Rhys Ifans Talks About Playing Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Rhys Ifans waited and waited and waited, and the opportunity very nearly passed him by. What the heck are we talking about? Ifans is one of the few British actors left on the planet to have not appeared in a Harry Potter film.

But, with precious little time to spare, Ifans has made the cut, as he'll appear in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011). Thus he'll join a long line of U.K. talents -- among them Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Robert Pattinson, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, John Cleese, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Julie Walters, Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, and more -- who've played a regular, recurring or one-off role in a Harry Potter adaptation.

"I got it, man!" Ifans said with a laugh. The actor spoke briefly about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while promoting his latest film, the comedy-drama Greenberg (2010), which is open now in limited release and casts him as an old friend of the film's title character, played by Ben Stiller. "This is the first film that I've ever done that I'm not really allowed to talk about. But it's great. I play Luna Lovegood's (Evanna Lynch) father (and editor of the Quibbler), Xenophilius Lovegood. And it was a thrill."

Ifans -- whose credits include Notting Hill (1999), Little Nicky (2000), Vanity Fair (2004) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) -- added, "When you're an English actor and you get the call from Harry Potter, that is like getting your stripes. It was great. You end up on set and there's all these actors that you've worked with before or crossed paths with. So we'd all be sitting there in our chairs eating our soggy English sandwiches, pumping it up, dressed up like wizards. It was a pleasantly surreal experience."

And while Ifans kept the secrets of Deathly Hallows a secret for those who've not read the books, he did share an amusing anecdote about Evanna Lynch, his young co-star and a veteran of several Harry Potter adventures. "She's amazing," he said. "If there's a question on set -- and they have a plethora of researchers and people who've read the books -- but if anyone needs to know ANY miniscule detail about anything that has happened in any Harry Potter novel from start to finish, they ask her. She knows it all. So it was quite intimidating. I was working with this expert in Harry Potter. But she was a joy to work with. All of them, all of the kids or whatever you call them, it was just a great couple of weeks."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I will open on Nov. 19, 2010. It will be be followed on July 15, 2011, by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II.