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Just in case I was not aware of this, his press secretary has made careful preparations. First she coaxed me out of the bar of the Hotel Crillon, where movie journalists from all over the world are waiting for their appointment with director Robert Redford and the stars of Quiz Show (Fiennes, John Turturro, Rob Morrow), into the corridor. Just three minutes she says, then Mr. Fiennes will be finished with his other interview team; would I please take a seat in the chair in front of his hotel-room door. I sit and feel as if I am waiting for the dentist. Five minutes go by, the door opens and people carrying press kits and recording equipment come out smiling as if in a trance. Then the press lady pops out and says, "Another minute, he's just gone to the bathroom." Ah, yes, interesting... When she finally reappears, she has a frown on her face.
What's wrong? Has Fiennes been sick, nauseated by the journalists, and decided to fly home to London, where he is soon to play Hamlet on stage?
"We've just realized that you're from a German publication. Would you mind not asking him about Amon Goeth? He is tired of talking about it." As I know from earlier Fiennes interviews, he is also fed up with discussing the correct Old-English pronunciation of his name ('rafe fines'), or Alex Kingston, the English actress, whom he married in 1993.
The private Ralph Fiennes, wearing a button-down shirt, faded beige slacks, a silver picket watch ("a gift from my wife," he says in a tone telling you to ask no further) and well-worn cowboy boots, has no physical similarity to the trigger-happy SS demon Goeth. For Schindler's List he had gained 26 pounds and had his hair shorn short to above his ears in the Nazi style. By now the extra pounds have disappeared and his hair is romantically long. He could easily be a model in ads for Calvin Klein or Giorgio Armani, two of his favorite designers.
Fiennes appears only at first glance like the latest version of the 'British, sensitive, slightly bored' type of actor, as we know them from Merchant-Ivory movies. His whole person radiates a restrained, but at times coquettish, sexuality. When I ask him about the red spots on his trousers, he first explains that they came from a book whose red cover had gotten wet; with a sly smile, he adds, "Someone asked me if it was lipstick."
In Quiz Show, Ralph Fiennes plays the university professor Charles Van Doren, who steps out of the shadow of his famous father, the poet and literature professor Mark Van Doren, and becomes the star of the popular TV quiz show, Twenty One. The film is based on the true Twenty One scandal of 1956, when it was discovered that some contestants -- including Charlie Van Doren -- were given the correct answers prior to their appearance on the show. When the story begins, the reigning champion is Herb Stempel, an uncomely Bronx-bred Jew, played by John Turturro with comical fury, whose lack of personal appeal displeases the sponsor of the show. To the producers, Van Doren, the charming WASP-knight in shining Brooks Brothers shirt, happens along at just the right time.
Director Redford's theme of this movie, smartly developed in an elegant style just stopping short of cynicism, is the deep division among the classes in the supposedly democratic America. His film deals with seduction and treachery, with envy and love among men, with sordid little desires and banal tragedies. Fiennes' acting style contributed considerably to the overall effect of the film. Redford explained that he decided to cast the Englishman -- whose portrayal of Lawrence of Arabia in a BBC television film had drawn his attention -- because of "that wonderfully interesting interior, this dark, haunted quality beneath the perfect shell."
And of course there are those eyes. The black and white of Schindler's List did not show them to full advantage: darkly rimmed irises of light gray with a touch of green. He can turn those eyes off and on like a flashlight; when he turns them on, one's knees get weak.
Ralph Nathaniel Fiennes was born in Suffolk on December 22, 1962, the first of six children. His father was a farmer, then a photographer. His mother, who died a year ago of breast cancer, was an author and painter. When Ralph was six years old, the family relocated to Ireland; after that, they moved at least 15 more times. As a teenager, he was a loner or, as his sister calls it, "an independent soul." He listened to Patti Smith, wore army-surplus clothes, and drew a huge black rat on his bedroom wall.
He studied painting at the Chelsea College of Art and Design before he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His paintings from that period are in storage somewhere, but the thought of them still seems to haunt him. "Sometimes I think I should... continue to pursue some kind of visual creativity, but I don't," he says, and suddenly the undertone of frustration one senses throughout the interview -- wrinkling his brow, running his fingers through his hair -- sounds quite genuine.
His next film will be a science-fiction thriller called Strange Days, which will arrive in theatres next summer. It is directed by Kathryn Bigelow of Blue Steel fame; the co-stars are Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis. The premise of this film, which not only in the character of Lenny, an ex-cop played by Fiennes, reminds one of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, is that in 1999 it will be possible to record human experiences and relive them, repeating ever sensation at will. "I could take a swim in the river, wearing the headset recording the experience, and afterward, sitting in your chair, you could play back that recording, seeing and hearing and feeling everything I did," Fiennes explains. "In this story, the problem is that it is an illegal business, because people carry out acts of extreme violence -- murder, rape -- for the purpose of selling the recordings to others."
To prepare himself for the role, he interviewed policemen in Los Angeles, rode through the streets at night, and read American books ranging from Raymond Chandler to cyber-prose: "Henry Rollins, for instance, rather disturbing things, rough, fast dialogue that I felt suited the atmosphere of the film." One of his points of reference is Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. "He wasn't a straight hero; he was emotionally messed up and confused. I liked him a lot in that film."
Hamlet, a production of the Almeida Theatre Company, will be staged at the Hackney Empire Theatre in north-east London from February 17, after which it will be brought to the U.S. Fiennes' strategy in portraying the labyrinth psyche of the Danish prince is quite pragmatic: "I play every scene with the motivation that makes most sense to me. It is perhaps not what Shakespeare envisioned, but it's best to know what you're doing rather than thinking, 'I don't understand this, I don't understand that.'"
In a pivotal scene in Quiz Show we can get a glimpse of Fiennes' forthcoming portrayal of Hamlet. Being under extreme pressure, Charlie Van Doren on night sits in the kitchen of his parents' house in Connecticut. He has gotten himself some milk and a piece of chocolate cake from the refrigerator to soothe his nerves when his father appears in the door. In this scene Fiennes treats the bottle of milk as if it were Yorick's skull: to be or not to be, forgiveness or damnation in American aristocracy.
Which food does he find helps him unwind? Crumpling a pack of
cigarettes, he repeats the question with such seriousness as if he
had been asked about the meaning of life. Then he laughs, and suddenly
displays a boyish, seductive kind of self-assurance which actually
reminds me of Laurence Olivier in the days when he made Rebecca.
"I love fresh bread, the Italian kind which is made with olive oil.
Fresh baked bread with a crispy crust -- that's my comfort food."
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on October 30, 1999
EL STEPHO