premiere of “Match Point” in Rome last night and did a press call today for the film. MTV.com has a great interview up with Jonathan and Scarlett Johansson. Entertainment Tonight is going to air a story on “Match Point” featuring Scarlett and Jonathan tonight! Check your local listings to find out when the show airs.

Jonathan is featured in a huge photo spread in the new issue of Esquire magazine (the January 2006 US issue). And he made another appearance with his “Match Point” co-star Scarlett Johansson in an interview on the Today Show’s Saturday edition this past weekend. And lastly, Jonathan has won Best Actor in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television at the 10th annual Satellite Awards. His co-star Randy Quaid won Best Supporting Actor and “Elvis” won Best Miniseries. Congratulations Jonathan!

Jonathan was featured in the December 2 Evening Standard. And he recently made an appearance with his “Match Point” co-stars in an interview that aired on E! and had a brief appearance this morning on the Today Show with Al Roker. He also attended last night’s special screening of “Match Point” held at the Tribeca Grand.

“Match Point” will have it’s UK premiere in London (City of Westminster) this Sunday night and Jonathan will be in attendance. The premiere is being held at the Curzon Mayfair theatre.

The 2006 Golden Globe Award nominations were announced this morning. “Match Point” got nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (Scarlett Johansson). Jonathan got a nomination for Best Actor in a Mini-Series or TV Movie for “Elvis”! The Golden Globes will be presented live on January 16, 2006 8pm EST on NBC. And “Match Point” was named as one of the 10 best films of the year by the National Board of Review.

In other exciting news, the teaser trailer for “Mission: Impossible 3″ is now online!

Coverage from the “Match Point” premiere may appear on various entertainment news programs this evening like Entertainment Tonight. Coming Soon has a very interesting interview with Jonathan and his co-star Scarlett Johansson. And you can enter to win free passes for an advanced screening of the film through L.A. radio station Indie 103.

The Los Angeles premiere of “Match Point” is scheduled for tomorrow evening. Arrivals start at 7:15 pm and the premiere is being held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Jonathan is expected to attend along with director Woody Allen and his co-stars in the film.

Advantage Jonny
By Edward Helmore
Evening Standard, December 2, 2005
[View Photos]

Born in poverty in Ireland, lost in drink on the set of ‘Alexander’, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has turned a corner to work with Woody Allen and Tom Cruise. It’s time to clean up, he tells Edward Helmore.

With a super-sized plate of scrambled eggs and side order of bacon untouched in front of him, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is holding court on what must be every actor’s favourite subject — himself. He is an engaging character, easily charismatic enough to escape the gravitational pull of his own self-importance. Along with Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy, he’s one of the current pack of handsome Irish bad-boy actors. But if he was short and fat and not very good-looking, what would he do? ‘I dunno,’ he says, not missing a beat. ‘Become a politician.’

Later this month, the 28-year-old Dublin-born actor stars in Woody Allen’s Match Point. It’s the director’s first movie to be shot in Britain, and once again takes up his pet themes of morality and guilt. Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a young tennis coach who finds himself socially adopted by a family of grandees, first by his student Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) and then — romantically — by Hewett’s sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Chloe is sweet and dull and makes a good wife; Tom’s girlfriend is a struggling American actress, Nola, played by Scarlett Johansson. Between pitchers of Pimm’s and sets of tennis, the two outsiders in this Home Counties situation hook up, and Chris has a choice: a well-appointed life with Chloe or a roller-coaster with the sexy Nola.

For Rhys-Meyers, as for any actor on the way up, working with Woody Allen is an opportunity and a challenge. Allen doesn’t rehearse his actors; they’re chosen because he sees their qualities in the part. ‘That’s how Woody works. He’s not somebody to discuss a scene for three hours. You have to be prepared to shoot anything at any given moment.’ In other words, with Allen directing, you act yourself. Chris Wilson [sic] is a tennis instructor on the make. So? ‘I’m an actor, so of course I’m on the make. What actor isn’t?’ he says reasonably enough. ‘All the qualities that exist in Chris Wilton exist in Jonny Rhys-Meyers. Woody casts you because he sees the characteristics of the role in you. So you already have 80 per cent of the character before you wake up in the morning and you only have to bring the details to work with you.’

He hasn’t always been so in control. Rhys-Meyers — whose real name is Jonathan O’Keefe — was expelled from a religious school at 14. He describes himself as ‘poor’ and says, ‘It was difficult to really concentrate on maths when all I wanted was a sandwich.’ He ran away from home at 15 ‘because I couldn’t have made a life for myself there’. His mum, he admits, was ‘not a very responsible woman’. After hanging out doing odd jobs in pool halls, he was befriended by a man called Christopher Crofts, whose Cork farmhouse he now calls home. Crofts is gay, although he has sons of his own, and took Rhys-Meyers in, in the hope, he has said, of allaying the young man’s ‘terrible insecurities’. Rhys-Meyers admits that he has had a lot of therapy, but is realizing that ‘nobody can give you a magic pill that makes you feel better’. And although many actors — especially the Irish — are strangers to sobriety, Rhys-Meyers has recently become overtly responsible and goal-orientated. ‘I don’t hell-raise any more,’ he claims. ‘I don’t go out. I don’t go to bars. I don’t drink.’

That wasn’t the case on the set of Oliver Stone’s Alexander where, he says, they all went wild in Morocco. ‘It started on the set. I drank for about a year. Then I realized it just didn’t work for me. I got terrible hangovers.’

