As a prolific TV and film actor, it makes sense that Iwan Rheon's favourite Christmas tradition growing up in Cardiff, Wales, was the family's regular Christmas Eve visit to the cinema. "It started when the Lord of the Rings films came out in 2001," he recalls. "They came out in December every year for three years, and I remember also seeing Avatar one year.
“We continued that for a while, but now that our lives are different, as happens when you have a family of your own, Christmas changes a bit.”
Now with his partner and their toddler in London, where he speaks from now, Christmas has taken a slightly different shape. When he returns to Wales it’s as a visitor, so quality time with his family is the focus.
“My mum goes mad for Christmas,” he says. “It’s lovely to spend time with family in a way that you wouldn’t usually. Especially after what we’ve just been through, and with my lifestyle that means I have to be away a lot, and probably don’t spend enough time with family as I should. So that’s what I’m excited about.”
While he began his television career in Channel 4 series Misfits (alongside Robert Sheehan, who remains a pal), it was his depiction of the sadist Ramsay Bolton in Game of Thrones that elevated him into a household name. “I’ve got lots of fond memories of being part of Game of Thrones – obviously playing an absolute … asshole,” he says.
While the Game of Thrones family have since dispersed across the world on new projects, they still find time to stay in touch on occasion. “I actually went for dinner with Alfie Allen [who played Theon Greyjoy, a victim of Bolton’s], Dan Portman [Pordrick] and Finn Jones [Loras Tyrell] the other night, and it was quite nice to have a little bit of a reunion,” he says. “It was lovely to hang out like we used to in Belfast.”
Did he get to know the city well while he was filming? “I certainly got to know the area around the Fitzwilliam Hotel well,” he says. “I have been around Northern Ireland a bit more since – a friend got married in Coleraine not so long ago, so the boys from Wales went up there and saw the Giant’s Causeway and all that kind of stuff.”
Leprechaun accent
His love affair with Northern Ireland hasn’t ended there. Playing the role of the leprechaun Liam Doyle in the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods allowed him to channel the accent he picked up – although he gets a little coy when I bring it up. “The leprechaun Mad Sweeney was already in the show and was very loved, so I wanted the Northern Irish accent to make my leprechaun slightly different. I haven’t actually seen it, but my dad said the accent wasn’t very good,” he says, laughing. “But let’s not talk about that.”
In which case, our conversation turns to his current project. A world away from the villainous Ramsay Bolton, he stars as “frustrated musician” Blake Cutter in the Sky Original family film A Christmas Number One.
“He’s in an extreme metal band, and he feels he should have made it by now,” says Rheon. “He’s in a bit of a dead end and doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He’s helped along by his lovely niece Nina, who tells him that he needs to do something else. So he ends up writing her a Christmas song, and then all hell breaks loose for him, basically.”
He’s part of a celeb-heavy cast that also features Freida Pinto as a music manager, singer Alfie Boe and comedians Rich Hall and Joe Lycett, as well as newcomer Helena Zengel in the central role of Nina.
Chambers music
While pop maestro Guy Chambers (most famous for writing Robbie Williams’s early work) penned the tunes on this musical film, Chambers worked with Rheon, a musician himself, to write the hopeful Christmas No 1 in question.
His next film is another music number – he’ll star in an adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. With Rocketman, Yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody also recent successes, it seems that musical film is having a moment.
“Everything goes through phases, and I think maybe music is having its go – we’ve had vampires, now have musical films,” he says. “But there’s something really lovely about it. For A Christmas Number One, it feels like a real Christmas sort of film, and hopefully people will be able to leave it feeling a bit more positive about the world. We all need a bit of cheer at the moment.”
A Christmas Number One airs on Sky Cinema and Now from December 10th
