Bellisima intervista radiofonica rilasciata ad una radio di Abu Dhabi.
Jonathan era ospite dell' ADU DHABI FILM FESTIVAL, dove ha consegnato un premio.
Radio 2
Accalia chats with International celebrities, Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Uma Thurman
Listen as they talk about vanity, Tom Cruise and Quentin Tarantino...
Accalia Hipwood from Radio 2 speaks with Irish actor & model Jonathan Rhys Meyers at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2010 about working with Hollywood heavy weights Tom Cruise & John Travolta, success & fame
QUI potete ascoltare per intero la conversazione di Jonny e anche l'intervista di Uma Thurman.
Altrimenti di seguito, potete trovare la trascrizione integrale, ovviamente solo dell'intervista a Jonathan, grazie al duro lavoro di Katherine, una amica americana
acalia radio:
in a few seconds i'm going to be talking to actor jonathan rhys meyers.
you might know him for his roles in velvet goldmine, bend it like beckham
and woody allen's Matchpoint where he stars alongside Scarlett johanson.
Also he's in the very muchtalked about historical drama the Tudors where
he plays Henry the eighth. Certainly a face you can't forget, he's also been
the face of several advertising campaigns with Hugo Boss.
With me now, Jonathan rhys meyers
Acalia:
So how you doing. and uh you've only just got here haven't you.
JRM:
I got here 2:30 this morning, i slept, had breakfast and then i went to Yas Island.
Acalia:
oh what did you think of that
JRM:
It's quite extraordinary, It's quite extraordinary, i find uh it's certainly Abu Dhabi
the center of anywhere else in the UE. it's an architectural, ehm it's an architects
dream to come here. eh because not only do they uh have the finances and the
infrastructre, they've got the will. to build. and that's uh an architect is always
looking for someone with the will to build.
acalia:
yeah
JRM:
and no idea is too extraordinary to purposterous or undoable. uh eh an i like that
element of a place. So Yas island was incredibly impressive but i was more impressed
with Shenzieghed mosque.
Acalia:
it is stunning isn't it it's quite something else
JRM:
well i was in rajastana a week and a half ago at the Taj Mahal. they used some of
the same marble in the Taj Mahal is, or that area is aggro. Only a certain amount
of families that can do the inlaying that's on the floor. so i went and i saw these
men at work, and it was quite extraordinary to see it in another part of the world
shining just as beautiful quite extraordinary. 96 pillars, all those domes, minnerets,
it's incredibly beautiful.
acalia:
no limitations here
JRM:
there's NO limitations and i kind of like that, i kind of like that element and ehm
you know i was talking to the gentlemen and he said you know on the last eh Ede
there was uh...there was forty thousand people praying at that mosque. Love to
have seen something like that.
I'm here with my girlfriend at the moment eh of course her family are Bengalis
and uh they been to Mecca and so she's a Haaji. and uh she said Mecca was quite
extraordinary and tried two hundred thousand (quick laugh here)
Acalia:
So you're not totally unfamiliar with this part of the world then?
JRM:
i have a house in Southern Morocco, i've owned it for ten years
Acalia:
ok, i know i think i read that, they're some other facts about you that i've read
online and elsewhere. Is this true.. you have a horse named belle and eh..
JRM:
i was a teenager. And it died
Acalia:
oh ok well THAT'S not a good thing to bring up was it, not a good start to an interview.
and please tell me that boobie (yes she said boobie) the chijuaha still exist and
is still around
JRM:
well booboo is uh half chihuaua half pug, he's a chug and eh he's a very handsome
little boy and he is certainly at home and he is very upset that he didnt come to
abu Dhabi
Acalia:
bless
JRM:
very upset
Acalia:
i'm kind a little relieved then
JRM:
yes, i em i have such a close relationship with my dog it's it's iit a it can be
at times sickeningly embarrassing
Acalia:
no i have one too and i'm stuck with the same problem
JRM:
yeah
Acalia:
i love hearing about peoples stories, of how they started out.
were you discovered or you had your first audition in a pool hall is that right?
