Buzz Weekly Interview

January 9-15, 1998

"Fiennes and Not So Dandy"

Ralph Fiennes (pronounced in the old English manner, Rafe Fines-though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone else in England who uses the pronunciation) is the eldest of six children, born to a farmer turned photographer and an artist-novelist mother who recently passed away. At age 35, he has already carved a significant niche for himself playing dark, austere, wounded characters in three Oscar-worthy films: Charles Van Doren, the dishonest coward in Quiz Show; Amon Goeth, the casually homicidal Nazi in Schindler's List; and the brooding, badly burned Hungarian count Almasy in Anthony Minghella's The English Patient. In the current Oscar and Lucinda, Fiennes tries on the more appealing role of a shy and guilt-ridden minister with a penchant for gambling and an almost childlike passion for life. Minghella once said of him, "The poet and the beast seem to live hand and hand in him." Alex Kingston, the woman from whom he is seeking a divorce, has said, "He has such a dark side. I think he feels he is only half a person. That he is only real when he is acting." Whatever lurks beneath the edgy exterior of the rakishly good-looking actor, the perennially polite but reluctant interviewee isn't about to give it up to Buzz Weekly contributor Kathryn Harris.

KH- It has been reported that when you were vying for Oscar and Lucinda, you said, "I am Oscar"
RF- I don't know where this comes from-"I am Oscar." Don't believe everything you read. I said, "This is a part I feel really close to." After I read it, I rand up my agent and said, "Look, I really feel this is a part I must do."

KH- What aspects of the role did you identify with?
RF- It was the continual consternation of trying to work out right and wrong. The feelings of terrible guilt and of real exuberance about the possibilities of life. The moral dilemma Oscar's in-THAT I could make the connection with.

KH- Is Oscar indeed closer to you than other parts?
RF- I don't know. Yes, I feel he is.

KH- In what ways?
RF- Maybe... his remorse about some things that he does. I don't want to analyze myself here. I feel closer to the character of Henry V, a man with a deeply religious feeling in a very real political world, with machinations going on all around him. It's that struggling to do the right thing. But there are so many aspects to Oscar that make him quite a complex part. He's struggling to honor his father's beliefs, and yet the event of the Christmas pudding is the symbolic event which tells him that certain sensual things that can be experienced on Earth are not wrong. He's an innocent in the ways of the world, and sometimes he can't survive the real world because his innocence is going to be bruised by it. Eventually, he is crushed spiritually by it, the image of the glass church crushing him to death. The sea is a heavily symbolic element in (the novel by) Peter Carey. It represents the unknown, and Oscar is understandably fearful of it. The ending is brilliantly stark and terrifying in the book, but it's one that feels poetically absolutely right: The thing that he feared most ends his life.

KH- Was is difficult to move from that to your role as John Steed, the quintessential British gentlemen, in the upcoming The Avengers?
RF- Actually, in a funny way it was a relief. As (director) Jeremiah Chechik said, "He can handle anything. Nothing, nothing is too much for John Steed." The only time he is deeply angry is when someone punctures his bowler hat with a dart. That makes him very cross.

KH- Success hit you hard and quick. Was that a challenge?
RF- It was a very strange time. People come and seduce you with all kinds of offers. A lot of bullshit comes your way. But it was also a wonderful time. Usually, you're waiting for the phone to ring, and if it's a job, you say, "I'll do it." It's a different shift for an actor. You're not trained for it. Everyone tells you, " You'll never work. You'll spend 75 percent of your time out of work. Only a few people ever make it."

KH- Has the success affected you?
RF- (With some irritation) Yes. Every little moment changes you. It's lovely to feel successful, that people like your work. But is can distort your approach to living everyday life. It can be very dangerous. I'm not anonymous now when I walk around London, where I live. The downside is, people want you to become public property. I don't enjoy that. I'm beginning to accept it's part of it. Jerry Weintraub (one of the producers) on The Avengers taught me it doesn't matter. And meeting Sean Connery and seeing the intrusion he gets-he just shrugs it off- I learned it's not going to kill you.

KH- The implication that you're an adulated sex symbol, how does that make you feel?
RF- I'm bemused by that always. I don't know what it means. I sort of feel like a media pawn. The more I see the workings of the media...(it's important) to be consistent in the private areas of you life. Let each moment unfold. The danger is to feel if you're not in the papers, if you're film's not a success, there's a problem.

KH- Where is the gratification for you in the filmaking process?
RF- I love the making of the film-the actual terror and panic and expectation and the sense of having got it. The energy of the group-the camera crew and everyone being so cohesive. I love seeing it put together. Of course, I'm interested to see my own work -how it turned out-but I'm also interested in the other performances, and now I've become more interested in how the film is structured, edited, to the point where I think I'll want to direct one day. To actually put these pieces together myself and be in control. By the time a film is released, I feel distant from the response. It's not like when you're putting on a play and the reviews come in and you have to go on the following night. I love the making of the film, like I love being on stage doing a performance, even when it's not going well. It's the act of doing it. When I was at Stratford we often had terrible reviews. So people think it's a terrible production or I'm not very good in it. It doesn't matter. You've got to carry on and believe in the process. It's alive that night in front of the audience, and you have a chance to reinvent, to create. With film it's that moment when you're shooting, before the dead hand of critical appraisal is on it and it's locked into (whether) it did OK, it's great, it's a flop. The director of The Avengers said it's all about the process-it must be great, full of dilemmas, anger, ecstasy. Otherwise you're always living in the future.

KH- How far are you willing to go for a particular role?
RF- Hmmm. I lost weight for Oscar. I wanted to be as thin as possible.

KH- I meant, do you inhabit your roles, take them home with you?
RF- (Emphatically) No. You'd send yourself into the psychiatric care if you did that nonstop. Maybe some people would say you have to take that risk. I've never done that. I let it go at the end of the day, and then it starts to osmose when you return the next day. and you're fresh and relaxed. I think it was Olivier who said, "At the end of the day, forget it, go into the pub, and have a drink."

KH- What do think are some other myths about actors?
RF- (After much consideration) Hmmm. I don't know. I think that they are full of pretend, exterior emotion. How often people think they are vulnerable, and they aren't at all. They're very curious animals. You often hear people talk of actors being in the wings and being reluctant-if not absolutely terrified-and then they change (onstage), or of comedians who are constantly being funny when actually they are sad. I'm reluctant to go in to it. I think the media make myths about actors. I understand you all have deadlines and have to have a theme and write good pieces..."Jack Nicholson slumps in a corner, his glasses half way down his nose, he barely glances at me when I walk in, I'm nervous..."

KH- But this is strictly Q&A.
RF- Oh, how dull!

And they lived happily ever after. THE END