He's been in two stunning films, Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and Mike Figgis' The Loss of Sexual Innocence. Other than that, the crap-roster is pretty incredible - from that Woody Allen movie to indie garbage like B Monkey to the painfully calculated attempt at a cult hit that is Killer Tongue, it's hard to know where to begin. Bend It Like Beckham is enjoyable enough and probably his best-known film, but still he's perching, waiting to be really seen, actually remembered. Maybe his role in the next James Bond movie will be the one, but I sort of doubt it.

It must be said, neither Velvet Goldmine nor The Loss of Sexual Innocence demands much of him as an actor. He plays the former in more-or-less one tone (to good effect), and he has almost no lines in the latter. Not to say he's a poor actor, precisely, but he seems to have two effective strategies, blankness and melodrama. When he tries for something in between, it rarely works.

If films were still silent, he'd be one of The Ones.

For me, he's a symbol, what of, I don't know. He's one of the beauties, and if he's remembered, it will probably be for that only. His surface is endless and holy. Anyone who claims that physical beauty has symmetry at its heart has never closely studied his face.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, photographed by Greg Lotus