Rhys Ifans to play Dylan Thomas in film of poet's last days

Rhys Ifans will play Dylan Thomas in a biopic set during the days leading up to the death of the iconic Welsh poet, according to Variety.

Ifans, who is also appearing in a new film adaptation of Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood and is presenting a documentary about the poet, will join John Malkovich and Diego Luna in Dominion, which is being directed and written by Decoding Annie Parker's Steven Bernstein. Dominion will be set in 1953 in New York, where Thomas, who had alcoholism, died at the age of 39 after multiple visits to White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village. He'd also received from a local doctor a series of "injections" designed to help him complete public performances of Under Milk Wood. The poet died on 9 November, four weeks after arriving in the US for a tour of poetry readings and talks. He had been feeling ill throughout but continued to drink regularly, and may have also suffered from the effects of a debilitating smog that had hit the Big Apple.