E! On-Line Interview

January 1998

That serious actor rolls the dice on romance, Emma Peel and a name change
by Bob Strauss

Meeting Ralph Fiennes, you have the urge to force-feed him a warm drink and wrap him in a blanket. There's just something so delicate, an emotional fragility that seems to project the warning "easily bruised."

Of course, there's more to remarkable Ralph (remember, it's pronounced "Rafe") than just his erudite sensitivity. The pleasure There's a sharply wicked principle sense of humor. And there must be steel in a man who can play a monster as convincing as Schindler's List's Amon Goeth; a lover as brooding as The English Patient's Count Laszlo; a hero as supernaturally confident as John Steed--opposite Uma Thurman's Emma Peel, no less--in the upcoming film version of the classic TV spy series The Avengers; or Hamlet at high speed, every night, for six months. (He earned his Tony for that one.)

Yet the thoughtful thespian seems more akin to the self-lacerating, profoundly troubled types to which he's given his best- and least-appreciated efforts: Quiz Show's cheating intellectual, Strange Days' sensation-addicted fallen future cop. And now, there's Oscar and Lucinda's Oscar Hopkins, perhaps his most enchantingly difficult antihero.

A 19th-century English minister with a helacious lust for gambling, Oscar falls in love with an Australian gaming enthusiast (played smartly by newcomer Cate Blanchett) and, to prove his devotion to her and God, wagers his life on a mad quest to bring a glass church into the wild, remote Outback.

Recently divorced from actress Alex Kingston (ER's Dr. Elizabeth Corday), Fiennes has been romantically linked with Francesca Annis, who played mother Gertrude to his Hamlet on the English stage and is 18 years his senior. The eldest of six siblings and a former art student, Fiennes is obviously capable of strong, unpredictable action.

Still, you can't help worrying that he's somehow going to hurt himself.

Ever consider changing how you spell your name?
It is something I regret not changing earlier on. Actually, Steven Spielberg said I should have changed the spelling. Ralph used to be pronounced "Rafe." Maybe five or six generations ago, it wouldn't have caused so much confusion.

At least it's been good practice for playing Oscar. This has got to be one of the most exquisitely confused individuals in movie history.
Yes, what a wonderful part. There's all this vulnerability, and the confusions and struggles and aspirations and doubts and guilts of this man, his moments of exhilaration and moments of deep torment, that just made him an extraordinary character to play. It encompassed so much, and with a poetic spirit.

Oscar's spirit comes through beautifully in his equally strong desires to gamble and serve God.
He has a strong sense of right and wrong in his heart, but he would bet that certain experiences of the body, of the senses, are not wrong. He never gambles for self-gain, for greed; he gambles because he loves the moment of gambling. It's the compulsion, a need for it--and in a way, he's a gambling addict. But is it sinful? His dilemma is that everyone is telling him it's wrong, that it's a sin, but in his experience he knows it's not.

Did you relate to Oscar's gambling addiction?
A little bit. I think that life is a gamble all the time, and choosing parts is certainly a gamble.

Are you into gaming?
I haven't gotten into serious card gambling or anything like that. A few times out to the horse races I really liked, but I liked it for the atmosphere and the people. It's quite a sexy atmosphere.

Did you win?
I went to Derby Day for the first time in my life, as Oscar does, and I won 160 pounds on an outsider called El Aristocrate.

How much is luck part of an actor's career?
So much of it is luck. The cliché of being in the right place at the right time. They offer the part to someone else, who turns it down, and you're the second choice--that kind of thing. I don't believe I did a great piece of work in Wuthering Heights, but Steven Spielberg saw that and asked to meet me. Subsequently, I got the part in Schindler's List.

What did you take away from playing the Nazi commandant in that film?
I did a lot of reading on the Holocaust and a lot of background on Goeth. It's a horrifying thing to get familiar with. What's most disturbing is how accessible in all of us the potential is for that kind of nonchalant violence. The way one might swat a fly or shoot at a rabbit, it's only a little transition in one's head before that becomes a human being.

Tell me about The English Patient. Did you have any idea going into it that this bizarre story would be such a commercial and Academy Award success?
No, but I felt if the feeling I got from reading the script could be put up on the screen, it must be an extraordinary film. It was so rich, so passionate, so moving about being obsessively in love and how nothing is forever and how everyone has to move on until they die. I thought these truths of the film were beautifully woven throughout the screenplay and its romantic settings.

Are you a romantic?
Yes, I suppose I am. But I like hard-hitting romance, like in real romantic poetry. Actually, the romantic poets were tough. Someone like Byron, for example, was very cynical in his romanticism. I'm quite drawn to that.

So many of the characters you've played are --in reality or in their own minds--and most of them have a driving need for some kind of forgiveness. Does that reflect something in you?
Yeah. I don't know where it comes from, but I love it. The idea of being redeemed is one that preoccupies me.

Tell us about The Avengers.
That was very redeeming! [Laughs.] It was great fun.

It must be nice to play a confident, witty chap like John Steed after all the tortured-fellow roles.
Oh, it was great. Although I have to say that kind of light comedy, like Cary Grant, David Niven and Jimmy Stewart were known for, required a relaxation of delivery I found quite hard. It can't just be throwaway charm, although it might appear to be. It has to be bloody precise. That was a very tough thing, but I loved doing it.

Is the movie going to be an update of the series or set in the 1960s?
It's set in a kind of ongoing '60s England. It's brilliantly designed, I love the look of it. Very British, but lots of way-out, wacky stuff. Emma Peel's flat is very psychedelic, whereas Steed's is a classic English gentleman's London flat. They're kind of the two poles of style.

Next you're starring in a film directed by your sister Martha--Pushkin's epic romantic poem Eugene Onegin.
That's pronounced "Oh-nya-gen."

My mistake.
No, no. It's another one of those weird name pronunciation things. I'm used to those. [Laughs.] But, yes, Martha is a very experienced commercial director. Irrespective of the fact that I'm her brother, I think she has an extraordinary eye. I feel she'd inject any subject matter, but especially a classical story, with such style and verve and unusual approach, that I love the thought of doing something with her.

You come from a large family, and almost all of your brothers and sisters went into the arts, right?
Yes. My father was a farmer who became a photographer. My mother wrote novels and travel stories. I lived in a house where we were encouraged to read and discuss and draw. We were always encouraged to have ideas and imaginations of our own. All of us, except for one brother who's a gamekeeper, are involved in arts or media. Sophie, my other sister, does miscellaneous things in film, from producing to location managing to talent spotting. My brother Magnus is a composer. And my young brother Joe is now an actor who's going to be very hot; he plays Cate Blanchett's love interest in Elizabeth I, which is coming up.

You studied painting before you decided to become an actor. Do you still draw?
I don't, sadly. I feel I should. It sounds stupid, but I fear if I do it, I must do it totally. I can't do it in a hobby-like way.

Do you have any hobbies?
[Thinks a bit, then seems surprised at himself.] No, I don't.

Not unlike Oscar, you seem to be a simultaneously intense and fragile fellow. How does someone of your apparent sensitivity deal with all the hoopla?
Sometimes it takes its toll. The pressure to do the work takes you away, but it has to have its downside. Recently, though, I feel much calmer about the attention and the requests and the offers of work from people. The media is invasive, of course. But it's best to just accept the fact that it's like that. After all, the burdens of celebrity are pretty minimal, really. There are more important things to worry about.