For the eerily handsome young actor Stuart Townsend, the past 12 months have been a roller-coaster ride. Last October he was unceremoniously booted off the New Zealand set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies, losing a lead role that would probably have made him an international star. He has just come to the end of a brilliant run in Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending on the London stage, for which John Lahr, writing in The New Yorker, labelled him "The Next Big English Thing" - although like many of the new wave of young actors currently attracting the attention of Hollywood, Townsend comes not from England, but from the Celtic fringe of these islands; strictly speaking, Townsend is actually the Next Big Irish Thing.

And he will shortly depart for Melbourne where he will play the role of the vampire Lestat in the latest Hollywood adaptation of an Anne Rice novel, Queen of the Damned. As the world never tires of reminding him, the last actor to play the character was Tom Cruise.

Townsend has no idea what fate his peculiar combination of acting talent, star charisma and criminally indecent good looks has in store for him. "My personal life is totally personal," he offers, optimistically, before I tell him flatly that, after Queen of the Damned, such hopes will be forlorn ones. Consider, after all, what just happened to Russell Crowe. But we agree not to talk about Townsend's golf professional dad Peter, or his model mum Lorna, who died six years ago. He does, however, reveal that his girlfriend is Italian, an actress, is "famous in Italy" and, finally, after further probing, has a name: Valentina Cervi.

Up until now, despite making nine films, Townsend has been a reasonably well-kept secret. Of the six that have so far been released, the forgettable romantic comedy Shooting Fish remains his biggest hit. In it, the actor was cast resolutely against type as a shy boffin who lurked in the shadows of his womanising best mate. Usually it's Townsend who is doing the seducing: in Under the Skin, he callously shags and dumps an unhinged Samantha Morton, and in Wonderland he does the very
same thing to nice Gina McKee. In Resurrection Man it was mostly violent young men who fell under the sway of his sexily charismatic, psychotic Protestant terrorist. In both the play Orpheus Descending, which has now completed its run at London's Donmar Warehouse, and the upcoming film About Adam, he enjoys the felicitous circumstance of having just about every other character fall head over heels in love with him.

"It's really weird," is how Townsend describes the experience of reading a new script that basically requires him to play The Sexiest Man in the World. "It's really weird because you know that no one is. Three women falling for me - it's still a block in my head. But the funny thing is, in real life it's far from that, it's not that at all."

Townsend was born 27 years ago in Howth, a fishing village ten miles out of Dublin. He eyes me incredulously when I ask him if he still has any friends there. "I know everybody there," he says. "It's a little peninsula of 5,000 people and everybody knows everybody. You'd be going to school on a Monday morning and the teacher would be like, 'Oh! I heard you were with so-and-so last night.'" Townsend the teenager was, he explains, an archetypal angry young man. "Growing up in Dublin was f****** mad. It was a great craic, but Jesus I was angry." Against what?
"Everything. I've chilled out so much. Before I hit acting lessons at 18, I had no intentions of going anywhere, I had no intentions of going to college, I had no intentions. All I wanted to do was get away, travel, that was my life's plan. And then suddenly I was in drama school and I loved it - it was like an outpouring of all this stuff that I couldn't express, and I chilled out and started to enjoy life a bit."

But what was he rebelling against? "Everything. My family, my school, my place. I found Ireland very oppressive. When I go back now, I love it, but I still see all the gossip. The amount of begrudgery in Ireland. It exists here, too. If you're higher than them, they want to slice you. But also, growing up in Dublin, there was nothing to do. You just drank, you got pissed, there was lots of violence. It was fun as well - there were a lot of women. I love my teenage years now. I look back and I have so many fantastic memories, but I wouldn't do it again."

Townsend spent two years studying at Dublin's Gaiety School of Acting, then three years of pay-the-bills theatre drudgery before his first film, Trojan Eddie, came along to rescue him. After that, with a cheque for Pounds 15,000 in his back pocket, he did what he'd always promised he'd do: he got the hell out of Dublin, as far away as possible. He spent five months travelling in Central America before coming home, packing his rucksack on to his motorbike, and heading for the bright lights of London. "I didn't know anyone when I came here. I spent eight months on my own. I didn't know a soul. You know how London is, you're just here on your own."

