RHYS IFANS IS EVIL PERSONIFIED

Rhys Ifans is evil personified as Hannibal Lecter’s nemesis.

It’s the end of the Second World War when Hannibal Rising begins. Rhys Ifans plays a devastatingly wicked Lithuanian soldier leading an army of hungry bandits pillaging for food.

Rhys says young Hannibal Lecter and his family were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“While they are trying to escape a battlefield they stumble upon the Lecter family who have escaped and are hiding out in their summer house in the forest. As bad luck would have it we stumble upon the family.”

Rhys who is a fan of the Thomas Harris novels and Hannibal films talks about why he wanted to play a character that becomes Hannibal’s nemesis.

“You know what this seemed to address is if you’re kind of a Hannibal Lecter buff and a lot is explained in this film that is certainly not explained in the others and we see Hannibal at his most impressionable age so we basically learn and understand why Hannibal is like he is in the later films. Grutas is the embodiment of real evil and also in many ways a twisted father figure for Hannibal in a sense.”

Rhys is playing a decidedly different character in London’s West End as the famous 17th century lothario Don Juan in the modern version Don Juan in Soho set in the 21st century.