Rhys Meyers arrested at Dublin airport

updated 9:50 a.m. ET Nov. 19, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland - Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, star of the Henry VIII soap opera "The Tudors," has been charged with public drunkenness and breach of the peace at Dublin Airport, police said Monday.

Rhys Meyers, 30, was arrested Sunday after police twice confronted him over his erratic, abusive behavior at an airport gate and at a desk of the British airline BMI, on which he was planning to fly to London.

Dublin Airport Police said they called Ireland's national police force, the Garda Siochana, after Rhys Meyers refused repeated requests to calm down.

Police charged him with two counts of violating the Public Order Act, then permitted him to pay an undisclosed cash bail on condition he return to Dublin District Court on Dec. 5 for his arraignment.

Rhys Meyers — who was admitted to a California alcoholism-treatment clinic in April and checked out the following month — was in Dublin to appear on "Tubridy Tonight," a Saturday night national talk show to promote his new film, "August Rush," costarring Robin Williams.

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Ryan Tubridy said he was surprised and sorry to hear of the actor's arrest. He said Rhys Meyers had chatted with everybody who wanted to meet him back stage, and was drinking nothing more threatening than "a big mug of milky tea."

"Obviously that was not on the agenda at some time on Saturday night or Sunday morning," Tubridy said.

Rhys Meyers starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's "Match Point" and Reese Witherspoon in "Vanity Fair," among other films. He also portrayed Elvis Presley in a 2005 U.S. television miniseries, and is now filming the second season of "The Tudors" for the U.S. cable network Showtime.

In an interview last year on the set of "The Tudors," Rhys Meyers said he felt restricted socializing in Ireland because of its hard-drinking pub culture.

"I gave up drinking a few years ago, and this is the first time I've spent time in my country trying not to drink," he told The Associated Press in October 2006.

"I would never drink again. It is hard to avoid. But listen, you do what you want to do. I don't want to do that," he said. "I want my career, and you can't really do that and be successful on the screen.

"I'm young. If I grow older, which I hope I do, there's going to be an awful lot of time to sit in your 60s and 70s and 80s, lots of time for Southern Comfort and ice then," he said. "Now? I've got business to take care of."

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