Paul Rhys was born on 19 December 1963 in Neath, Wales. He has said that seeing the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever was what first got him interested in becoming an actor. During his time at RADA Rhys was cast as Dean Sharp in Julien Temple's 1986 film Absolute Beginners. In the early 1990s he played 2 brothers in Hollywood biopics: Theo Van Gogh alongside Tim Roth in Robert Altman's Vincent & Theo (1990) and Sydney Chaplin opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Richard Attenborough's bio pic, Chaplin (1992). His other film roles include the part of the Photographer in Nina Takes a Lover (1994) and Dr Ferral in From Hell (2001). Paul Rhys lives in West London.