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He seems tired, exhausted, irritable. His sky-blue eyes look sad, as if he was carrying a heavy burden on his broad shoulders. I can hardly imagine this shy man playing the unscrupulous Nazi-commander Amon Goeth in "Schindler's List". Now he plays a victim of the Nazis.
"How do you do that?"
"It is difficult. Because the holocaust makes me depressive and pessimistic. It showed what human beings are really capable of." Fiennes thinks about this, chooses his words carefully. "Not only the Germans, but also the Americans and the English. They knew about Auschwitz but despite that they did nothing." He looks up shortly. His glance is very sad. "It's the same situation today. We're bombing Kosovo, but we're ignoring the war in Chetchnya and Rwanda."
"Are you a pessimist?"
"No. When I was at Krakow I used to listen to "Fidelio" on my walkman. The thought that a country that had produced a tyrant like Hitler could also produce a composer like Beethoven, whose songs celebrate the liberation of people that had been arrested without justification gave me hope." He reconsiders. Silence. [...]"I believe we simply have to be true to ourselves."
"The characters in the film are not [true to themselves]. They're constantly trying to conceal their identity. What about you?"
"I hide in my roles. I often feel safer in someone else's skin than in my
own. I flee from the
responsibility of being myself."
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on February 19, 2001
EL STEPHO