- "How does it feel playing Henry VIII? I don't know how it feels playing Henry VIII because for the period of time that I do it I don't see the world any differently. I don't go home in the evening and become Johnny Rhys Meyers very quickly. I never really leave it. It brings a different energy and probably makes me very difficult to live with in a personal life. While I'm doing this job because it's always in the back of my head. That I have to think like a King. I have to behave like a King. Even in public - I find that I have to maintain this element of grace and elegance. Even when I'm not working. The only time that I ever - during the period of when I'm shooting - that I get to not be King is I play football on Sunday morning at 11 o'clock and for that one hour, hour and a half - I forget about the kingdom. Every single day, every other hour - it's always in my mind. It's always in my head, it never leaves."[Showtime Podcast 2008]
- After playing four seasons as the most infamous monarch in English history, how does Jonathan Rhys Meyers assess Henry VIII? “He did some very, very important things for England. Most importantly, he gave them Elizabeth, who I think is England’s most important monarch. He puts things in motion that years later would come into fruition. And he was a very intelligent man — but he was racked with ego, vanity, his thoughts of his own divinity. You know, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so he was very corrupt. So on the one hand I have empathy for him and a degree of admiration — but not much. I think he makes great television; but he was not, in the final analysis, a great king.” [Spring 2010]
- Isn’t all this sex kind of racy and modern for a period drama? Rhys Meyers has a definite opinion on this: “People can fall into the trap of doing something period that thinks that everybody and everything slows down. It doesn’t. Now certainly, it’s not as fast‑moving as our world today with airplanes and computers and all of that. But you know, just because it’s period, people don’t walk slower, they don’t talk slower . . . or lower. As an actor you have to put all those conventions out of your head; people are still people and they still live”.
- "I remember having this conversation with Showtime: If you want somebody who looks like Henry, don't cast me. But we begin the story when Henry and I were the same age, 29, when history tells us he was athletic and good-looking. ... I may end up with a load of prosthetics slapped on me and a big red wig and such, but for now I just have to show off a lot of range for 10 hours."
- "People have said Henry VIII didn’t look like me. Fair enough. But no critic can tell me that how I play Henry isn’t right, because I play him a hell of a lot closer to history than people admit. He was an egotistical, spoilt brat, born with the arrogance that everything he had in this world was his by right.”
- "These people had an awful lot of sex, more sex than we have today,Once the sun goes down there's very little to do in the Tudor kingdom. There's no TVs, no iPods, no nightclubs, no motor cars, no bowling alleys,so you either read, talk, laugh, drink, sing — or shag the devil out of each other!"
- "There is a certain level of arrogance that has to seep into your system if you are playing the king, although I am sure it was there before"
- “Let’s not kid ourselves—this business is about being good-looking. 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.”
- "I (based my performance) on what I would do myself if I had absolute power at 28, 29 years old. I didn't have the physicality of Henry, so I had to do it internally, to create this incredibly strong, powerful man without being like 6 foot 4 and 300 pounds. I had to make his ambition bigger than anybody elses. I had to make his energy bigger than anybody elses. I had to make him the most dangerous man in court".
- I don't love acting. How can you love something when you sit around 12 hours a day and work 10 minutes a day? I am just doing it because it keeps me off the streets and out of jail - JRM
- "When you want to be an actor, especially in films, you've got to have a certain arrogance, but I'm looking at things in the long term, because a star is very short term, you only see it when it explodes."
- "When you’re having sex [on the set] with somebody you’re totally in that person at that time. It’s strange when there are tons of people looking at you, but I don’t get ashamed and I don’t get embarrassed. I go to the gym, so I’m comfortable with my body. This is the job that I do and if I want to be comfortable doing the job that I do, I have to take care of myself."
- "You know why I stay out of the limelight?" he says. "I always think there will be that time that people will find out that I'm crap at what I do. I think they will figure out I'm crap. Doesn't everybody have that feeling?"
- I wouldn't date an actress. There's only room for one actress in my life and I'm it. Too difficult. On the one hand, they understand the job. But on the other hand, it's very competitive within the relationship. Two actors, say one becomes a mega-star and the other doesn't. Happens all the time. So one is getting so much attention, and the other person feels jealous. - JRM
- I have only had one girlfriend who I didn't cheat on. Men are like that. No matter how many times you eat pasta, some night you are going to want steak. - JRM
- “I think it’s nice to go out with someone who is smarter than you. It’s very sexy. I believe the greatest erogenous zone in the body sits on your shoulders.”
- From boy to man: "Yeah, I wanted to change as an actor. There is a time for being a pretty, thin, 19-year-old boy. It’s about how you get parts at that time. It’s very difficult to cast 19 to 24, because you’re not quite a kid and you’re not really a man yet. You haven’t had life’s experiences."
- Ha! Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner! - Brian Slade, Velvet Goldmine
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