Australian Good Taste Magazine

June 1998

'Ralph Fiennes: As Nice as Pie'
By Pua Berman & Sue Williams

Ralph Fiennes: He's been a star of two of the most acclaimed films in history, Schindler's List and The English Patient, received a Tony Award and rave reviews whenever he's appeared on stage, and is being hailed as the British wunderkind of Hollywood. Yet it took a meeting with Sean Connery on the set of the long awaited movie version of the TV classic, The Avengers, to teach Ralph Fiennes to enjoy his success.

Until that point, he'd revelled in being offered the choicest roles in the industry, but had found he just wasn't coping with the fame game. Being recognised in the street disturbed him. Being approached by his fans made him anxious. And the press? He'd avoid them like the plague. "But meeting Sean Connery ... he's someone who's had, for his whole lifetime, this intrusion of working and being really famous," says Ralph, 35, smiling. "He just shrugs it off, I think I saw from that how it's not going to kill you."

So now Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines), who recently starred in the Australian movie Oscar and Lucinda, is at last beginning to enjoy being the flavour of the moment - as long as the moment doesn't last too long. "Six months later, it'll be someone else," he says, hopefully. "I think if you realise that, and just hope to be consistent in the private areas of your life, you just let each moment unfold for itself."

One such moment saw him leave his wife, new ER star Alex Kingston, for his older theatre co-star in Hamlet, Francesca Annis, and make headline news. And with the buzz surrounding The Avengers in the US, it's unlikely the spotlight will move off him just yet. Starring as the very right and proper Mr Steed, opposite Uma Thurman as the thoroughly modern and sexy Emma Peel, with Sean Connery, playing Sir August de Wynter, it looks sure to do well when it opens here in October.

It's quite a departure for Ralph, but he's been enjoying the change. "Actually, in a way, it's a relief to go from Oscar to someone like John Steed," he says, draping himself across the sofa in New York's Four Seasons Hotel.

"He can handle anything - nothing is too much for John Steed. The only time he's deeply angry is when someone punctures his bowler hat with a dart. That makes him very cross."

Naturally, much of the comedy comes from the stark contrast between Steed and Peel. "He's the sort of perennial English gentleman, whereas Emma Peel is modern, out there, the woman in charge of herself," says Ralph. "I have a line in the film that says, 'Tradition is all we have, Mrs Peel'."

While talent has obviously taken Ralph Fiennes a long way in his career, he concedes that good luck has played its part. For instance, if The English Patient script had come along just a few weeks later than it did, he may well have missed out, as it was in that crucial time that his fururistic adventure movie, Strange Days, flopped badly. "It could be that if The English Patient had happened later, the failure of Strange Days could have stopped me from doing that," he says. "It's just the luck of the way the cards are dealt."

He shrugs. With his new laid-back attitude, he's coping with it all a little better. "Fame is a double-edged sword, although the feeling of being successful is a great feeling," he says, with the slightest of smiles. "People come up to you and like your work. That's wonderful, but it can distort your approach to living everyday life. I think it can be dangerous like that."