From director Michael Haussman and written by Rob Allyn, the historical drama Edge of the World is a tale of the adventures of Sir James Brooke (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who fled Victorian England in 1839 to explore Borneo and then decided to stay and rule, in order to protect it from the British Empire. While there, he finds himself leading a lifelong crusade to end piracy, slavery and head-hunting, and both embracing and shedding blood for his new jungle kingdom.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Jonathan Rhys Meyers talked about really living in the characters that he plays, why he wanted to be a part of telling this story, and what made Sir James Brooke choose a very different life than the one he’d been living. He also talked about whether he’d be up for returning to his Mission: Impossible character, why he wishes he could have a do-over on his performance in Velvet Goldmine, and what he’s going to be doing next.

Collider: You seem to get involved with projects that you can really get lost in, as an actor, and this film is no exception to that. Did it feel that way for you? Is that something you seek out and pursue?

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS: I take the movies that I’m offered, and once I’m offered them, I live in them.

Is that something that you enjoy doing? Is it hard to get back out of them, when you do that?

RHYS MEYERS: Yeah, it is hard to get out of them, but when you’ve been doing it for 30 years, you get used to it.

What made you want to be a part of telling this story? Was it something about the story itself or was it more the specific man whose story you would be telling?

edge-of-the-world-jonathan-rhys-meyers-03
Image via Samuel Goldwyn Films

RHYS MEYERS: I wanted to work with Michael Haussman, who I think is going to be a prolific director. I also wanted to play a British Victorian who was am anti-colonialist and who protected Borneo from being part of the British colony. That was interesting to me. Sir James Brooke had an interesting story. He became the Raja of Sarawak, but he never actually became a king. He was constantly fighting pirates until he died of lung disease. It was his nephew Charles that became the king.

Are you someone who does a lot of research and preparation for everything you do, or do you focus more on what’s in the script and build it from that version of who you’re playing?

RHYS MEYERS: Well, what I do is I read the script, and then I memorize the entire script, and then I start living in the story. I’m interested in history and I understood where he was coming from. I liked the fact that he was born in India, which means that he has more of an Eastern culture about him.

With all of the preparation and work that you did, going into this, and everything you learned about him, what did you like about him and was there anything that you didn’t like about him?

RHYS MEYERS: Every character is different, and there are things you like about him and there’s things you don’t like about him. It’s always conflictual. For all my characters, it’s conflictual. I both love them and hate them, at the same time.

Was that in equal measure with this guy?

RHYS MEYERS: I understood his bad relationship with his father. There are not many things that I didn’t like about him, but there are certain things that concerned me about him.

Was there anything you wished you’d been able to learn about him that you weren’t, just because that information isn’t available?

RHYS MEYERS: There’s not enough information about Sir James Brooke. He was knighted to be Sir James Brooke, but then he was accused of murder and refused to go back to England, which is very, very strange for the British Empire, who could be accused of many murders. Protecting Sarawak from the British colonies upset them, so they accused him of murder, and tried him and convicted him in absentia.

edge-of-the-world-jonathan-rhys-meyers-01
Image via Samuel Goldwyn Films

What’s it like to show up for work on a set that’s in a world like this? What’s it like to be in that sort of environment?

RHYS MEYERS: Once I sign onto a project, I buy into it completely. I had a great time with Sarawakian people and I spent as much time as I could with them. Every day that I was on set, I was talking to them, so I could learn about them rather than concentrating on being an actor. I set out to become one of their people.

The locations in this were just incredible to look at. Can you get lost in the sets on location, or is that never fully possible to do when there’s a guy standing somewhere with a boom microphone?

RHYS MEYERS: First of all, Jaime Torres is an incredible DP. But I don’t even see the people with the boom microphone. My gift, as an actor, is that once I start the scene and once I’m playing the thing, everything disappears. I don’t even see a camera.

Are you someone who goes out in the environment you’re in when you’re not working, or do you stay solely focused on the work until you wrap?

RHYS MEYERS: I like to keep the focus solely on the work, but then I do embrace whatever I’m doing. I do different things. I’m not an actor who spends a lot of time on social media. When I’m working, I’m working.

It seems as though this is a man who ended up in a situation that he very much never planned for. What do you think it was about him that made him choose this life plan? Once he found himself in this situation, why do you think he saw this as a better life for himself?

