Rhys Ifans: From Twin Town to Hollywood and Beyond
FROM anarchic Swansea comedy to Hollywood blockbusters, Shakespeare, superheroes, Westeros and a galaxy far, far away, Rhys Ifans has built one of the most unpredictable careers of any Welsh actor.
For many viewers he will forever be Spike, Hugh Grant’s spectacularly dishevelled flatmate in Notting Hill. Others know him as Otto Hightower in House of the Dragon, Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter, Spider-Man villain the Lizard or the unforgettable twins of Twin Town.
Yet behind an international career stretching across film, television and theatre remains a Welsh-speaking actor whose roots have never disappeared from the story.
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Early grounding in Welsh language television
Rhys Ifans was born Rhys Owain Evans in Haverfordwest on 22 July 1967 and grew up in Ruthin in north Wales.
Welsh was his first language. He attended Welsh-medium schools, including Ysgol Maes Garmon in Mold, and became involved with youth theatre at Theatr Clwyd before training professionally at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Long before Hollywood came calling, Ifans appeared regularly on Welsh-language television.
That Welsh foundation would remain important even as his career became increasingly international.
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Twin Town – a Welsh cult classic
Ifans’ major film breakthrough came appropriately enough in Wales.
In Kevin Allen’s 1997 film Twin Town, he starred alongside his younger brother Llŷr Ifans as Jeremy and Julian Lewis, two chaotic brothers careering around Swansea in one of the most outrageous Welsh films of its era.
The film did not become an immediate mainstream blockbuster, but developed a substantial cult following, particularly in Wales. Ifans himself later observed that Twin Town acquired a new life once audiences discovered it on video.
It also gave international audiences their first real glimpse of an actor who was very difficult to categorise.
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Notting Hill changes everything
Two years later came the role that made Rhys Ifans instantly recognisable around the world.
In the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, Ifans played Spike, the shameless, eccentric and frequently underdressed Welsh flatmate of Grant’s character.
It was technically a supporting role.
It certainly didn’t feel like one.
Spike became one of the film’s most memorable characters and established Ifans internationally as a performer capable of stealing scenes with apparently effortless eccentricity.
But rather than settle into variations on the same comic character, Ifans spent the following decades doing almost precisely the opposite.
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Wizards, villains and historical figures
His filmography became extraordinarily varied.
He played Welsh cannabis smuggler Howard Marks in Mr Nice, portrayed Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, and transformed into scientist Dr Curt Connors – the Lizard – in The Amazing Spider-Man opposite Andrew Garfield. Sony described Connors as Peter Parker’s father’s former colleague whose transformation places him directly in Spider-Man’s path.
Ifans later returned to the Spider-Man universe in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Other roles have taken him through period drama, comedy, political films and major franchises, demonstrating a willingness to move between leading characters and distinctive supporting performances rather than pursue a conventional Hollywood-star trajectory.
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Entering the House of the Dragon
A new generation of viewers discovered Ifans through HBO’s House of the Dragon.
Beginning in 2022, he played Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King and father of Alicent Hightower, in the Game of Thrones prequel.
The restrained, calculating Hightower could hardly have been further removed from Spike in Notting Hill. HBO’s own character description presents Otto as a powerful political figure convinced that Prince Daemon represents a threat to the realm.
Ifans returned for the second season and has become one of the programme’s most recognisable political schemers.
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From swimming the Florida Straits to the Soviet space race
In 2023, Ifans appeared alongside Annette Bening and Jodie Foster in Nyad.
He played navigator John Bartlett, part of the team supporting Diana Nyad’s attempt to swim more than 100 miles from Cuba to Florida.
Then, in 2026, came another substantial television role.
Apple TV’s Star City, a companion series to For All Mankind, imagines the space race from behind the Iron Curtain in an alternative history where the Soviet Union reached the Moon first.
Ifans stars alongside Anna Maxwell Martin, Agnes O’Casey and Alice Englert in the eight-part series, which premiered globally in May 2026.
From Swansea’s Lewis twins to the Soviet space programme is quite some journey.
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Onwards and Sideways
Another very different role arrived in September 2026 when Onwards and Sideways received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Directed by John Madden and written by Paul Mayhew-Archer, the film stars Ifans and Laura Linney as two strangers whose lives become intertwined after both are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Ifans plays widowed teacher Tony, while Linney plays Emma, an American composer. The screenplay has a particularly personal foundation: Mayhew-Archer himself has lived with Parkinson’s since 2011.
The film was scheduled for UK cinema release in November 2026, with a BBC One showing to follow.
It provides another reminder of Ifans’ range – a quiet, humane leading performance more than 25 years after Spike first introduced him to a worldwide audience.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi – yn Gymraeg
And perhaps the most characteristically Welsh development of all arrives this Christmas.
Rhys Ifans will voice Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Gobaith Newydd, the first official Welsh-language version of Star Wars: A New Hope.
Produced by Lucasfilm and Disney in collaboration with S4C and Creative Wales, the Welsh dub will be available from Christmas Day 2026.
Ifans joins an extraordinary Welsh cast including Matthew Rhys as Han Solo, Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Princess Leia, Osian Morgan as Luke Skywalker and Mark Lewis Jones as Darth Vader. His own brother Llŷr voices C-3PO.
For an actor who grew up speaking Welsh, becoming one of cinema’s most famous Jedi Masters in Welsh feels particularly appropriate.
It also provides another link between Ifans and the curious Welsh Star Wars story – including the full-size Millennium Falcon constructed at Pembroke Dock for The Empire Strikes Back.
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The Super Furry connection
There is another intriguing thread running through Rhys Ifans’ career.
He is frequently described as an early member of Super Furry Animals, but the truth is slightly more modest – and perhaps more entertaining.
Ifans was living with drummer Dafydd Ieuan during the group’s embryonic period and sang on some early demos. He later explained that he never actually gigged with the band, describing claims that he had been a full member as something that had become exaggerated over the years.
Nevertheless, the connection was genuine. Ifans had known members of the group since their younger days and remained part of the same creative Welsh circle.
READ: Super Furry Animals profile
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An actor who refuses to stand still
Perhaps the defining feature of Rhys Ifans’ career is that no obvious Rhys Ifans role exists.
He can be ridiculous or menacing. A scruffy flatmate or a royal adviser. A Marvel supervillain, wizarding eccentric, navigator, Soviet official or Jedi Master.
His work has moved freely between Welsh-language culture and some of the world’s biggest entertainment franchises without one cancelling out the other.
Nearly three decades after Twin Town introduced him to cinema audiences, Rhys Ifans remains recognisably Welsh – and almost impossible to predict.
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Latest from Rhys Ifans
2026: Star City premiered on Apple TV in May.
September 2026: Onwards and Sideways, starring Ifans and Laura Linney, received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
6 November, 2026: Onwards and Sideways is scheduled for release in UK cinemas.
Christmas Day 2026: Ifans hits our screens as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Gobaith Newydd on S4C.
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Did Ewe Know?
In 2004, Rhys Ifans portrayed legendary comedian Peter Cook in the Channel 4 drama Not Only But Always…, which explored Cook’s turbulent personal and professional partnership with Dudley Moore. The performance earned Ifans the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor – another reminder that his career has ranged far beyond the eccentric comic roles for which many viewers first knew him.