FOTOGRAMAS (SPAIN) Interview

April 2000

"I'm guilty of accosting characters that provoke or challenge me".
Two romantic dramas have sent back Ralph Fiennes to us. In one of them he is a novelist in an adulteress relationship: "The End of the Affair", of Neil Jordan. In the other he is a nineteenth-century Russian aristocrat, spendthrift and cynic: "Onegin". In this last he is the main character, executive producer and he is directed by his younger sister, Martha Fiennes.
By Julieta MARTIALAY.
Translation by Mari-Carmen

Ralph Fiennes, britain of 37, is courteous even when he smiles, what he does almost slantingly from very thin lips that only just out because they bring colour into a so white skin that seems to be just about to vanish. His manners, besides exquisite, are smooth, languid, almost slothful. But what results definitive to notice we are in front of one of the most versatile actors of the screen are his green eyes, which look with an almost rude expressiveness because of the disturbances they provoke in the contrary. Fiennes is the oldest of seven brothers, among which we find Joseph, main character in "Shakespeare in Love", Martha and Magnus, who collaborates in the soundtrack of "Onegin". And he is son of the deceased novelist Jini Fiennes -while he was filming "The English Patient" he published her last book posthumous title- and cousin of one of the most important explorers of the world, Ranulph Fiennes.

Fotogramas: How was your work with Neil Jordan in "The End of the Affair"?

Ralph Fiennes: Neil combines two fundamental aspects in a director. He is half relaxed and half exigent. I got along with him because he is not closed for actor's opinions; he doesn't mine your confidence and he always looks at you with a gesture of support. That is important for somebody like me, very given to make suggestions.

F.: In this sense and respecting to "Onegin", the idea that your sister directed the film was yours?

R.F.: I trusted in Martha's work because her musical and advertising videos give a very original and natural vision of things; a combination which could revolutionize a classic like "Onegin". And I needed something like that to fulfil an obsession which went after me since my adolescence, when I read the novel by Pushkin. The best way of making a film of that so personal fixation was collaborating narrowly with somebody very close to me who wasn't dependent on commercial aspects of a film and didn't insist on softening negative strokes of a character only to make him more sympathetic to the audience. Martha's name came to me almost by instinct.

F.: Being the oldest and the one with more experience, how did you overcome the natural inclination to be excessively protector and controller?

R.F.: Only a year is between us, so I never had excessive authority over her. And I assure to you that Martha is a woman of great character who has always defend herself very good. A so tough and agressive world as the publicity one, of which she comes, hardens. I was very respectful since first moment with the idea that we were collaborators at fifty per cent, which means that we both discussed in equal conditions when disagreements arose.

F.: Which consequences do you think that would have nowadays being so frank and impertinent like Onegin?

R.F.: You mean saying what you think openly in a society dominated by what is politically correct? Directly, it wouldn't do. And that even though our tendence is to admire the ones that do it. For instance, Margaret Thatcher. She gave no respite; she said things clearly and the way she felt them. In consequence, there were people who didn't put up with her, but, at the same time, they recognized her charisma and they loved hating her. The most tremendous honesty combined with the action -Onegin in this sense was a lax, passive being- is what characterizes a revolutionary or an artist or even an arrogant businessman, with an agressive image and a manipulator capacity.

F.: Did you suffer a lot with the dancing classes you had to receipt for the film?

R.F.: Did you notice? Do you think I'm not a good dancer?

F.: No for somebody like you, with no good ear.

R.F.: And having to dance a mazurka. Because vals is more or less easy, but the mazurka ... is a great complication that enlarges when you have to show off a total dominion and security. There are people who are born with rhythm inside; not me. I've got it in my head and I have to concentrate a lot to make it descend to my feet. And sometimes that distance is really very long.

F.: Are you at ease with the definition of "versatile actor"?

R.F. I don't consider myself so versatile as people think I am. I'm guilty of accosting characters that provoke or challenge me for good, like Onegin, or for bad, as the Nazi I performed in "Schindler's list", or even to enjoy myself like John Steed in "The Avengers". When I act I don't think, I simply react. And I only have a motto in my mind, the one my mother told me: "Go ahead and never give up".