Living like a nomad for two years with bin liners of possessions scattered around the capital, Townsend finally took a flat in Brixton, before moving to Soho. "I love it here," he says. "It's my little village. It's a good place." Yet when asked how connected he feels to London's other young actors, he says, "Not at all. I'm not in that scene. I'm here in England, but different to the other actors here." Because you feel Irish? "I feel Irish and I am Irish. I've adapted to this environment and I love it here, but at the same time it's very different."

But while Englishmen Jude Law and Ralph Fiennes have become major box-office draws, the next crop of young hopefuls seemingly set for bigger things come from elsewhere. Also from Ireland, there's Jonathan Rhys Meyers, whose showy acting style has won him admirers and critics in equal numbers. From Wales, there's Rhys Ifans, who went off to Hollywood to make big-deal comedies with Keanu Reeves (The Replacements) and Adam Sandler (Little Nicky), and who has scooped a prestigious part in Human Nature, the next film from Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich. Plus Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffudd, rising stars who are now firmly on Hollywood's radar. And from Scotland there's Mission: Impossible 2 villain Dougray Scott, and Alec Newman, who just returned from the States filming the Dune mini-series for television. So what's it all about, this Celtic invasion? I have a theory, and I try it out on Townsend. With English actors, there's so often an awareness of class background. Hollywood either sees you as a toff (Hugh Grant) or a thug (Tim Roth), and that maybe limits the roles they are willing to offer you. Not being English makes you appear more classless. "That's the thing," says Townsend. "People don't know quite where to put you. Also accents. I find Americans have a hard time doing English and Irish accents, and English people have a hard time doing American accents, but Irish people can do both of them quite easily. We're in the middle, in a way."

Townsend will be showing off that American accent in Queen of the Damned. He would also have been showing off his best transatlantic timbre in the upcoming trio of Lord of the Rings movies had he not been fired from the plum role of Aragorn. So what went wrong? He pauses momentarily, and then says simply: "Everything." He sighs. "I'd need about two or three hours to tell you and I don't want to badmouth all those people, but I'm just glad I'm not doing it. It was a major deal for me, it was one of my favourite books as a kid, it was my favourite character in the books, but I was shafted. It was a weird one because I left New Zealand and instead of being devastated, I was just like, phew, thank f****** I'm out of that one."

After a big knock like that, Townsend did the sensible thing: rebuilt his confidence by going back on the stage - in the recent run of Orpheus Descending, directed by Nicholas Hytner. He hadn't done theatre for four years and he was ready, if apprehensive. "It was terrifying, terrifying, absolutely terrifying. After Lord of the Rings I didn't know what to think about my own creativity any more because I'd been around people who didn't seem to have a clue about actors. I was terrified on my first day at rehearsals, and suddenly I was around people who were my own kind again. Those five weeks of rehearsals just built me back up again."

Next time, he won't wait so long before going back on stage. "This is the best thing I've ever done, this Orpheus, I love it. I'm earning 300 quid a week, and I'm happy as a pig in shit. So that's a big lesson. I'd love to do one of these every year. It's all about balance. Doing the movies you want to do, the odd stupid movie, and then some theatre."

He'd also like to direct, if only because "it's slightly less neurotic". We talk a lot about the neurosis of Townsend's chosen profession, about being a "commodity", about how it's you and not just what you produce that is being put up for judgment. Townsend has his own ways of coping: immersing himself in his passion for photography; meditation; travel; reading; writing "anything, everything" into his journals, which now number 20 or so. "That's my analyst - I write to this book.

"Acting is great but it's not everything," he continues. "It's only a
part of life. It's where I can make a career, but it's not life as a whole." We also talk about how, as an actor, you make incredible bonds with the people you are working with, and then you barely see them again. "I call it Nescafe friends because they're instant," he says. "I mean, this play, I love every single cast member. They're like my family. I love them and I'm going to be so upset when I leave them all. But then I'm going to Melbourne and they're gone. You just have to accept it. The weird thing about being in this industry is that you're almost nomadic and you have to accept change all the time. It's kind of Zen, actually. You just have to learn how to lose your attachments. You kind of enjoy the moment and then it's gone."

