Rhys Ifans To Comic-Con Attendants: “You people disgust me”

Rhys Ifans might be taking his role as a super-villain a bit too literally.  Since he made headlines for being “detained” and “cited” by security at last weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con for wanting smoke a cigarette backstage (and allegedly being drunk), most people ignored Ifans’ rather questionable comments about fans at the Amazing Spider-Man panel. Luckily the San Diego Reader transcribed Ifans’ allegedly booze-filled diatribe.

Ifans, who plays the film’s main villain The Lizard, immediately began his rant by stating that he wanted to come to Comic-Con to see if comic book fans were anything like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.  His conclusion?  Real-life comic book fans are worse.  Ifans said, “I wanted to see just how much truth there was to the parody. Come to find out, it’s not a parody at all. If anything, it’s a whitewash. You people disgust me, with your self-important justifications for your stunted development and your elaborate, mask-ridden drag shows. It’s sad wretches like you who have made it well-nigh impossible to earn a living as an actor without either making dick jokes or putting on fetish wear and calling it a ‘superhero costume.’ Poor Bobby [DeNiro] and Al [Pacino] might as well be wearing clown noses every time they get in front of a camera these days, and here I am getting ready to impersonate a character known for dragging out his ‘s’s and wearing a lot of purple.”

Huh.  While you could argue that Ifan’s rant has several valid points — superhero films used to be considered the death knell for an actor’s career, but now it seems like every Hollywood A-Lister jockeys to be in as many as possible — it’s sort of odd for Ifans to take it out on the crowd since he is, you know, going to be in a comic book movie next summer.  Nobody forced Ifans to take the role, and he can hardly blame the “stunted development” of comic book fans for that.
Ifans ended his rant with an explanation for his behavior: “In short, I’m 44 years old today, drunk as a Lord, and, thanks to this role, completely bereft of dignity. I hate you all. Good night.”  Looks like somebody has a little pent-up self-hatred, hm?

No word if Ifans meant his comments to be tongue-in-cheek or if he was trying to be a “villain”, but yikes, he probably should choose his words more carefully in the future.

Ifans next appears in the lead role of the Shakespeare thriller (I never thought I’d type those two words together!) Anonymous opening in October.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens July 3, 2012.