The Lizard Speaks on The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t swing into theaters until next summer, but to give you some idea of what to expect, Rhys Ifans – who plays bad guy Dr. Curt Connors (better known as Spidey’s reptilian nemesis, The Lizard) — is speaking out about his character and his take on the overall film.

“Spider-Man is a working-class hero,” the actor told Hero Complex in a new interview. “He’s an everyman. And I think Marc [Webb] as a director and Andrew [Garfield] in his performances [as Spider-Man] are doing special — we’re reclaiming the poetry of the hero and of the story.”

Ifans also made it clear that he won’t be playing some cardboard cutout super villain. “Curt Connors is by no stretch an evil villain. He’s not like the Batman villains, like the Joker, who are the embodiment of evil,” he said. “[Curt] Connors is a great man who makes a bad decision. That’s the whole magic of the Spider-Man idea. These people are the embodiment of our flaws and our desires that lead to tragedy. Curt Connors is a man with one arm and he wants to grow his arm back. He has access to a science that can enable that.”

“But he has to make a moral decision, an ethical decision, to achieve that,” the actor continued. “In a story both he and Peter Parker are presented with these amazing abilities, and it’s about this gift that life gives us. More than any other super-hero, Spider-Man presents us with something very local in its ethics. It’s not messianic. It’s far more tangible.”

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