Evening Standard (UK) Sunshine Article

April 18, 2000

Three parts for Sunshine Ralph
by Ralph Fiennes

In Sunshine I play a grandfather, father and grandson - three generations in a Hungarian Jewish family from the late 19th century through to about 1960. Directed and written by István Szabó, who wrote and directed Mephisto and Colonel Redl, it is an epic romantic tale about one family's secret passions, betrayals and unbreakable bonds. It's a powerful story and highly personal. Set in Budapest, it is really about, as István would say, the disease of wanting to be accepted by the establishment.

Ignatz, the grandfather, is devoted to serving the Habsburg regime. He is a middle-class Jew who wants to assimilate successfully to the point of neglecting the woman he loves and changing his name from Sonnenschein to Sors. His son Adam is a sportsman - a fencer - and his motivation is to succeed as an athlete. He is blind to social change, to the rise of Fascism and anti-Semitism in Hungary. He changes his faith, from Jewish to Catholic. The final of the three, Ivan, his son, is emotionally crippled and wounded psychologically by seeing his father murdered in a concentration camp. He's the most conflicted - he has no roots. He comes back wanting to be accepted into another set of ideals imposed by the Soviet regime and becomes an ardent Communist. Finally he sees that first he has to address his own inner sense of identity and morality.

The backbone of the film is Ignatz's sister Valerie, played by Jennifer Ehle - the older Valerie is played by Jennifer's real-life mother Rosemary Harris. Valerie is the real hero - she doesn't suffer from this disease of wanting to be accepted. Miriam Margolyes is the Sonnenschein matriarch and David de Keyser her husband Emmanuel - James Frain, Molly Parker, Mark Strong and Rachel Weisz play members of the Sors family. I know I'm playing another Hunga rian role but these ones are very different from Almásy, the Hungarian I played in The English Patient.