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS. Born: Dublin, Ireland Age: 23
Early life: His parents separated when he was three and he was brought up by his mother. Was a teenage tearaway until he was more or less adopted by a local farmer. Discovered by a casting agent in a pool hall.

Virtual star: By the age of 19, Meyers was in the odd position of being a hot name within the industry, having filmed about seven movies, but totally unknown outside it because none of them had come out.

False start: Scooping the lead role of glamorous bisexual rocker Brian Slade in Velvet Goldmine, alongside Ewan McGregor and Christian Bale, could have made him a global hot property. But the film flopped.

Television to the rescue: Mini-series Gormenghast provided an appropriate platform for Meyers's baroque acting style, and finally brought him wide exposure, not least of all in the US, where the show was a surprise hit.

Johnny goes to Hollywood: Cast as the evil Chiron in Titus, the beautiful, stylish movie version of Titus Andronicus. Hammed it up as the villainous Pitt Mackeson in Ang Lee's western, Ride with the Devil. Filmed Prozac Nation with Christina Ricci and Anne Heche. Now shooting US television series of The Magnificent Ambersons (Booth Tarkington novel filmed by Orson Welles).

Ooh, you are naughty! Famous for flirting in interviews to bamboozle journalists into being extra nice about him. Dated Asia Argento and Toni Collette, his co-stars from B. Monkey and Velvet Goldmine.

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RHYS IFANS. Born: Ruthin, near Wrexham, Wales Age: 32
Small beginnings: Made memorable impressions in 1997's Twin Town ("the Welsh Trainspotting" - they wish!) and then Dancing at Lughnasa, before his showy performance as Hugh Grant's unhygienic flatmate in Notting Hill provided him with a global platform for his charms.

Rhys goes to Hollywood: After spotting Ifans in Notting Hill, the makers of the Keanu Reeves American football comedy The Replacements changed the nationality of one of the characters from Italian to Welsh to get him on board - he plays Gruff, a washed-up soccer player drafted in tobe the team's kicker. Next, he scooped the role of Adam Sandler's impetuous brother in the box-office phenomenon's next comedy, Little Nicky.

Cool school: Ifans has a role in Hollywood's coolest project du jour, Human Nature. Written by Charlie Kaufman, who scripted Being John Malkovich, and directed by pop-video auteur Michel Gondry. Rhys plays a man who thinks he is a monkey, having been brought up in a forest, and who is discovered by a scientist with a tiny penis (Tim Robbins). Patricia Arquette plays a woman covered in body hair.

Don't mention: Janice Beard, 45 Words Per Minute; You're Dead; Rancid Aluminium; Love, Honour and Obey.

Obligatory Brit pic: Shooting 51st State, an action comedy set in
Liverpool, with Samuel Jackson and Robert Carlyle.

Essential trivia: Unlike his image in Notting Hill, Rhys is a regular
clotheshorse.

Culture clash:""I've noticed one thing in Hollywood," says Ifans. "If you crack a joke in London, people laugh. If you crack a joke in Hollywood, they say, 'You're funny.'"

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IOAN GRUFFUDD. Born: Cardiff, Wales Age: 26
Holy Taffy! Gruffudd (whose first name is pronounced Yo-an) was born into a religious Welsh Christian family: headmaster and deacon dad, and teacher mum. "My background is very strongly chapel and is still very much part of who I am as a person," he said in 1998. "Hopefully this will keep me on the right track because I'm in an industry that can be very corrupting."

Early fame: From the age of 13, he spent six years as young Gareth in Welsh language soap Pobol Y Cwm (People of the Valley). Then went to RADA.

Fab abs: Gruffudd's rugby-toned body was shown off to good effect as Horatio Hornblower in the television period drama mini-series, Hornblower. The dashing youngster, who admitted the role was a "Boys' Own dream", was soon dubbed "Darcy of the high seas" (and he's just filmed Hornblower II). He broke hearts again as Pip in the BBC's Great Expectations. Gruffudd's firm flesh was on display in Interview Magazine's portfolio of stars of the future, published to celebrate the Warhol-spawned magazine's thirtieth anniversary, photographed by David LaChappelle.

Obligatory Brit flicks: Wilde, Very Annie Mary (with Matthew Rhys), Another Life (yet to be released), Happy Now (in pre-production).

