Rhys Ifans is lugubrious, anarchic and a self-confessed misfit, but once he appears on the screen you can't take your eyes off him. Now the man who answered the door in his underpants in Notting Hill is taking on Don Juan. By Chloe Fox
The very thought of his 40th birthday celebrations next year makes Rhys Ifans rub his long, thin hands together with devilish glee. 'Let it be known, here and now, that I am going to go completely f***ing mental,' the Welsh actor declares happily, with a maniacal grin. 'The ambulances had better get their engines running now,' he warns, before draining his glass of white wine as if it were water.
Lunch with Ifans is refreshing in every sense of the word. No holds barred, no brighter-than-white capped teeth, no talk of giving anything back or getting to know himself; just plenty of cigarettes and alcohol, jokes at his own expense and heartfelt honesty. 'I am who I am,' shrugs the man who, in the space of two hours, describes himself as 'lazy', 'chaotic', 'anarchic', 'sentimental', 'shy', 'arrogant' and 'a misfit'.
Defining Rhys Ifans is no easy task. Even his looks are hard to pin down. He is almost uncomfortably tall but moves with the elegance of a racehorse; his long face has a mournfulness about it, except when it breaks into a joyful grin; his slightly down-turned green eyes are heavy with soul, until they flash with mischief. He is the most beautifully ugly man I've ever seen. 'Rhys carries around all these contradictions,' says Roger Michell, who directed him in Notting Hill and Enduring Love. 'He's gawky, yet graceful. He's smelly and Welsh and yet he's handsome and winning.'
It is this chameleonic charm that makes Ifans so interesting as an actor. Whatever he's playing – be it a slob (Notting Hill ), a stalker (Enduring Love), a suitor (Vanity Fair), a reprobate (Twin Town) or a twerp (The Shipping News) – you cannot help but watch him. He is comically spot-on, but he can break your heart in an instant, as anyone who saw his brilliant, Bafta-winning portrayal of Peter Cook in Not Only But Always can testify. His real skill lies in his ability to make even the most unlikeable likeable. 'He never plays bad people,' says Michell (who got one of his best performances out of him as the strangely compelling psychopath Jed in Enduring Love). 'He plays good people who've lost their way or made mistakes.'
