Hollywood Heralds Rhys

Since his breakout performance as Hugh Grant's slobby housemate in Notting Hill, Rhys Ifans' career goes from strength to strength. Following his characteristically dishevelled appearances in The Replacements and Little Nicky, the Welsh actor's next step up the Hollywood ladder will be Human Nature, penned by Spike Jonze producing partner Charlie Kaufman. Ifans has also signed on for Miramax Film's hotly anticipated The Shipping News in which he'll square off against Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore. The film, to be directed by Lasse Hallstrom and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E Annie Proulx, tells the story of a newspaperman (Spacey) who returns to his ancestral roots on the Newfoundland coast after his wife is killed in a car crash. While writing the shipping news for the local rag, The Gammy Bird, the tortured reporter falls in love with a lonely single mother (Moore). Ifans plays Nutbeem, another gangly, eccentric Brit, who is foreign news editor for The Gammy Bird. Production is scheduled to start at the end of March.