Matthew Rhys reflects on his The beast in me character Nile Jarvis.
Rhys thinks Nile enjoys the discomfort around him, and the actor enjoys the dynamic between Nile and grieving author and mom Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes).
“There’s a taste for Nile in the sense that there’s a taste for the discomfort around him which he enjoys immensely,” Rhys, 51, said. People. “And I think sometimes he does that for his own entertainment, for his own pleasure, because of his slightly sadistic nature.”
“But then when he finds a tennis partner of sorts in Aggie [Claire Danes]and he says, “Oh wow, this is someone who can return the ball much faster and much more skillfully.” So it’s always fun,” he said.
Aggie and Nile are “just an impulsive move from each other,” Rhys added.
“And it’s very fine,” he said of the difference between them. “The kind of membrane between the two is very thin and that’s how God’s grace extends to the other. And I think they see that in each other, that at any moment, given their impulsiveness, the stories can be reversed so easily.”
“And that’s when it’s pretty electric,” Rhys remarked.