In this new incarnation he likes to speak in terms of fulfilling his potential. While in New York, the actor is early to bed and early to rise, and any spare time is spent working out in the hotel gym. ‘Over the last year, I’ve become a gym freak. I go for two hours a day,’ he comments. And he has built a striking physique, narrow at the hips and broad at the shoulders, not unlike that of a young Iggy Pop, the singer whose character the actor played in Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes’ cinematic love letter to glam rock that brought the actor his first real public attention.

But there is a thoroughly rational reason for his attitude to working out. ‘Vanity is very important, because if you want to keep working at 44, you have to take care of your body at 26 or 27,’ he explains, continuing. ‘When you’re 30, things start falling around all over the place cos that’s genetics and biology. You have to deny yourself that third bowl of pasta or the fifth gin and tonic.’ And in addition, he says, ‘Any frustration I might have, I take out In the gym.’ No surprise then that, like Tom Cruise, Rhys-Meyer[s] does his own stunts: ‘I have to be crazier in different ways — snowboarding, riding, doing things that are slightly dangerous.’

Still, occasional dramas involving Rhys-Meyers make it into the press. Earlier this year, on the eve of the Alexander premiere, he was in a London police station, accused by his student girlfriend, Reena Hammer, 18, whose father owns the spa at the top of Harrods and whose mother is Ruby of Ruby & Millie make-up fame, of hitting her. Rhys-Meyers, in turn, accused Hammer of bodily harm, and the pair were both cautioned for common assault. The actor says the reports are rubbish. ‘We just had a loud argument and one of the neighbors called the police. So we had to go down to the police station and apologize to the neighbors for the shouting and screaming.’ Things are obviously back to normal as the pair live together in a flat in Camden.

Nowadays, he says, he takes pleasure from strict self-control. He likes to see himself as a kind of Spartan. ‘Self-denial is an important thing. There’s a great high in it.’ And anyway, the alternatives are sobering. ‘It’s fun to go wild, but it’s not much fun to end up overweight, unhealthy and dead before your time…like Elvis Presley (whom the actor recently played in a US biopic and for which he was nominated for an Emmy).

‘Call me boring. Call me an old granny. But that’s the way it is for the time being. I’ve got too much to do to jeopardise it by partying and misbehaving and not concentrating on my job. Come back in three years and maybe I’ll be hanging out the window of the Chateau Marmont with two bottles of champagne…’

And he’s off actresses. Like his friend Colin Farrell, he’s slain many, among them Asia Argento, Toni Collette, Rachael Leigh Cook, Estella Warren. But no more, thank you. ‘There’s only room for one actress in my life and I’m it.’ Get two together and the situation soon becomes attention-competitive. ‘You have to have a pretty big ego to get up in front of a camera at 8:30 in the morning and pawn yourself as somebody interesting,’ he points out reasonably enough. ‘Nobody is interesting at 8:30 in the morning.’

This turn toward discipline can be attributed in part to time spent on Mission: Impossible: 3, the film he has been shooting with Tom Cruise. Rhys-Meyers hasn’t become a Scientologist, he hasn’t been asked to take Scientology lessons and there isn’t a proselytizing tent on set. ‘In the whole four months we’ve been shooting, I haven’t heard Tom utter the word Scientology once,’ he says. Beyond that, he’s sworn — in fact, signed — to secrecy. But he adds that he has met Katie Holmes, Cruise’s fiancee. ‘She’s a great girl. Nice. Smart.’

It wouldn’t be surprising if he weren’t taking a few pages from Cruise’s book. Over the course of his career he’s played loners, romantics, anti-heroes, such as Steerpike in Gormenghast, or the spoilt young blade George Osborne in Vanity Fair, all in the same slightly decadent fashion. But now he’s looking for the main hit — a movie that will establish him as a Hollywood start to balance his artier, minor-key movies.

The actor says he’s ‘motivated to reach his potential’, and since he’s a master of transformation, as quick as a whip, and with disconcerting ability to change accents and character as he goes, there’s every chance he’ll make it.

‘But I’m not into money. Money gets you into a lot of trouble,’ he adds. ‘People who make a success of their talent in the entertainment industry are usually working class, and unfortunately they don’t know how to handle it. That’s why you see footballers with their flash cars and their cheap girlfriends because they don’t know how to deal with it. All they know how to do Is buy ten grand’s worth of Gucci, drive a $250,000 Bentley and live in Beckingham Palace.’ Given those views, it’s not surprising to find that he’s somewhat smarter with his own money — buying his mother a house near Cork, a flat for himself in Morocco and investing in a supermarket in Warsaw. With other actors, I wonder? ‘God , no. Are you kidding? I’d never do that,’ he reacts quickly, adding, ‘With a foundation of Irish farmers who invest abroad.’

The actor has already come a long way from the pool bar in which he was discovered just over ten years ago. It hasn’t all come easily. ‘For every role I’ve got, I’ve lost 200. When young actors ask me how I got into it, I can’t tell them cos I was just lucky and ran with the opportunity.’

Sooner or later, he may turn from acting to ‘the other side of the camera to see somebody else cringe’. It could be funny, too, of course. And it’s doubtful he’ll take much in the way of disobedience from actors and actresses. ‘If an actress said to me she wasn’t going to take off her bra, I’d fire her. The part says naked, so get naked, or I’ll find an actress who will.’

There’s a scene in Match Point in which Rhys-Meyers covers Scarlett Johansson in baby oil. It’s diverting if only because it looks gratuitous. So whose idea was that? ‘It was Woody’s idea,’ says the actor. So will he ask his actors to play with baby oil? Well, maybe, but he cautions, ‘You’d have to have a couple of gold statues on your mantelpiece before you can start demanding that…’

Special thanks to Vanessa for transcribing this article.