Five star turns

Rhys lightning

1 Twin Town 1997 Smoking a bong in the bath with his brother (Ll r Ifans), swearing incessantly, 30-year-old Rhys struts into his first big movie role with the rock-star bravado of the man who helped form Super Furry Animals. “I had a scream doing it,” he says. “It brought the whole rock n’ roll ethos and acting together in one big lovely package.”

2 Notting Hill 1999 Ifans became a household name overnight after posing in his pants as Spike, Hugh Grant’s dishevelled, clothes-phobic flatmate, in Richard Curtis’ glossy romcom. Stealing scenes left, right and centre (“I’m going to tell you a story that will make your balls shrink to the size of raisins”), Ifans rides the role all the way to a BAFTA nom.

3 Enduring Love 2004 Fielding demands to play Spike-like characters again in the wake of Notting Hill, Ifans delivered a chilling turn in this Ian McEwan adap as a creepy stalker who nevertheless plays on the audience’s sympathies. “I’m not a Method actor,” he says, “but it was a strange character to play. I’d be quite depressed after a day’s work…”

4 Mr Nice 2010 Meeting drug smuggler Howard Marks at a concert in the ’80s, Ifans asked if he could play him in a movie about his life. Marks agreed, and Ifans made good on the deal with this shaggy biopic. He watched it with Marks (“holding hands and sobbing”), later admitting: “I’m becoming more indulgent and less giving as an actor as I get older.”

5 The Amazing Spider-man 2012 Wearing a CGI mo-cap suit and a cardboard head, Ifans insisted on playing both the human and reptilian version of Spidey villain The Lizard in Marc Webb’s reboot. “I was interested to see how a man’s passion for his science and his need to do good could turn into rage,” he mused.