Dutch TV Guide Article

April 7, 2000

RATHER BE IN LONDON
INTERVIEW BY PAUL HEGEMAN
TRANSLATION BY TARA

The English Patient made him a superstar but the romantic soul Ralph Fiennes will never belong to Hollywood.

So in England he played the lead in Neil Jordan's applauded The End of The Affair (after the novel by Graham Greene) and he will be on stage for the next year and a half. "Believe me you are much better off being in London"

After the flop of "the Avengers"(1998) a unfortunately failed Hollywood attempt to translate the English cultseries to the bigscreen the English actor Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines) couldn't wait to be back on homesoil. Here he immediately returned to work.

This not only brought a brilliant leading role in Neil Jordan's magical adaptation of the Graham Greene classic The End of the Affair, he also produced and starred as Onegin, the debut film of his sister Martha based on the novel with the same name by Pushkin. And if that wasn't enough he also took on all three leads in Sunshine.

The last was recently good for the European film award. Being curious I ask him what his future film projects will be.

"There aren't any," he says dead calm, "because I am going devote the next year and a half to Shakespeare." And so the much by Hollywood desired actor is treading the boards of a makeshift theatre in London where directed by Jonathan Kent he will play the leading roles in Coriolanus and Richard II. And all of this for a fraction of the figure he normally can claim for a film role. It may be clear that Ralph Fiennes is an outsider in film land. If only for the bizarre pronounciation of the old English name that makes it seem it should be "Rafe Fines"

On top of that there is that mysterious passion hidden underneath his very classic English features, those hell blue eyes that can sometimes look helplessly into the world (which makes him destined to be the romantic hero) and at other become all fiery, especially when the conversation steers into a direction that doesn't appeal to him.

His normal mild appearance becomes a bit diabolical when, while laughing he shows his vampire-ish corner teeth. It is Spielberg's not least quality that he saw this duality in Fiennes' first leadrole in the tvfilm A Dangerous Man, Lawrence after Arabia and then asked him to play the daring role of the temptious nazi Amon Goeth in Schindler's List(1993).

The American director called Fiennes' special abilty of making human weaknesses look attractive "dangerous sexual magnetism". A talent he would use to the upmost effect in films as "Quiz Show"(1994) and The English Patient"(1996). By his portrial of the enigmatic Hungarian count Laszo De Almasy in that film he managed to reach the status as superstar.

Then all seemed to go wrong when he followed his role as the idealistic misfit Oscar in Oscar and Lucinda (1997) by the one dimensional one of John Steed in The Avengers. That film, commercially and artistically was a gigantic failure.

"Of course it depressed me a lot when the film was slaughtered," says Fiennes, "especially as I had rejoiced in the fact in portraying a youth idol as John Steed. But what can you do? I comforted myself by the thought that out of a negative experience like that might come something positive: then you really realise that this job isn't all roses."

Rather naive coming from somebody who has been an actor for quite some time now and who started his career with two huge flops: in Peter Greenaway's Baby of Macon(1992) and Wuthering Heights (1991).

The 37 year old actor looks restless and tense. His speech often comes across as being confused, as if his words can't keep track of his stream of thoughts. "I feel much more at home on the set of a film or the stage of a theatre then doing aan interview. All these questions can make me feel very nervous," he says, he then pauses for a long time and stares out of the window with that melancholic looks that has become his trademark.

"I think it is important to retain a bit of mystery as an actor," he continues hesitantly, "and that you shouldn't tell all about your private life. I don't have any problems when people are interested in diverse aspects of my work. I love to talk about that. But I hate it when people want to know about my relationships or what colour of underwear I wear. That kind of information doesn't contribute in a better understanding of my acting. For me acting is no form of therapy. I know there are legions of actors that hide behind their characters but for me acting is no more than living out pure fantasy. However heavy you make it with motivation and such it is still a more refined version of playing cowboys and indians when I was young and that is exactly why I love it so much."

Fiennes' romantic attachment to his work makes him some kind of anachronism, an actor that lives passionately for his art and that isn't at all interested in his starstatus. "I am a character actor, not a star," he says "decidently, people assume that by the slightest amount of success you undergo some kind of metamorphosis and start having star attitudes. All these magazines and people that hang on your every word just because you have been nominated for an Oscar. Unconsciously you start to take yourself very seriously while in fact I don't care at all about all that attention. What do all these prizes and nominations mean anyway? I mean, Harvey Keitel for instance He never got an Oscar and then I think, jesus how on earth can you take an Oscar seriously when one of the best actors is continously overlooked. Those showbiz-things, especially in the USA, create a totally wrong image of our profession. Now you won't hear me say that actors lead the same hard life as surgeons and nurses but we are not all narcistic airheads," he says almost angrily.

