The 1959 performance that made Matthew Rhys want to be an actor: “In command of his talent”
Wales has given us a host of talented singers, delicious water, and Gareth Bale’s ponytail, but something the nation can be incredibly proud of is its array of acting talent.
The great Sir Anthony Hopkins was born in Port Talbot, Michael Sheen spent time there as a child, while Catherine Zeta-Jones, Morfydd Clark, and Christian Bale are just some of the other thespians to hail from the ‘Land of the Red Dragon’.
Then there’s Matthew Rhys, born in Cardiff, who spent the early years of his career travelling the globe in search of his next part, finally establishing himself through the spy drama The Americans, for which he won an Emmy in 2018. Now, he’s regarded as one of the finest character actors working today, regardless of nationality.
Rhys hasn’t been afraid to borrow from his fellow countrymen over the years. His character in The Beast in Me was inspired by Hannibal Lecter, played by the aforementioned Mr Hopkins. As he explained to Backstage, if it hadn’t been for a different Welsh icon, he might never have been an actor at all.
“A movie [performance] that really fired me [up] to want to become an actor was Richard Burton in Look Back in Anger,” he said, “I encourage anyone to watch his performance in that, just someone who was in command of his talent and his understanding and masterfulness of language.”
Released in 1959, Look Back in Anger has nothing to do with Oasis and everything to do with John Osborne’s genre-defying play. The story centres on a working-class Briton named Jimmy Porter, who is caught between his dull wife (Claire Boom) and her exciting best friend (Helena Charles). The play and the film were dedicated to realism and were among the first examples of ‘ordinary’ people being put in the frame. It ushered in the era of the kitchen sink drama and coined the phrase ‘angry young man’.
Porter was played by Pontrhydyfen’s own Richard Burton. Growing up as the second-youngest of 13 children as part of a working-class, Welsh-speaking family, Burton sought to escape a life of poverty through acting, achieving that goal by becoming one of the highest-earning and most famous actors in the entire world.
He might be more famous for his turbulent personal life, however, which included not one, but two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor, and he died in 1984 at 58, his legendary alcoholism a contributing factor to his untimely end. Mercifully, Rhys decided only to emulate Burton as an actor rather than as a lifestyle model.
For all his faults off the screen, he was dynamic on it, as demonstrated by his seven Oscar nominations (one of the highest tallies never to yield a victory), and he remains one of Wales’ greatest exports who set the standard for so many of his compatriots down the line. In 2012, Rhys achieved a personal dream when he played Jimmy in a 2012 stage revival of Look Back in Anger, and he also played the man himself in a 2025 play aptly titled Playing Burton.
