[1] The same year, Matheson played guitar for the role of Luke Shand, a youthful rocker helping to invigorate an old band in the film Still Crazy.
He continued with a leading role in the British hit Tube Tales, which led to his first commercialized film, Bodywork, starring as a market trader framed for murder, with Beth Winslet, Charlotte Coleman, and Clive Russell.
[8] The actor visited Pasternak's niece in Oxford, and on reading some of the Russian poetry (in translation by his sister) was "inspired beyond belief"; and saw it as a "great opportunity to play a wonderful character with such a huge range of emotions".
[9] Despite inevitable comparisons with the 1965 Lean film, his portrayal - "intense, playful, assured and able to convey a very effective sense of trouble brewing" was praised,[10] and another critic commended the "outstanding performances", noting how "Matheson's sunken eyes capture the toll Zhivago's travails exact upon him, both spiritually and physically".
[11] Matheson played a private in the trenches in the 2002 horror war film Deathwatch, then in early 2004 he starred as an alcoholic in rehab in the television docu-film Comfortably Numb, which he later described as "his proudest role".
[3] While some critics objected to the mix of drama and documentary, and of professional and amateur actors,[12] one described Matheson's performance as "as affecting as it was understated", adding "I haven't seen anyone command the small screen so effectively in a long time.
[15] The same year Matheson played Alec Stoke-d'Urberville, "calculating and spoilt, but also friendly and charming"[16] in the four-part BBC adaptation of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
[16] The following year he was the Home Secretary Lord Coward, alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, in Guy Ritchie's film Sherlock Holmes (2009).
[19] Described in Sight and Sound as "neatly but not lavishly mounted" with Matheson "at ease as the Doubting Thomas minister",[20] he starred in The Christmas Candle as Reverend David Richmond.
He considered the film more as a "romantic comedy", and not a message of Christian faith, and was drawn to the idea of an authority figure, vicar, who humbly realises that there is much more for him to learn.
[23] Seeing acting more as a vocation than a career, he stated that "You've got to realise that it's not everything, making films", and that what he does in his life should have some meaning to him, not just a way to pay the rent; "...my music is really more essential to me for my soul".