'Match Point' Star Jumped At Role

(CBS)  Jonathan Rhys Meyers is best known to American audiences for costarring in the hit film "Bend It Like Beckham" and for his Emmy-nominated performance as the King in the miniseries "Elvis." Now he's back on the big screen in Woody Allen's new drama "Match Point."

The film is being called Woody Allen's best film in a decade. It received four Golden Globe nominations, including best picture.

Rhys Meyers talked with The Early Show's Tracy Smith about the film, which is a departure for Allen.

"Well, when I heard that I was going to be seen for a Woody Allen film, I wasn't told what it entailed, but was told it was not a comedy, which made sense because I'm not a natural comedian," he said. "So I didn't think he'd want to see me for a comedic role. But I was surprised the script took the turns that it did. It surprised everyone."

How much of saying "yes" to this role has to do with the script and how much was about working for Woody Allen?

"Just working for Woody Allen was a huge amount," he said. "I accepted the film before I read the script, so that will tell you."

"Match Point" is the first of Allen's films to be set in London. Rhys Meyers' character is a working-class tennis coach who is befriended by one of his wealthy students and is taken under the wing of the student's family. He is charming, but dark.

"Well, Chris is actually a good man who makes bad choices," Rhys Meyers said. "And then the consequences of his choices determine the lives of many of the characters that he's involved with. But, you know, he's really human. And, you know, this is the strange thing about Woody Allen. He's a very, very wonderful humanist director. So he takes this simple relationship between a man and woman, can encompass all the problems of the world. And I think there's always been a struggle of the working class boy trying to get into the wealthy family and better himself."

One of the choices this working-class boy makes is that he has an affair with his friend's fiancée, played by Scarlett Johansson.

Rhys Meyers has said that he thinks every man would be tempted to cheat if presented with a beautiful woman.

"You know, there's — if you want to look for, his sort of, like, the moralistic strain in this film, this is what happens when you don't discipline yourself," he said. "This is what happens when you have an affair. And you will get caught. It will come back to haunt you."

A major theme in this movie is that we don't give luck enough credit for what happens in our lives.

"I've been very, very lucky and I've been very, very grateful for my luck," he said. "I don't take Chris Walton's point of view on luck. I think I find it very hard to believe that everything is so out of my control. But certainly, certain things are. I think he's lucky in the sense that opportunities confront him and he's able to realize these opportunities when they happen. Not many people do. I think that's what makes lucky people lucky. They recognize this, and then they can push the suggestion as far as it will go."