With the addition of 14 pounds of muscle and a decidedly shrewder streak in his character, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is treating viewers of Showtime’s The Tudors to a leaner, meaner King Henry VIII this time around.

If the first season of the period drama was all about the boy king having fun and providing a foreshadowing of coming intrigues, the second season is all about Henry coming into his own, questioning his loyalties, and tipping the moral scales
with decisive, murderous authority.

The series is an update of the staid British-style costume dramas often seen on PBS, offering a sexier version of history that, according to series creator/writer Michael Hirst, is 85 percent historically accurate. Instead of the corpulent, middle-aged Henry VIII the public is familiar with, Rhys Meyers plays a chiseled, horny devil whose piercing gaze and womanizing have been keeping eyeballs glued to the small screen—while rapidly making the actor a huge star on these shores.

The Tudors is a king-making drama that is also proving to be a king maker of the 30-year-old Irish-born actor. Before the popular series came along, Rhys Meyers became a recognizable face for roles in several major movies, though until now he has not quite made it to the top of Hollywood’s A-list. The Tudors is changing that. Just as his character flexes more muscle in the second season, the actor is changing his image from pretty to potentially beastly.

“You can only do so many skinny pretty-boy roles,” he
said. “I decided I had to become more masculine and move
away from all those young man roles. I’m 30 now. And the very
best roles for actors come between the ages of 30 and 50.
And I want to be ready for them all.”

Things may have turned out very differently for the young actor had he not been hustling billiards at a pool hall in Cork, Ireland, when he was 15.

He and his three younger brothers were raised by their mother after his father left when Rhys Meyers was three. He spent some time in an orphanage. At 15 he was expelled from school, and was hanging around the pool hall when some casting agents came in looking for some rough kids to act in War of the Buttons. He auditioned for the movie in Dublin, but was passed over. He caught the acting bug, and started auditioning for other parts. His first gig was a commercial
for Knorr’s Soup.

“It was my first job, and when I got it, it was like, I’ve got one, now let’s get another,” he has said.

His first film role was in 1994’s A Man of No Importance, in which he worked with Albert Finney. Two years later he had the lead in The Disappearance of Finbar, a role that almost didn’t happen.

A month before filming started, six gunmen burst into the house he was staying in. He had guns held to his face and was tied up and dragged around as they demanded money. He escaped unscathed.

“It taught me to have no fear of people. If somebody comes up to me and tries to pick a fight, I’m like, ‘You know how many guns I’ve had pointed at me at one time?’ ”

It was a heady time for the aspiring actor, even after the near tragedy.

“Somebody wanting to pay you a lot of money at 17 years old to do a film, what do you say, ‘No thank you, I’ll just stay here and hang with my mates’? It was a way out of poverty—I was a very poor kid. To suddenly have a bunch of money, it was like, ‘Sure, I’ll do this, why not?’ ”

Directors took notice of the distinctive young actor, and Neil Jordan gave him his first major role in 1996’s Michael Collins. Several edgy roles followed, including that of the Bowie-esque Brian Slade in 1998’s Velvet Goldmine, in which he gave a believable performance as a sexually ambiguous rock star. Audiences fell in love with him, and his face was becoming widely recognized even if his name was less so. But being pretty is the first step to superstardom.

“Let’s not kid ourselves—this business is about being good-
looking,” he has said. “Look, Brad Pitt is an incredible actor, but do you think he’d be a famous movie star if he didn’t look like that? Come on! Some mornings, some days, you just don’t have that physical confidence. That’s a horrible feeling. A lot of my success is because of what I look like. I know that.”

The 2002 surprise hit Bend It Like Beckham brought him more into the mainstream, away from the dark indie roles he was becoming known for.

“You can’t be bombarded all the time with these hard-hitting films; it’s nice to go to the cinema and see a beautiful film that touches on creative, positive energy,” Rhys Meyers said.

2004’s Vanity Fair and Alexander prepped him for the period drama that would explode him into the cultural consciousness a couple of years later. He got lucky when he was offered the lead as a murderous social climber in Woody Allen’s Match Point in 2005, in which he got to show off his acting chops and leading-man ability.

Keri Russell, who costarred with him in last year’s August Rush, has said of the actor, “Jonathan, more than anyone I’ve ever worked with, is really a performer. He’s so bold and larger than life.”

He does have a formidable screen presence, but there is some thought to what he does, which goes beyond the chiseled jaw and bee-stung lips. He is aware of his uncommon good looks, but with them comes insecurity.

“Part of being a narcissist is being terribly insecure,” Rhys Meyers said. “If I wasn’t so insecure about myself, I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. I am constantly seeking approval.”

The actor has mostly ducked the titillating tabloid headlines, when so many of his contemporaries are finding themselves being fed to the public as gossip fodder. His only public gaffes so far are two reported alcohol rehab visits in 2007. He has downplayed those, and says now that he doesn’t drink.

“I want to do really good things with my life,” he has said.
“And drinking is not synonymous with that. The [Richard]
Burton days, the [Peter] O’Toole days, they are gone.” (O’Toole,
coincidentally, plays Pope Paul III in the second season of
The Tudors.)

He disputes the talk that has gone around about his drinking days. “I hear people’s fantasies of my wild-child days, and I wish they were as wild as that, but the reality was not so wild. In the same way that my success was not overnight. I mean, I’m all for the exaggerated version of everything, but the truth was it was boring and getting in the way of work, so I stopped.”

He has been compared to Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio, but would prefer to be defined as an original. “When Daniel Day-Lewis first started acting, nobody said he was the new anything,” he has said. “What I’d like is to be a Johnny Rhys Meyers. I’d like to be accepted as myself.”

Still, he says he would like to have the creative freedom of a Cruise or a DiCaprio. “I do want to have the power to get movies made. I’m not going to sit here and say I want anonymity or that I don’t want to be famous. I do.”

Along with his work on The Tudors, Rhys Meyers is busy on several features. He recently wrapped The Children of Huang Shi, in which his character rescues orphans in 1930s China. He is also currently filming a horror movie called Shelter. And he has two more roles in films that are in preproduction.

If Jonathan Rhys Meyers is right, and an actor’s most memorable roles come between the ages of 30 and 50, he has dozens of important movies on the horizon.

His star will continue to rise, but his humble beginnings are likely to keep him grounded. Though he yearns for Hollywood power and the creative freedoms of his more famous counterparts, he seems to roll with the punches as he happily charts his own course.