“There were words I’ve never used before, and I was tripping on them,” Rhys explained.
“At the same time, it was this wildly familiar thing that I got to do. The whole thing was surreal.
“And then you go, I can’t voice Harrison Ford!”
Rhys was asked if he ever spoke to Ford about taking on the role.
“No. I’m too scared,” he replied.
In terms of his Welsh idols in Hollywood, Rhys said David Niven, whose mother was Welsh, “was always so quietly self-assured and calm and said the right thing, even when a naked person ran behind him at the Oscars”.
“I just wish I could be that person, and be gracious and effortless,” he said.
He also put Richard Burton from Port Talbot “on a par with Niven”, in terms of being an inspiration.
“But because he was the first to be very, very un-Welsh, which was arresting and inspiring,” Rhys said, explaining “un-Welsh” referred to Burton’s rise from obscurity to the height of fame and taking Hollywood by storm.
“To me it was like, ‘wow, we’re allowed to be that’.”
The Emmy Award-winner also told the podcast a “next echelon” Oscar win still had “allure to me”.
