Having made his feature film debut in Anthony Hopkins’ directorial effort August, Rhys Ifans quickly established himself as a cult figure thanks to roles in Twin Town and more prominently in Notting Hill, when his accomplished slob Spike stole the movie from under the noses of stars Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Currently, he can be seen in Once Upon A Time In The Midlands – a winning and warm-hearted ‘tinned Spaghetti Western’from director Shane Meadows which sees Rhys slugging it out with bad-boy Robert Carlyle for the affections of Shirley Henderson. Movie House caught up with the king of Clwyd on a recent drinking stop-over in Dublin to discuss the imminent bombing of Iraq, the demise of Film Four Studios and the importance of genital hygiene.

CF: How do you feel about the way your profile has been raised massively in the last five years?

RI: Aye, it’s all right, y’know, it’s good to be employable!

CF: Dek is certainly the most tragic figure you’ve played yet. Was that a massive departure for you?

RI: He is, yeah. I put quite a lot of me in there – I tend to try and find – I just wanted to – (struggling somewhat, obviously a shade pissed) – it’s something really that I hadn’t had since theatre, which was an interesting emotional act to play with, whereas before that in film I’d just gone in and done my thing, whether it was ‘crazy Rhys’ or ‘Rhys the slob’, which is easy to do. But with Dek it was much more of a challenge, I didn’t want to make him the clown that we would assume him to be when we see him, I wanted to give him a poetry and a soul, and at the end - not even at the end - he’s the most un-clownish figure, we see in Dek the beginnings of a great father and a brilliant husband.

CF: Were you familiar previously with (director) Shane Meadows’ work?

RI: Yeah. Yeah, well, I was a Shane Meadows fan, I’d seen TwentyFourSeven and I just thought A Room For Romeo Brass was brilliant, and it was criminally under-distributed, it was fucking shocking. So I was a real fan, but we’d never met, and when I got the script it was just offered straight, ‘Do you want to go in and meet Shane?’, and we just fuckin’ hit it off like a house on fire straight away, and we had a similar understanding of what the film should be.

CF: It’s a measure of Meadows’ standing that Ifans, along with co-stars Carlyle, Burke and Tomlinson, did the role for next to no money.

RI: Oh yeah, absolutely, that’s why I’m here today, I don’t have to be doing this but low-budget films like this need all the fucking help they can get when they’re competing in the multiplexes with these gargantuan force-fed Hollywood movies.

CF: Is the Brit film industry, as Once... director Shane Meadows maintains, completely fucked in view of the demise of Film Four Studios?

RI: Is it fucked? It could be. I don’t think so, film is so tidal, just when you think it’s gone to shit a few films will arrive that really revive your passion. It’s really sad what happened to Film Four, it’s really really fucking tragic, that. I think you’re right that after Trainspotting and The Full Monty there was sort of a licence given out to a load of shit film-makers who couldn’t make films for shit. It’s clear that this (Once upon a Time in the Midlands) is the sort of film we do best, character-driven, kitchen sink, and we’re far too ready sometimes to declare a golden age on the basis of a couple of decent films. It takes more than one film - golden ages only happen in retrospect. You’re only aware of them years down the line when you notice something’s missing. But you know, I worry a lot more about the imminent invasion of Iraq than I do about the British film industry, to be honest.

CF: Is it indeed imminent?

RI: Well, listen to Bush and tell me he isn’t serious. Although all these Hawks that were with his daddy ten years ago, Eagleberger and all these fat fuckers, they’re all there saying, ‘Don’t do this, this is madness’. But if anything was to keep me awake at night, it wouldn’t be the demise of Film Four.

CF: Yet, you haven’t done many political films?

RI: No, I suppose I haven’t. But if the chance came along. I’d fuckin’ love to work with Ken Loach, I watched Raining Stones again the other night. Twin Town (Ifans’ film debut) was apolitical, but I think it became political by virtue of its defiant Welsh nationalistic fuck-you thing. I’d love to do valuable work, yeah, I think this film is the beginnings of me getting a bit darker or maybe looking for a bit more meat, I realise I have a highly comedic face but I wouldn’t want to trade forever on that.

CF: You’re still probably best known as Notting Hill’s Spike – is it true that you researched for the role by not showering or doing anything faintly hygienic for weeks, in order to get in touch with your inner slob?

RI: I do wash daily, believe it or not. I like to keep a clean cock cause you never know what’s going to happen, do you? I didn’t wash my hair, but then I very rarely do anyway. No, what happened was – we were filming in Shepperton and we had to fuckin’ drive in every day and night and I fucking hate traffic, so I just decided to buy a tent and I camped near Shepperton Studios for most of the film, so I did have that kind of feral smelly male thing going on, yeah. But it wasn’t an actor’s decision, it was out of sheer laziness and there’s no point in me lying and pretending there was any reason other than wanting a later start every day.

CF: Did you realise what kind of impact that film would have?

RI: I knew it would be big, that’s obvious if Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are in it, but I had no idea what scale it would be on, and it really took me by surprise the way Spike captured people’s imaginations, cause he wasn’t that big a character. And sometimes if I’m walking down the street, especially if you catch me with a hangover, people seriously think I’m Spike. Depends on my moods, depends on how lopsided my walk is that day, there are days when I actually don’t look like him at all.

But I do get a lot of fan-mail about Notting Hill even still, and I get loads about Twin Town, it really didn’t do well in the cinemas but as soon as it was out on video it took off, it’s the perfect after-pub movie, it generated a big lads’ cultish thing, everyone in South Wales knows every line.

CF: And you’re involved in the Charlie Kaufman movie. How was that?

RI: Yeah. I’ve a film called Human Nature written by Charlie Kaufman, who did Being John Malkovich. That’s due to come out - when’s it coming out? - we’re the last fucking people to hear when our films are coming out. And I’ve just done a film in Australia called Danny Deckchair, it’s about a guy who has a bit of a nervous breakdown and buys a load of helium and party balloons and ties them to his deckchair (?) before falling in love with a girl in the Outback, it’s kind of a romantic comedy with dangerous alienation. Other than that, a few bits and pieces.

CF: How’s the brother doing? (ref Twin Town)

RI: Oh, he’s a fuckin’ busy man, he’s got a clothes line called Massive Casuals, he’s been DJing a lot, he lives in Caernarvon and he’s just come back from Siberia after doing a programme for Welsh television, about how long people can last in Siberia. And he’s doing a short film as well, he’s a real Renaissance man, he’s even busy when he’s not.’

CF: Were you, as often alleged, once a member of the Super Furry Animals?

RI: I did a couple of demos with them, yeah. I never gigged with them, it’s one of these stories that has been blown up out of all proportion, but the demos still exist, there’s a few flying around with me singing on them. We still see each other all the time, we’ve known each other since we were kids.