"People think it is all glitter and glamour but don't realise you often make very long days in the worst possible circumstances with a lot of stress and frustration. Believe me I often feel I am walking a very tight robe. Actually that it just as well," he laughs, "it keeps you sharp."

Fiennes tells he doesn't carve out his career strategically. "I only listen to my intuition and my instincts. In here (he pats his chest) I feel what I should and shouldn't do and in no way I am thinking about success then. Of course you realise it won't always work out well, it remains a gamble. But what does it matter as long as you work passionately and with heart and soul." It is quite remarkable that he seems to be very partial to costume films.

"It isn't that conscious," he confesses, "it probably comes from the fact that the past helps you to put essential and universal themes in a wider , historical perspective. Take The End of The Affair. The film, next to its superficial thriller side asks the age old question how we should behave when our feelings get the upperhand on our mind. Should we give free range to our instincts and passions? Or should there be some kind of ethical awareness or even a religion that prevents us from acting out our obsessions? Besides that I love history. I have always been fascinated by the way people have behaved in the past. My fantasy seems to focus mainly on things that have happened in the past. Maybe that the romantic side of my nature."

That Fiennes is a true romantic goes without saying. He feels most at home in portraying tortured souls. "I always start with the pain, the hurt that my character has," the actor explains. "Even Amon Goeth I approached that way. I had to feel some sympathy for him. Objectively I naturally hated his guts but as an actor I discovered some sympathetic sides in his character. Somewhere in his youth it all went terribly wrong. He never received any love and maybe that is why he didn't have an emotional consciousness. He is innerly tormented. I often hear that I portray my characters too weak and too cynical so that the public won't want anything to do with him but I don't care if people like him or not, just as long as they won't get bored by the film."

The End of the Affair from director Neil Jordan(the Crying Game, the Butcher Boy)again transports us to the past. In the England of the second world war Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore) is bored stiffless with her well meaning but utterly boring husband, the civil servant Henry Miles. She enters into a stormy romance with the novelist Maurice Bendrix(Fiennes). When he becomes wounded during an air raid on London Sarah bargains with God, if he saves Bendrix, she will end the adulterous affair.

Her sudden unexplained departure out of his life is the mystery that Bendrix in the years after the war wants to solve, he then runs both the risk of winning her back and destroying her completely. The special love relationship and the man who desperately tries to win back his lost love makes you think of The English Patient but Fiennes finds Bendrix a more outspoken character.

"Neil's film again and again, in the shape of a recurring voice over focuses on the fact that he is a writer and thus gets much more room to explore his feelings than the Hungarian count in The English patient did. Thematically The End of The Affair goes a lot further too. I would dare to par the film with all its moral dilemmas with a Greek tragedy. You find all the primitive emotions in it, such as hate, love, jealousy and the compulsion to destroy and to manipulate. And then God as the most important chesspiece is added at the very end."

The End of the Affair may have enchanted Fiennes, the film he treasures most is Onegin because that is the first film he is also involved in as a producer. He enthusiastically tells of how he, his sister Martha who until then had only directed commercials and videoclips and their brother Magnus who was responsible for the soundtrack went to St Petersburg to show the film there to commemorate Pushkin's 200th birthday.

"At first the Russians were very reserved because to them Pushkin is some kind of God that they dare not touch themselves. But gradually they were won and showed their appreciation."

Brother Joseph too has become a huge star since the success of Shakespeare in Love and the question arises where this family draws their special artistic qualities. Ralph appears to become quite openhearted then and says his parents gave them that.

" The atmosphere in which we were grew up was very cultural. My mother was a writer and painter and was a strong influence on us. At home we were always discussing books,films and theatre. Rather loudly and chaotically too, he smiles. My mother was very unpredictable; if she was enthusiastic about something she was prone to throw with things. She also gave a lot of love, like my father actually. My father was a farmer to start with but preferred photography. He was very versatile. He built our home singlehandedly. My best memories are of all those mornings when he woke me, the eldester son, to take me into his darkroom. Before that we would take a short walk through a dawnclouded English landscape where no soul was to be seen. You could only hear the cooing of the pigeons, still the most splendid sound I know. Sometimes I deliberately work that long so that I can taste that atmosphere in the morning"

Does he have any problems with suddenly standing in his younger brother's shadow? "There is no sense of competition between us. People would like to believe that but there just isn't any," he says with a suddenly raised voice. "Joseph and I may have very different characters-he is much more extravert- artistically we are very close and have a lot of respect for one another. We both were raised with a strong ethical sense and a lot of idealism and that is why we will never fit in with Hollywood where all is made less important than a perverse sense of merchandise spirit. Greed is everywhere. Believe me, even though I am aware that our cultures have become much more similar you are much better off in the assgray London than in sunshine filled Los Angeles. Joseph is very lucky that I have already figured that out for him"