A Welsh-born actor known for his roles in breakthrough films Twin Town and Notting Hill looked unrecognisable out in London on Friday.
After his breakthrough, the actor went on to star in The Amazing Spider-Man and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, most recently making an appearance in the House Of The Dragon.
He presented Welsh-language television programmes on S4C after leaving school, before making a play for the stage by studying at the Guildhall School Of Music & Drama.
The BAFTA-winning actor a low profile as he stepped out in the capital on Friday on a rainy summer’s day.
For his outing, he wore a simple black t-shirt and grey jeans and trainers, adding a pop of colour with a colourful baseball cap.
He appeared to be sporting a recent injury as he could be seen with a black wrist support glove on one hand – but can YOU guess who it is?
A Welsh-born actor known for his roles in breakthrough films Twin Town and Notting Hill looked unrecognisable out in London on Friday
For his outing, he wore a simple black t-shirt and grey jeans and trainers, adding a pop of colour with a colourful baseball cap
It’s none other than Rhys Ifans, who played the iconic role of Spike in the 1999 film Notting Hill alongside Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.
Rhys previously revealed how he led a double life of studying in an elitist drama college while breaking off doors to live illegally in around fifteen squats for months at a time.
The Welsh actor said he would remove steel doors of empty council properties and change the locks before using them as his accommodation for over four years.
The Notting Hill star recalled his ‘great life’ squatting while studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the Nineties, but added he knew it was ‘illegal and dangerous’.
He told Rob Brydon’s podcast: ‘I’d been in London a year before I went to drama school. I moved down with a mate of mine.
‘For my whole period in drama school I lived in squats. I lived in about fourteen, fifteen different squats.
‘It was of course illegal, and I guess looking back, dangerous. But it was a great life.
‘It would be council properties, council flats. You take the steel door off in the middle of the night and then as soon as you change the locks put a notice on the door.
It’s none other than Rhys Ifans, who played the iconic role of Spike (Pictured) in the 1999 film Notting Hill alongside Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts
Elsewhere Rhys recently starred in the Game Of Thrones prequel, House Of The Dragon, as Otto Hightower
‘They had to then switch the gas and electricity on and then you could be in it for weeks to months.’
He added: ‘But it was a constant case of we moved around a lot with a group of lads and girls from Belfast who I’d met at a Cramps gig and we lived together for four or five years moving in and out of different squats of varying degrees of comfort and discomfort.
‘In a sense I had this real double life, which was wonderful.
‘I had this kind of elitist wonderful life in college and then this extraordinary kind of vagabond existence when I went home each night.
‘It was easy to do then. It’s nigh on impossible now to break a squat but then it was relatively simple.’
The star previously recalled his ‘great life’ squatting while studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the Nineties, but knew it was ‘illegal and dangerous’ (pictured in 1999)
In recent years, Rhys has played Fool to Glenda Jackson’s King Lear, and Scrooge at the Old Vic.
He led the National’s Exit The King; and then starred at the Royal Court in Ed Thomas’s play On Bear Ridge.
It comes after Rod Stewart revealed in 2020 that he wants a movie to be made about his life, following the success of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman – and tapped actor Rhys to play him.
Sharing his thoughts on why the Notting Hill star was perfect, he said: ‘Yeah, Rhys would be a very good idea. [But] he has got to do something with his barnet.’
