Jonathan Rhys Meyers dishes on noir heist film American Night

Jonathan Rhys Meyers took some time to chat about his role in the 2021 crime noir drama American Night, which is now available on Amazon and Hulu. Rhys Meyers has always been a quality performer and his work in American Night is no exception. Rhys Meyers plays art critic/forger John Kaplan who gets entangled as his past comes back to haunt him while he’s opening his own art gallery.

What drew you to the role?

Rhys Meyers: John is someone we all know. He’s never on Terra firma. He’s always white-water rafting and he’s being pulled in so many directions.
Everyone knows someone like that. He’s kinda like Lefty in Donnie Brasco. He’s always right there from things working out but then it goes wrong.
Every minefield blows up in his face.

His past keeps coming back to drag him down. It’s like he thought he wiggled out of it, but he hadn’t. He can never wriggle out of it. Kaplan doesn’t want to get involved, but it keeps pulling him back.

Also, I really wanted to work with Paz Vega and Emile Hirsch.

What was it like working with them?

Rhys Meyers: With Paz, there’s a real decadent energy to [Sarah] that she was able to explore. She had to put on this sophisticated garb. In these films there’s always the woman who’s asked to carry the broken pieces of a beautiful dream. [Sarah] has to watch [John] continually fall. Yes, there’s these moments of bliss with them, but everything is just out of reach. Their reach exceeds their grasp.

Emile was a blast. There’s nothing more dangerous than a sociopath with artistic notions especially when they have an army with guns. [Michael] wants to be this artistic sophisticate wearing these big, oversized coats. It’s very late 80s. It’s so funny. I wanted Emile to come on one day with a full 80s Brooke Shields look.

What intrigued you with the script?

Meyers: Scripts are like a blueprint with different energies that manifest on film. Whether from the director, the cast, how it’s shot or just what the DP saw that day. [Director/writer] Alessio [Della Valle] was replaying different scenes from different angles to try and make the audience as off-kilter as Kaplan. To involve them in the confusion. Alessio has a very operatic sense that some people will get while others will not.

After some time away from the role is there anything you’d change about your performance or made you think you wish you could have done something differently?

Rhys Meyers: As actors there’s always a million things you’d do differently, and I always think I could do better. Actors are at the mercy of the director and the editor. If the director wants something or the editor wants to cut it a certain way, it can become a different performance. Do actors make films? Yes, but in a sense, we appear in someone else’s film. We’re part of the ingredients but you make the meal in the editing room.

But as an actor there’s always more to be had and hindsight with a performance is always 20/20.

Talk about the family dynamics with the screw up brother Vincet played by Jeremy Piven?

Rhys Meyers: We all have one of those. Jeremy is a very gifted young man. He’s able to bring a certain perspective and he’s like Kaplan’s guilty conscious of the brother he could do more for to help. None of these people are bad people. They’re not good people but they’re not bad. They’re more trying to be clever bastards, and no one likes a clever bastard because they’re always trying to find that shortcut to get ahead. And when they get caught, they go to the back of the line.

What’s motivated the team to want to expose American Night to more audiences?

Rhys Meyers: We’re living in a world where people have a library of films in their living room. It’s their own personal Blockbuster only now it’s through streaming platforms that cater to their specific taste in movies. It’s not everyone’s audience, but for those films they like them for very specific reasons and that could also be the case with our film.

How would you sell American Night to audiences seeking something different?

Rhys Meyers: This is an art crime caper when a fixed possession ends up in the hands of two idiots. It’s fun. Jeremy is a lot of fun and Paz is so wonderful. There’s some beautiful set pieces and I really think people should check it out. It’s worth a look.

Photo Credit: Martha Productions, QMI and Pegasus

Stream American Night now on Amazon Prime.

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