It’s rare that we see Matthew Rhys playing roles like Nile Jarvis, the sociopathic real estate heir who may or may not have killed his wife in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me.” In fact, when showrunner Howard Gordon was considering Rhys for the role, he called up “The Americans” writer-showrunner Joel Fields, who said the Welsh actor is “the nicest guy in showbiz.”
When I relayed Fields’ assessment to Rhys, he cackled with delight.
Affability is not the first character trait that comes to mind when imagining someone to play the cat (and sometimes the mouse) in the game between Nile and Claire Danes’ grieving author Aggie Wiggs, but Gordon had a feeling Rhys could bring something special to the role.
“It’s not really a part I get to do, and it’s not something I felt like I’ve done before to that degree, so that was fun,” Rhys said, chatting just days after wrapping his lead role in the second season of Apple TV’s “Presumed Innocent” and in the middle of a worldwide press tour for “Widow’s Bay,” a horror comedy (also from Apple) in which he plays the anxious mayor of a haunted island.
It’s that versatility that has made Rhys one of the most watchable actors of his generation, first popping as the compassionate Russian spy Philip Jennings on FX’s “The Americans,” then turning heads in everything from HBO’s “Girls” and “Perry Mason” redo to Steven Spielberg’s 2017 film “The Post.”
His affable charm and kind eyes create a shortcut to empathy for viewers, which Rhys and Gordon weaponize in “The Beast in Me” as Aggie vacillates between being convinced Nile is a murderer who has everyone fooled and believing him when he professes his innocence.
The “Hitchcockian thriller” aspect drew Rhys to the project, he said, alongside the chance to work with Danes, Gordon and director Antonio Campos. “There was something very traditional about it that I loved, the kind of thing I would watch and go, ‘Well, who did do it?’”
Rhys dove into research on psychopaths to prepare and zeroed in on Nile’s backstory — particularly his relationship with his mother — as a sort of North Star while building the character out.
“Some of the psychoses I read about, you have to be predisposed to be able to do that to other human beings, but if enough things happen to you, then it’ll unlock something. I kind of landed there,” he said.
It helped to have Danes as his scene partner, since her “cry face” has become famous across her storied filmography. So what’s it like to act opposite her when she hits that note? “You realize how finely tuned she is to the craft, because she can access any emotion at seemingly any given second,” he said, adding that her prep game is “beyond impressive.”
The preparation for both actors proved fortuitous as “The Beast in Me” — which went through years of development before Danes tapped Gordon to finally get the project in shape — was a fluid production, with the entire team brainstorming and debating different endings all the way up to the end of the shoot.
“Everything was put on the table as fair game,” Rhys said, before confessing that he was advocating for a big shoot-out in the vein of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
His biggest challenge, though, was a scene where Nile and Aggie get drunk together. It’s a pivotal moment, because Nile has to modulate how much of his mask to take off, but that wasn’t what intimidated Rhys the most. “The hardest thing for me is dancing, so I was like, ‘Aw, fuck.’ That was awful. I was like, ‘There’s no way to hide on this one,’” he said with a sigh.
“But as a scene to get your teeth into, it’s kind of magical, because you’ve got two people who’ve been dancing with each other, circling each other like sharks, and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘OK, are we showing vulnerability, or is this still the game?’”
Rhys’ performance has landed him squarely in the Emmy conversation nearly a decade after he won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award for The Americans. He said the buzz is “very exciting,” especially given that “The Beast in Me” drew 6.9 million views in its first four days, becoming one of the streamer’s biggest hits of the year.
“When Netflix told us the numbers, it was really heartening that there’s this element of traditional storytelling that people still want, that is ultimately about human beings,” he said.
And he’s not slowing down. He moved right from “The Beast in Me” to “Widow’s Bay,” which not only drew rave reviews but has ignited a rabid, passionate fanbase. The Apple TV show allows Rhys to embrace his more comedic side. “When I read ‘Widow’s Bay,’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, who do I have to kill to make this?’” he said.
He was excited by the opportunity to mash up horror, comedy and drama in a singular tone through creator Katie Dippold’s unique lens, and likens it to how “The Americans” was a spy thriller that was truly about a marriage. For all the ghosts and supernatural trappings of “Widow’s Bay,” underneath it’s a story about people.
He’s also pitched Gordon on “The Beast in Me” Season 2. If you’ve seen the first season, you might be wondering how Nile could possibly return. Rhys’ idea involves a violent ambulance ride and a “Silence of the Lambs” homage pitting Nile and Aggie against each other once again.
It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but the way he told it, it sounded like a delicious idea.
That’s the Matthew Rhys charm for you.
This story first ran in the Limited Series/TV Movie issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
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