JRM:
i was a pool hustler, that's what i did when i was about 16 years old for extra money.
eh, you know i was talented i knew what i was doing. and one day i was playing my
schitck eh with a couple of people, an i was in the middle of a hustle and this casting
director was looking at me doing this, and afterwards she came up to me an asked
"have you ever thought about doing that on film?" and of course you know when
I'm 15 years old or 16 years old and somebody comes up to me in a poolhall in Ireland,
on film for what? CCTV, fun film for the guards, i mean what? an she said "no, on film
for Warner Brothers" and i laughed of course, i thought it was ridiculous . But she
asked me to just put 10 words on tape, that she had just written out. She said that
" if you can just say these 10 words on the tape, i'll look at this tape and i can tell you.
And so i did the 10 words, she said look i'll be back in an half an hour and ehm,
i thought ,(stutters for a sec) i didn't of course you know believe it an so i put it
out of my mind. and a half hour later or maybe an hour later, i came back into
the poolhall and this woman was in a blind panic.
in the poolhall she goes "where av you been, where have you been" an i said like
what do you mean where i've been, i've been about my day!" and she said "well
i've just spoken to David Putnam whose the producer and uh he's desperate to
meet you and there's a limousine waiting for you outside. "
Acalia:
wow, and for a fifteen year old that's quite something isn't it?
JRM:
yeah, so 3 hours later i was doing a screen test with a DP called Bruno de Kaiser,
very famous director of photography and saw David Putnam. i didn't get the role.
Acalia:
you didn't. but what a way to start though you must have had the bug from then on
when you thought why this is.. no.. (interrupted)
JRM:
after i didn't get the role i didn't ever want to see another film again. for a little while.
i was kind of upset i didn't get the role, and uh just because you know i didn't have
anything, and then i had something, and then i didn't have it. so i was quite upset.
Acalia:
a good lesson to learn in life
JRM: yeah it was
Acalia:
harsh but true
JRM:
harsh, very harsh and very true. i, but i got a phone call a couple of days later saying
there is another director who would like to meet you who heard of your audition so
I went to my audition and got a small part in a film
Acalia:
you come from quite a musical creative family don't you.
JRM:
yeah my dad is a musician, eh uh he's been a gigging musician, what we call a working
musician his whole life.
my brother's a singer/songwriter, i'm doing some recording
with him in the new year. I have another brother who plays for an alternative rock band
on the east coast of the United States, they're becoming very popular, they're doing
some gigs, they got an award recently in Los Angeles, so he's kind of alternative rock.
ProgRock, they call it progressive rock, and he's an incredibly talented musician, he's
a bass player, but a technical bass player. so he's playing for his own band, but then
he's doing session work with alot of people eh uh alot of reggae bands alot of soul
and blues artists and stuff like that.
Acalia:
do you consider yourself a musician?
JRM:
no
Acalia:
I've seen in films where you sung though
JRM:
i have sung but i don't consider myself a musician. i have one other brother, who
is uh who's a wonderful drummer, is a wonderful musician, but he's actually working
on the tv series Hawaii-Five-O.
Acalia:
thats so cool
JRM:
his umm, his wife, is uh assistant to the lead actor alex McLoughlin and Jamie is
stand in for Scott Kaahn.
Acalia:
Creative family then. You've managed to do what alot of actors across the pond
haven't succeed in doing, you've crossed over. You've been in big movies, we saw
From Paris With Love with you and john travolta, MI3 with Tom cruise, it kinda
doesn't get much bigger than that does it?
JRM:
yeah i mean yeah, Tom's production is always enormous you know its an enormous
production. an it was an enormous honor because you know he's a great guy to work
with and a great guy to work for. because its his baby, he's the producer, he's pretty
much the boss man on the show. So that was a great honor for me cuz i learned alot
working for Tom and if you work with anybody who's exceptional in their industry as
he is you learn. If you're smart you learn.
