Matthew Rhys' former music teacher has revealed how his old school effectively built a production around him after he was cast as an uncannily convincing Elvis Presley at 18, days after the Welsh actor made history at the Emmy Awards.
Delyth Medi Lloyd, 60, said the 1993 show was shaped around the sixth-former at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf, a Welsh-language secondary school in Cardiff, because he bore an uncanny resemblance to The King.
Rhys, now 51, made history at the 78th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Monday night, becoming the first man to win two lead acting awards at the same ceremony. The Emmys are the American television industry's leading honours, handed out annually in Los Angeles.
He was named Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy for Widow's Bay and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for The Beast in Me. As an executive producer of Widow's Bay, he also shared in the show's win for Outstanding Comedy Series, taking his career haul to four Emmys.
But more than three decades before conquering Hollywood, Rhys was swivelling his hips in a gold suit on the stage of his Cardiff school.
A teenage Elvis in Cardiff
Pictures show Rhys, then 18, performing in the school's original 1993 musical Elfis, first shimmering in gold and later sweeping across the stage in a long white cape. A contemporary review recorded that the teenager received a lengthy standing ovation.
"We chose the show because of him, really," Lloyd said. "He always stood out amongst the crowd and he had this black, wavy hair - he looked a bit like him! He stole the show, singing all the songs. I think the girls were swooning over him."
Reacting to his Emmy success, Lloyd said: "I saw the news this morning and it didn't surprise me at all. We're all so proud of Matthew."
Building the show around him
Lloyd said Rhys watched videos of Elvis for hours until he had memorised all of the singer's mannerisms.
"He was so enthusiastic about everything," she said. "If he was doing something, he would give it 100 per cent."
Costume designer Julie Morse created the spectacular outfits, while Rhys' mother and father watched him perform every night. Lloyd believes his mother may still have the white cape.
"Matthew has a fantastic singing voice as well, which must be because he is Welsh, but he seems to have kept that quiet in his other roles over the years!" Lloyd said.
She added: "I think Elvis was a big boost for him and his family in showing that he could do it. We all tried to persuade him to go on because it was so clear that he had a very big talent."
From school stage to RADA
Rhys was accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a prestigious London drama school whose graduates include some of Britain's best-known actors, and received the Patricia Rothermere Scholarship in 1993.
Lloyd taught at Glantaf from 1989 to 2022 and became head of music. She first worked with Rhys on extracurricular shows in year nine, and he went on to appear in every concert and production, often at the heart of the action.
"We saw a different side to Matthew in his drama days because he was so much in his element. He had this twinkle in his eye," Lloyd said. "He lived life to the full and he was very humorous. His sense of humour is so dry and he's so funny. He was a very popular lad, but so unassuming. He had something very unique."
Reunion with a Hollywood star
Lloyd has since visited her former pupil in Los Angeles and sailed aboard Rarebit, a 1939 wooden boat of the type favoured by the American novelist Ernest Hemingway, in New York. Rhys spent four years restoring the boat, which is now based in the city.
Lloyd met up with Rhys after his performance in the Welsh National Theatre's Playing Burton last year, when she also got to meet fellow Welsh actor Michael Sheen, known for playing real-life figures including Tony Blair and David Frost.
"Matthew has always remembered his roots and his old teachers, he has been wonderful with us whenever we've been out to see him," Lloyd said. "He remembers the good old days."
Reacting to his latest Emmy triumph, Lloyd said: "When I saw The Beast in Me, I was so in awe of all his talents. It was almost shocking to see that he could play someone so nasty. But he seems to be convincing in all styles."
Roots in Wales
Glantaf's links with the Eisteddfod, Wales' national festival of competitive music, poetry and performance, helped nurture pupils, and performing was embedded in school life. Lloyd said Rhys never forgot those roots.
He later backed the campaign to save the Glan yr Afon pub in Pennal, southern Gwynedd, and returned to pull a pint when it reopened.