Non-obligatory Welsh flick: the Oscar-nominated Solomon and Gaenor.

Hollywood beckons: Had a line in Titanic. Has a lead role alongside Glenn Close and Gerard Depardieu in 102 Dalmatians, which opens later this year.

Holy Taffy, part 2! Gruffudd thought long and hard before deciding to shack up withlong-term girlfriend Charlotte Hayward (with whom he has since split). "I was brought up to believe sex happens with marriage," he said at the time.

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ALEC NEWMAN. Born: Glasgow, Scotland Age: 25
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da! Newman's dad, Sandy, was the lead singer of the band Marmalade, most famous for their No 1 cover version of the Beatles' nursery-rhyme hit. Sandy's career forced the Newman family to relocate to Berkshire when Alec was just two, but the actor seems to have nevertheless retained his Scottish accent and identity.

The beautiful game: Football competed with drama for Newman'sattention as a teen, but his fate was sealed when he broke his leg playing for Wokingham Town, and then completed a successful audition for the National Youth Theatre on crutches. Before his four years of study were up, he was signed by agent Iain Bennett.

Paying the dues: Taggart, Silent Witness, Peak Practice, Heartbeat, Dangerfield, lots of plays, rubbish Brit flick Greenwich Mean Time.

Alec goes to Hollywood: This spring filmed a new American six-hour mini-series of the classic sci-fi novel, Dune, for the Sci-Fi Channel of USA Networks. Newman has the lead role playing Paul Atreides alongside William Hurt, who plays his dad. It airs in America in December.

Next! The lead role in Long Time Dead, which has just finished shooting in London.

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DOUGRAY SCOTT. Born: Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland Age: 34
The early years: Trained at the Welsh College of Music and Drama from 1986-1989. Broke hearts as Major Rory Taylor in television's Soldier Soldier.

Big Hollywood break: Being cast as the handsome Prince Henry opposite Drew Barrymore in her 1998 Cinderella update, Ever After.

Next big Hollywood break: Scooping the role of villain Sean Ambrose opposite Tom Cruise in this summer's big blockbuster sequel, Mission: Impossible 2.

Don't mention: X-Men. Scott was meant to play the plum part of Wolverine, but M:I-2 over-runs meant the role went to Hugh Jackman.

Next! Scott has just shot Enigma, a moderately big-deal movie about the Second World War Bletchley Park code crackers. He has the lead role, genius decoder Tom Jericho, with dual love-interest support from Kate Winslet and Saffron Burrows. Has just opened at London's Donmar Warehouse, co-starring with Ray Winstone in the lead in To the Green Fields of Beyond, directed by Sam (American Beauty) Mendes.

What kind of name is Dougray? His real name is Stephen. Dougray is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother.

Family stuff: Father of twins.

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COLIN FARRELL. Born: Dublin, Ireland Age: 24
On yer head, son: As a teenager, he planned to become a professional footballer like his dad, Eamon, and his uncle Tommy. But instead he followed his elder sister into drama school - "My father's philosophy was along the lines of, 'What do you want to be doing play-acting for?'" Teen heart-throb: Farrell dropped out of Dublin's Gaiety drama school (Townsend's alma mater)and was snapped up by television's Ballykissangel. The handsome teen turned up on a horse in series three as Danny Byrne, becoming an idol in his home country.

Hollywood calls: Although Farrell served stints in British productions such as television's Love in the 21st Century and Tim Roth's directorial debut, The War Zone, it's in America that he is making his mark. He won the lead in Tigerland, the Vietnam War training-camp flick shot this spring by Joel Schumacher - a relatively modest $10 million feature film from the flashy Batman and Robin director. He is currently shooting the lead role in Jesse James, a new movie version of the western outlaw's story, co-starring Kathy Bates and Scott (son of James) Caan.

Don't mention: Spider-Man. Farrell tested for the lead role in the upcoming big-budget superhero flick, but lost out to fast-rising American star Tobey Maguire.

Essential trivia: The horse on which Farrell rode into Ballykissangel had recently been ridden bareback by Geri Halliwell for a Spice Girls video. "No wonder he was so frisky," Farrell remarked at the time.

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Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Limited

Thanks to Missy for the find!