John is quite literally the nicest man i've ever met. He's certainly the nicest actor
i've ever worked with, um he's a gentleman and a wonderful family man. an um you
know he's just a generous actor, he's been at the top for so long he tells me these
stories and he keeps showing me these wonderful pictures of himself with Katherine
Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, and they're sitting outside a cafe in paris in 1978 and
travolta's got a cigarette hanging from his lips, and Katherine Deneuve got her head
in her shoulders she's laughing at something Depardieu says and im looking at this
photograph black and white photograph everyone's looking fabulous
and i said to him it must have been so extraordinary to be famous in a time when it
really meant something. And he said you know what, you're dead right. he said its
so easy to become famous right now, he goes "in 1978 when you were world famous,
he says i couldn't walk out of a hotel room without everybody knowing exactly who
i was" he said i use to come to Paris, Gerard used to come in a limousine and meet
me off the airplane because the car would be driven out onto the track , Gerard with
a cigarette in his mouth sitting next to the oil tanker, Katherine Denieurve sprawled
on the back seat off to a party, Francoise Trufaute, all of these incredible intellectuals
at that time, these great filmmakers of that time coming back to, coming back to
New York and working with sort of wonderful people like Brian De Palma you know
Blowout, was certainly one of my favorites of Johns films and Urban Cowboy and u
h you know it was just a great time to be in film and it was a great time for him to
be famous and he said look there was a period of time there on 1975-76-77 where
he said literally i was the biggest star in the world. And he said its quite extraordinary
to be that for any element of time, he said in one year the two top movies were
Saturday Night Fever and Grease. You couldn't move without seeing one or the
two of them.
And i mean, yeah he's so extraordinary.
he tells me the most beautiful story he told me, he says he remembers sitting in
a hotel room. he done these two movies and he done a third film, i can't remember
what it's called, and he said i was on the back of two enormous hits, enormous,
he says you couldn't get any more famous, he says i was sitting, i don't remember
the actresses name, a very famous a very beautiful actress at the time, and she's
sitting in a room and its the night before it opens or the night it opens you know
it goes to the box office the next day. so everyone is so excited they're having such
a good time, they're laughing, everything's so high energy. The next day the movie
comes out..BOMBS, at the box office. And he said "after having two enormous success
like that it felt like somebody had taken my stomach and pulled it out of me" he said,
"i remember this actress sitting there and she looked at me and she goes, ah johnny
will ya never smile again johnny?"
(Acalia+JRM laughs)
JRM:
and he said at that moment he realized how silly of hitting bottom because the whole
thing of when she goes, ah will ya never smile again, immediately he started smiling.
He was like that's the nature of the game, that's the nature of success.
Acalia:
when did you know you've made it? Was there (interrupted)
JRM:
I still don't
Acalia:
a point you thought.
JRM:
i still don't
Acalia:
What's next?
JRM:
Belle Du Seignure is a film i'm doing right now, it's been directed and written by
Glendo Bondour, and its from a very intellectual cult book by Albert Cohen.
its a love story, i play Solal who is uh working for the league of nations in Geneva
in 1936 and he falls in love with the wife, a very beautiful wife of an underling in
his office. They begin an affair and he steals the wife and go off to Diamalfi in Italy
and its about their love affair. its a little like The Unbearable Lightness of Being,
its that type of character and imagery. The girl...there's one actress called Maria
Bonvi [whose been in] a lot of Ingmar Bergmans movies, very beautiful woman,
She's in her forties now, she plays the countess isolde which is very similar to
Lena Olins character in the Unbearable lightness of being. And uh, a russian former
supermodel now an actress called Natalia Vordianova plays Arian...the beautful Arian.
Acalia:
Jonathan its been an absolute pleasure talking to you
JRM:
my pleasure
Acalia:
and hearing all your great stories, thank you very much
JRM:
thank you very much, its been a pleasure thank you.
