Matthew Rhys’s alma mater pays tribute to ‘loyal pupil’ and Welsh language devotee

When Matthew Rhys made history as the first actor ever to win two best lead Emmy awards in one night, he paid tribute to his roots.

“To the great and good people of Wales, who were as much a nurturer as anyone else,” said the proud Welshman now living in New York, “We are a small but mighty nation”. “Diolch yn fawr iawn,” he added, meaning “thank you very much” in Welsh.

Rhys, 51, who won best lead for the supernatural Apple comedy Widow’s Bay, and the psychological Netflix thriller The Beast in Me, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada), one of the UK’s most prestigious drama schools. Growing up in Whitchurch, Cardiff, he was inspired by Welsh film heroes Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.

But the seeds of his undoubted talent were truly sown at his Welsh-speaking schools – Ysgol Melin Gruffydd and Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf – where he received not just an “excellent education, but “lots of drama and school performances”, he has said.

A fellow pupil, BBC’s Morning Live host Gethin Jones, has recalled the pair performing together in an Elvis show at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf, when Rhys was 17. “In the Welsh language there’s no ‘v’ so we all walked around in these shirts that said ‘Elfis’,” Jones told viewers.

“[Rhys] was a remarkable talent, even then,” the school’s current headteacher, Matthew Evans, told the Guardian. Former staff remember how he was “able to enthuse an audience and the cast around him”.

The Hollywood star remains in contact with the school, whose alumni also include the fellow actor and friend Ioan Gruffudd. Rhys took time to talk to pupils during Covid, said Evans, and he joined in a virtual farewell for his former music and drama teacher. “He’s a very loyal former pupil,” he said.

“He’s very proud of his Welsh language skills. He also commends his upbringing in Welsh cultural activities, like the Eisteddfod, as a great stepping stone for his career. From a very young age, pupils take part in ensembles, all kinds of choirs, and that has given him, obviously, such a fabulous start in life. Also a love for the theatre and performing.”

Rhys, whose partner Keri Russell was also nominated for her lead role in Netflix drama the Diplomat, has said that seeing Burton and Hopkins “up there on screen made me believe that my own ludicrous hopes could one day become real. They were proof that it was possible for people from Wales to get a foothold in the industry.”

Today he has his own enviable haul of awards – 10 wins and 58 nominations according to IMDb – including another Emmy in 2018 for The Americans. His stellar career has included roles as diverse as gay lawyer Kevin Walker in the US series Brothers & Sisters, to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in The Edge of Love.

Success was not guaranteed and, even when it came, was punctuated with periods of drought, which is why he has been keen to give back. He is an ambassador for Into Film Cymru, which helps educators teach film as part of the curriculum for Wales.

It is “as much down to luck as talent,” he has said. After The Graduate – he starred as Benjamin Braddock at the Gielgud Theatre in London in 2000 – he didn’t work for a year. “And it was touch and go whether I’d carry on.” He considered other professions outside the industry, including joining the British army.

Even after success there have been hiccups – a botched James Bond audition for one – and he still found himself out of work for long periods of time, which “keeps you humble”.

Perhaps that is why, on learning of his double Emmy nomination this year, the Welsh pessimist in him said: “Well, this is it, this is the height of it all, it’s downhill from now on,” he told Wales Online ahead of Monday’s ceremony.

There is not much time for celebrating his Emmys in a packed diary. Rhys has a second series of Widow’s Bay to film in 2027, he is back to the UK soon for the BBC drama Dragon Slayers as the the former Sunday Times editor Harry Evans, and he is about to take Mark Jenkins’s one-man play Playing Burton off-Broadway. He is the Welsh language voice of Han Solo in Star Wars: A New Hope due to air on S4C this Christmas.

He may be enjoying his status as undisputed king of American TV, but can he claim the Welsh crown too? Speaking of his friend and former Hollywood flatmate, the actor-director Michael Sheen, Rhys has said there is no “real rivalry”, despite “constant humiliation”.

“I always know whatever it is I think I’m doing well at, Sheen’s always like, ‘Oh, well, I’ve just taken over the Welsh National Theatre,’” he told Wales Online. “So, you always know it’s like whatever you’re doing, times it by 10, and that’s what Sheen’s probably doing.”