Fresh from the Irish set of the upcoming second season of the Showtime smash The Tudors, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers is trading in his lusty Henry VIII role to show a much more romantic side in August Rush, an unabashedly weepy new love story that dares you not to cry. CAHIR O'DOHERTY talks to Rhys Meyers, his co-star Keri Russell, and to the film's Irish director Kirsten Sheridan.

Once inside the legendary hotel they're quickly whisked away from crowds of gawkers and paparazzi that stalk their every move, and then the rounds of interviews take place.

Warner Brothers staff run the whole event with impeccable precision, but we're dealing with Hollywood A-listers here and so inevitably it becomes a bit of a circus. An entire wing of the Waldorf has been taken over by the filmmakers, and the staff is sprinting from room to room to ensure that everyone's happy.

Given all the concern to keep things running smoothly, it certainly helps that none of the principal actors are confirmed divas. In person, it turns out, they're considerate and funny, and they look as dazed by all the frenzy as everyone else does.

Minutes before we're due to start our interview, Jonathan Rhys Meyers slinks quietly down the hallway minus his entourage, and the first thing you notice about him is that he's even better looking in person.

Dressed casually in a light grey sweater over a white tee shirt and jeans, and sporting a pair of unflashy but wildly expensive cowboy boots, the 30-year-old looks relaxed and happy and clearly ready to promote his new film.

And although rooms full of television cameras are waiting, neither Rhys Meyers or his co-star Keri Russell are wearing the usual 12 layers of makeup. They just look a bit uncomfortable with all the attention frankly, and this realization makes you like them more.

Since Rhys Meyers' role in August Rush is that of a romantic leading man the Irish Voice begins with a question that's cuts right to the center of the film: does he believe in love at first sight?

"I do actually. I fell in love at first sight once," Rhys Meyers replies without a trace of sarcasm. "It was a very strange thing. It wasn't like thunderbolts and lightening, it was kind of like a sleepy feeling and a bit uncomfortable really.

It was just very factual, like when it rains you get wet, and in that same way I was suddenly in love."

In the film Rhys Meyers, a native of Dublin who was raised in Cork, plays a young Irish singer named Louis who meets a shy young cellist named Lyla (Russell) at a party on a rooftop overlooking Washington Square in New York. The two spend the night together only to be torn apart by circumstances.

When the pregnant Lyla is hit by a car and gives birth prematurely, her father, thinking of her promising career, gives the baby up for adoption, telling his daughter that the child died. It's a dreadful betrayal that she uncovers years later.

Meanwhile, she loses all interest in playing and moves away to Chicago where she teaches music. Louis, her Irish paramour, also gives up music, opting for a suit and tie career in San Francisco.

"The character I play is a working class Irish guy. He sees Lyla getting into her father's limo and he thinks he's being dumped," Rhys Meyers says.

"He thinks she's a rich girl who just went slumming, and this hurts him because he really thinks something more could have happened. But he finds he can't shake it, he can't get her out of his head."

Fairy tale romances like the one in August Rush haven't been in fashion in Hollywood lately. The truth is that nowadays an undeniable adult cynicism and world-weariness has been creeping into even otherwise gee-whiz animated feature films like Finding Nemo and Over the Hedge, for example. And if the studios think that even kids have time no time for day dreaming, then releasing August Rush is an act of daring from a town not known for taking big risks.

Says Rhys Meyers, "The truth is that we live in a very compromised world where good things don't always happen and where more often than not the bad guys win. But it's nice for two hours in the cinema to see the good guy win.

"This is a fairy tale, after all, and fairy tales are predictable - they have to be. I love that the kid in August Rush finds his parents, I love that the parents find each other, I like that the pain can be overcome and that love wins out."

The dramatic coincidences that drive the narrative had some critics giggling, but it's hard to resist the sweeping score and Sheridan's directorial skill at work here. August Rush knows it's hokum, but it's hokum it knows you can't resist.

Working with Irish director Kirsten Sheridan, daughter of the Oscar nominated writer/director Jim (My Left Foot, In America), certainly took some of the romantic veneer of the project, though. A perfectionist, Sheridan frequently shepherded her cast and crew through 16-hour shifts on set without resting.

"You might find yourself working 16 hours through the night in Columbus Circle, so she's a bit like her dad Jim in that respect. They like to really work and work and in the end you really have to stop them," Rhys Meyers says.

For Rhys Meyers, the good part of Sheridan's workaholic regime was the awareness that she was paying attention to the project rather than cutting out early for dinner at Cipriani's, say. Russell agrees, laughing at the memory.

"We were shooting this really emotional scene where I'm supposed to scream and yell at someone and we'd being doing it for hours. And then the crew whispered to me, 'This is where you say, 'this is the last take, Kirsten.'"

Music drives every scene in the film, and it was this aspect that attracted Rhys Meyers to the project initially. "I'm part of the iPod generation. I grew up in a house full of musicians - my brothers Jamie, Alan and Paul all play instruments," he says.

"And when I'm traveling I can get into that despondent Irish abroad sound of the Pogues and Dropkick Murphy's, you know."

For Sheridan (who made her directorial debut with the Irish film Disco Pigs in 2001, starring Cillian Murphy) the decision to make the film came from her response to the opening scene.

"The first image that got me was when Evan (Freddie Highmore) is in the wheat field conducting the sound of nature. I just thought it was so crazy and magical. And I'm the kind of person who just goes with that."

Both the director and the cast know they're taking a risk with such a romantic - some have even said soppy - love story where the right choices are always made and where every dream comes true, but for Rhys Meyers that's the reason why he signed on in the first place.

"The thing about wearing your heart on your sleeve is that it can go either way, the oxygen can heal us or infect us," he says and smiles. "I think this movie has a great healing quality to it.

"If you want to be cynical or critical or say that's not plausible - well, fairy tales aren't. It's not plausible that a kid who was born 11 years ago will come to New York and find his parents. In the same way as Tom Cruise isn't Ethan Hunt (in Mission Impossible, in which both Rhys Myers and Russell also star).

"But we buy into it because of the story, because it's fantastic. It's fabulous because it inspires me."

August Rush opens nationwide on November 21.