Detroit Free Press Interview

June 20, 2000

Fiennes ducks the limelight to concentrate on his work
BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE WRITER

"People assume Ralph is aloof," says Julianne Moore, the object of his obsession in last year's "The End of the Affair." "In fact, he's just painfully shy."

With Fiennes, there would seem to be a fine line between reserved and removed, and on this day in Toronto, he seems to have crossed it. After a perfunctory handshake, Fiennes, wearing a tatty sweater and house slippers, seats himself in a straight-backed hotel chair and begins doodling on a pad.

"It relaxes me, I suppose," he says. "I'm no artist, really."

His admirers might disagree. After making a marked impression as the sadistic concentration camp commandant in 1993's "Schindler's List," the classically trained British actor didn't use his new notoriety to become a star -- although that almost happened with the success of the Academy Award-winning "The English Patient" in 1996.

Instead of signing on for any of the number of Hollywood films he was offered, he returned to the English stage to do a Chekhov play. He has since divided his time between the stage and, with one glaring exception, what is usually called "serious" film work. The latest example of the latter, "Sunshine," a three-hour epic tracing Hungary's tumultuous 20th Century, opens Friday.

In "Sunshine," Fiennes has the daunting task of playing three roles: Ignatz Sonnenschein, who angers his father by rejecting the family business and his Jewish name to become a judge; Ignatz's son Adam, a gifted fencer who coverts to Christianity in order to lead his team in the 1936 Olympics; and Adam's son Ivan, who ferrets out anti-communist plotters for the government.

"It's not why I took the part," says Fiennes of the challenge of convincingly playing three characters in a single film. "My initial interest was working with Istvan (Szabo), whose films I admired very much."

Szabo is the Hungarian director of the Academy-Award winning "Mephisto" (1981) as well as the less widely seen "Colonel Redl" (1985) and "Hanussen" (1988). All of these, like "Sunshine," are concerned with the effect individual decisions have on politics and the balance of power, and all are about men who ultimately pay a price for making the wrong decisions. Is it that same kind of moral complexity that led Fiennes to roles like the traitor in "The English Patient," or the cheating Charles Van Doren in "Quiz Show"?

"Umm, I don't think I could .... Uh, I'm not sure it's quite as cut-and-dried as all that," mumbles Fiennes, looking up from the pad. When he casts his pale blue eyes directly on you, it's easy to see the effect he has on costars like Moore, who says she "almost felt hypnotized" during their "End of the Affair" scenes together. Rachel Weisz, who in "Sunshine" plays a woman who marries Adam's brother in order to be near the man she loves, says his concentration was "scary, but inspirational. It either brings out the best in you or withers you, I suppose."

Raised Catholic, Fiennes, 37, is the eldest of six biological children of a photographer and a novelist who had adopted a child before he was born. Fiennes says he looked to his director for his understanding of the Jewish characters and their relationship with their homeland. A history buff, he explored the various periods through a pile of books he took with him to Budapest, but says he also took time to soak up Eastern European culture in less intellectual fashion.

"My education included sitting in coffee houses, eating many Hungarian meals, discovering the joys of goose-liver pate and the pleasures of Tokay wine," he says.

His desire to immerse himself more deeply in Hungarian history was tempered by the fact that he was simultaneously filming "Onegin," an adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's poem, directed by his sister Martha. It too is an epic of sorts, albeit less melodramatic and conventional than "Sunshine."

"They were both wonderful roles I wanted very badly to play," says Fiennes. "I had worked very hard on the 'Onegin' script with my sister, and it was something we had committed to see through. So yes, I suppose it was arduous, and a bit trying sometimes, but we worked it out in the end."

After shooting four films, including the disastrous action comedy "The Avengers" ("The most fun I ever had making a movie, ironically enough," he says), Fiennes was eager to return to the stage, and Shakespeare. Having performed an acclaimed "Hamlet" in 1994, he is now performing a double bill of "Richard II" and "Coriolanus" in London. The production will come to Brooklyn's Academy of Music this September.

"I don't compartmentalize my acting as films and theater, although they are obviously different things. You simply attempt to be as honest and articulate as you can in both circumstances."

Then, ever so briefly, Fiennes almost lets down his guard.

"Sometimes that can be easier in those circumstances than it is in these."