RHYS MEYERS: I think he was running away from colonialism. He’d seen what had happened with the colonization of India because he was born there and he saw how people were treated. He wanted to go somewhere else where colonialism didn’t exist, so he could try to protect against colonialism because he saw the hurt that it brought.

There are such an interesting character and relationship dynamics in this story. Even the love story tells a lot about who this man is, at this point in his life. What did you enjoy most about that and about learning about him through playing those different dynamics?

RHYS MEYERS: I enjoyed embracing his pain and his statelessness. He’s a man who doesn’t have a country and was given one, and then fought to keep it from the British Empire, which he did successfully. I like those characters that are abandoned by their own people, so they’re stateless and they have to find a world for themselves.

From Vikings to Dracula to The Tudors, you’ve spent longer bits of time on one project. Do you enjoy getting to spend more time with a character?

RHYS MEYERS: Some characters. Dracula wasn’t a very nice character to be with for a long time and neither was Henry VIII. He was a pretty difficult person. In Vikings, I was playing a warrior who was dealing with the spiritual conflict, so I lived with a spiritual conflict while I was doing it.

edge-of-the-world-jonathan-rhys-meyers-04
Image via Samuel Goldwyn Films

Is that something that you consider when you’re making the decision of which characters you’ll play?

RHYS MEYERS: I’ve been an actor since I was 15 years old. All I know is to play people, and I try to play them as relevantly as possible and I try to live in their spirit as relevantly as possible.

Are you interested in doing more television? Is that something that you’re always open to?

RHYS MEYERS: If I got a good TV show, I’d do it.

Are there certain kinds of projects or genres that would interest you, after the previous experiences you’ve had? Do you have a personal wishlist?

RHYS MEYERS: I don’t like doing horror films. I find that when people are doing horror films, they’re constantly breathing heavy, the whole way through the film. That’s not what horror films are about. Once you feel the pain, you have to then become conscious of how you’re gonna deal with it. So, I actually don’t like doing horror films. And I’ve never done a romantic comedy.

Is that by choice? Would you want to do a romantic comedy, if one came your way?

RHYS MEYERS: I would do one, if it was clever. But most of the time, I find them corny. When you’re in love, it makes you sick because you’re afraid that you’re gonna lose the love that you have. With romantic comedies, always find that they don’t express the fear that people feel when they feel in love. When you fall in love, you get sicknesses in your stomach and you’re afraid that love is gonna go away. I never find that in romantic comedies.

What do you remember about making Mission: Impossible 3? Would you ever want to return to the franchise and play that character again?

RHYS MEYERS: That was more complicated because it’s such a big franchise and it’s about Tom [Cruise]. He’s an incredible guy to work with, by the way. He’s so kind and so generous to everybody on the set. It’s like being in a circus because there are four different sets, 15 different cameras, and there are lots of action scenes, so you spend a lot of time sitting around and wondering where the camera is. But I love Tom. I would totally revisit Mission: Impossible, if they asked me to return to my character. Tom is the bravest man I’ve ever met. I think people have Tom Cruise confused. He’s not crazy. He’s a very, very intelligent, sane man. But at the same time, he really does love adrenaline. That’s his drug, so he’s willing to put himself at risk the whole time.

You were in Velvet Goldmine pretty early in your career. What memories do you still have from that shoot? How did you find the experience of working with Todd Haynes and Ewan McGregor?

edge-of-the-world-jonathan-rhys-meyers-dominic-monaghan
Image via Samuel Goldwyn Films

RHYS MEYERS: Todd Haynes is a magnificent director. I loved working with him, and I loved working with Ewan. But I think I made a mistake with Velvet Goldmine. I should have played him as a working class guy. Instead, I got too much into the fantasy of him being Brian Slade. What I think would have worked better is if I had played him as a completely working class boy, just pretending to be it. If I could do it again, I would play him as a working class boy.

Do you often think about how you could have played one of your characters differently?

RHYS MEYERS: Like most actors, you always think that you could have done better. It’s funny, with Edge of the World, I completely embrace my performance. There’s nothing I would have changed.

What are you working on now?

RHYS MEYERS: I haven’t started writing yet, but I’m gonna do that soon. I have a lot to write about. I just did a film, called The Good Neighbor, with Luke Kleintank, who is a wonderful actor. That was directed by Stephan Rick and based on his film, Unter Nachbarn, which was a German film. I really enjoyed working on that. And then, I’m gonna do a film with my wife in Southeast Asia about children and minefields. I’m really, really looking forward to working with my wife.

Edge of the World is available on digital and VOD.