Rhys Ifans has kept a pretty low profile since his break-up with Sienna Miller last year. He’s gearing up to promote a new film, The Boat That Rocked, and has given a pretty good interview to The Daily Mail. He talks about the work, about pub-crawling, about his privacy, but the one thing he doesn’t talk about is Sienna Miller. Of course, he alludes to it, but never comes right out and says anything bad or good about her. For that, I admire him.

Rhys admits that while shooting the Richard Curtis film, he ended up so drunk that he woke up in a fishing boat one morning. Who hasn’t? It’s when you wake up on a barge that you need to start going to AA meetings. Rhys says he doesn’t consider himself a hellraiser, because his actions haven’t caused anyone any harm (cough, cough, Sienna). It’s a long interview, but here are some of the highlights:

[Rhys Ifans’] latest film, The Boat That Rocked, is directed by Richard ‘Love Actually’ Curtis and tells of a pirate radio station situated off the coast of England in the Sixties which, broadcasting 24-hour rock and pop, is a thorn in the side of the powers that be.

Ifans plays the sexually rampant Gavin, king of the Brit airwaves, who returns to broadcasting after a drug tour of America. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays his arch-rival at the station, The Count, while station boss Quentin is brought to life by Bill Nighy.

He clearly enjoyed himself during the shoot. ‘I was hanging out with some of the funniest men in Britain. There was a lot of seedy male bulletproof banter and a lot of drinking in the evenings. We shot the exteriors in Weymouth and were outside all day – fresh air and wind – so you kind of deserve a pint when you come into shore. It’s what the proper pirates did when they came back to land, with shrinking livers and a thirst for the ladies – they hit the hostelries; the only difference might have been that they didn’t win the pub quiz like we did. But I could be wrong.’

So who were the biggest drinkers? ‘Well, I did wake up in a fishing boat one morning,’ he admits. ‘All tangled up in the netting, face down, stinking of mackerel. That was when I couldn’t get home. I thought I could cross the harbour on a fishing boat, and I failed miserably; I just climbed on this boat for some reason, but I fell over and fell asleep.’

‘I’ve got nothing to hide and I’m not doing anyone any harm, and I really don’t know why my going out interests anybody anyway,’ he says, his expressive voice emphasizing each syllable.’

‘I don’t consider myself a hell-raiser; I’m living the life I know, as all my friends do. Most of Britain goes out on a Saturday night and lets their hair down, and I’m not going to change my ways. I learn my lines, turn up on time and only now and again bump into the furniture, and I work very, very hard at my job.’

From The Daily Mail

I wonder if Sienna ever regrets the way she ended things with Rhys. Her relationship with Balthazar Getty has done a lot of damage to her career (and his), but post-split, Rhys just seems to have licked his wounds in private, put his head down and gotten to work. It’s an admirable way to handle a situation, even if Rhys ends up sleeping on the occasional fishing vessel.

After coming to semi-stardom through his scene-stealing turn in Notting Hill, Rhys has really proven himself to be a talented actor who does consistently good work. It seems like he’s really trying to be seen as more than just an actor who can fill in the weird, offbeat characters. I’m really looking forward to The Boat That Rocked, it looks amazing. And Rhys is just one part of an overall amazing ensemble. Take that, Sienna.

Here’s the trailer for The Boat That Rocked. It’s out in the UK on April 3 and in other European countries in mid April, but doesn’t come out in the US until August, according to IMDB.

Rhys Ifans is shown on 11/20/08. Credit: WENN.com