Luck has nothing to do with it, say Rhys Meyers

LOS ANGELES - By most people's reckoning, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers would seem to have had a lot of accidental good fortune in his 28 years, but he's not buying it.

Rhys Meyers, who stars in Woody Allen's new movie exploring the nature of luck, Match Point, believes it comes to those who seize opportunity. Those who wait, lose their chance.

"Lucky people recognise opportunity ... unlucky people let it pass them by," he said in a recent interview.

"You can be lucky by having a talent, but if you do not have the mental preparation to use that talent and push it as far as it will go, that luck is wasted on you," he added.

Rhys Meyers has enjoyed opportunity and seized on it, building an eclectic career from small parts like the assassin in 1996's Michael Collins to pop singer Brian Slade in low-budget movie Velvet Goldmine and supporting roles in major films like last year's Alexander.

But Match Point marks his newest incarnation as a leading man in an Oscar-hopeful movie, and this summer the brooding actor stars opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III, which is expected to be a major Hollywood blockbuster.

Film critic Roger Ebert told Reuters Match Point is one of Allen's five best movies. Already, it has earned four Golden Globe nominations, including one for best drama.

Match Point relies on Rhys Meyers to empathetically portray a social climbing tennis pro, Chris Wilton, an Irishman who finds himself hobnobbing with Britain's upper class.

Allen calls the dark-haired, blue-eyed actor "smouldering and intense and full of conflict and passion", and Wilton is all of those.

On his first day at an English tennis club, Wilton meets wealthy Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode). They quickly become friends and Chris meets Hewett's sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer).

She falls head over heels in love, and as fast as he can say, "I do," Chris marries Chloe and takes a job with her father. His life and career are on the rise, until he strikes up an affair with Tom's girlfriend, Nola (Scarlett Johansson).

Human desire

By Rhys Meyers' reckoning, Chris simply seizes the chance to improve his life, and cannot control his human desire for Nola. But after a twisted end to their affair, audiences are left to ponder whether he was cunning in his rise to power and position, or just plain lucky.

Rhys Meyers was not born into show business. He did not attend a top drama school or move to Hollywood to work his way from starving actor to hot young leading man.

He was raised by a single mother in County Cork, Ireland, left school as a teen-ager and "discovered" by a British casting agency while it was scouting for new faces.

His first audition for a lead role in David Puttnam's War of the Buttons was a failure, but the setback only steeled his determination to make it as an actor.

The assassin role in Collins won him recognition, and his parts have gained in prominence ever since. His part as a young Elvis Presley in 2005 TV movie "Elvis" earned him critical praise and US Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for acting.

Like Elvis Presley and 1970s glam rocker Slade in Goldmine, many of his roles have utilised his androgynous looks and lithe frame, but he wants to change that. He is going to the gym daily, working out and bulking up.

"The best roles for actors don't really come until they are 31 or 32. You've got to be a man, to play a man, so in changing my physicality, it may open a few more doors," he said.

While he is still working his way towards greater fame, his more than a decade in show business has taught him how to handle leading questions from the media.

He remained coy about his role in Mission: Impossible III, saying he was not allowed to talk about it. However, he did praise star Tom Cruise for performing his own stunts.

By Rhys Meyers' reckoning, actors who do their own stunt work get about 25 per cent more time on screen, and he wants that time for himself.

"It means an awful lot in the business to do (stunts)," he said, sounding cunning about his desire to rise even further up the ranks. One thing is for sure, he definitely is not relying on luck.

- REUTERS/VNU