Rhys Ifans to play Howard Marks

If there has ever been a case of perfect casting it is this. Rhys Ifans, the wild, carousing actor, is to play his fellow Welshman Howard Marks in an adaptation of the former cannabis smuggler's best-selling autobiography, Mr Nice. The eagerly-anticipated film, particularly among the stoner community, will begin shooting in the new year and be released in the latter half of 2009. Marks, who writes for The First Post today in defence of prostitutes, said he was delighted with the news.

"It's great because I have known Rhys as a friend for quite a while now,” Marks told the Independent. “We met in the 1990s at a Super Furry Animals gig. I didn't have a clue who he was at the time but he wanted my autograph. He brought over all these cigarette papers and asked me to sign them. I signed one of them but, for some reason, he wanted the whole lot done.

"Anyway, we became friends after that and I made a promise he could play me if there was an adaptation made. I thought I was doing him a really big favour but since then he has become so famous it's like he's doing me one."

Despite their age gap, Ifans, 40, has much in common with the 63-year-old Marks. Not only are they both fiercely proud Welshmen with a fondness for leading wild lifestyles but in some quarters they are both regarded as sex symbols. ·