Smash hit

God was how Gruffudd nearly became undone completely. He was raised a Christian in the Welsh chapel tradition. He was cautious to the point that “It took me a while to become a member of the congregation because I didn’t feel ready”. This is the equivalent of being confirmed in Catholicism, which usually happens when you’re about 10. He didn’t join the congregation till the sixth form. “And it caused a bit of a stir (in a Welsh-speaking community in Cardiff) by saying I’m not ready to do it yet, I don’t feel it. So I had a very healthy relationship with God. But when I took off to Rada, to London, the big bad smoke, people older than me, sex, drinking, the whole nine yards… Here was I in this amazing place, and what happened was it was coupled with this great sense of guilt. I’d been given the name of a couple of Welsh chapels in London, but I was always hungover on a Sunday morning, so I wasn’t thinking about getting up to go to chapel.”

There he was with his guilt, his self-doubt, his vulnerability. He was standing outside college having just finished a singing lesson. “They were always so inspiring; I felt I was floating.

A young man came up and said, ‘Excuse me, Sir, have you got the time? And are you interested in coming to church on Sunday?’ And I said, ‘Do you know what, that sounds fantastic.’”

It seemed like a happy coincidence. “It was at the London Church of Christ. It wasn’t one of those happy-clappy scary ones, it was very positive. People from all walks of life. From very rich to poor. It felt absolutely normal.”

He was invited to a Bible-study meeting at McDonald’s. “I thought, ‘You’ve got food, how cool and forward-thinking.’ We sat down and they opened their Bibles and welcomed me to the brotherhood.” He must have had a need to belong. “Then they said, ‘Just want to ask you a couple of questions. Are you a Christian?’ I said yes. Then they said, ‘Are you a fisher of men?’”

This means are you like the disciples, gathering people in to listen to the words of Jesus? Gruffudd naively said he thought people needed to discover God for themselves, he didn’t want to ram it down people’s throats. “They said, ‘Well, therefore you’re not a Christian.’ This tweaked my conscience. I thought there was another level to Christianity, so I went to another meeting with the brothers. Everybody prays and says something individually. People are crying and it’s quite emotional. I was impressed at how devout these people were and how insignificant my relationship with God was compared to these guys. Then it became apparent that I wasn’t living healthy because I was living with two guys who weren’t into the church.”

One of them was Matthew Rhys, who started to get concerned about his friend, especially when the church said that he had to talk to the director of The Beggar’s Opera, the play they were doing at Rada, because the church didn’t approve of plays that involved drinking, cavorting, prostitutes or kissing.

“In fact, you’re not allowed to hold hands with a woman. If you want to go out with someone you have to write a letter to her and meet with a chaperone. All this was coming very quickly and they said that after the second meeting I was going to be confirmed and baptised into the church. And then came the clincher. They told me they would tithe me 10% of my earnings. And that’s when alarm bells went off.”

They were very quiet alarm bells though because he intended to go to church on Sunday until Matthew Rhys – best friend since junior school and best man at his wedding last year – got in touch with his mother. They intervened on the Saturday. “They said, ‘You know this isn’t right.’ I was messed up. I had started to question my faith. I had been blown away by these guys. But that Saturday my mum drove to London and said, ‘You’re not going tomorrow.’ She stayed the night and the next week I went back to Wales and sat down with my minister and had a cleanse… My trusting of people, my naivety, is probably my strongest point and my achilles heel,” he says, charmingly unscarred by the experience of nearly being kidnapped into a cult.

He didn’t lose his virginity until he was 22 and went straight into a relationship. It baffles me how he could have gone through drama college not having sex. “It wasn’t for lack of trying.”

I find it impossible to believe the beautiful Gruffudd couldn’t get a girlfriend. “They were all terrified because they knew I was a virgin. And I turned down opportunities that I didn’t even know were being presented to me. There was one gorgeous actress that everyone wanted to sleep with. She was stunning. Jet-black hair and green eyes. We had a party in my flat in Kilburn and she asked to stay the night because she lived in south London. I didn’t think anything of it – I got into my American-football sheets and duvet cover. I’m still a kid. It’s like having a Star Wars duvet cover, right? I jumped into my single bed and she said, ‘So, you are going to sleep there?’ I said I’d gladly swap. She was gobsmacked.”

When I tell him he was not a normal 22-year-old, he’s not in the least offended, and in fact says that it was sad when he did discover his appetite for sex because by then he was in a relationship. He enjoyed a belated rite of passage, but ultimately found casual sex unsatisfying.

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