Sophie Fiennes: Well, you know, I am not a professional reporter. I will have to improvise.
RF: Okay.
SF: What do you think? How much influence has our common childhood had on your development at the movies and the theater?
RF: A lot, I think. Jini always encouraged us. She encouraged me to paint and to draw and to read books. Her support was always perceptible - that stimulated the imagination. That our mother supported our fantasy, was very important. I remember, for example, that she told me to sit down and then she played recordings of Laurence Olivier. She also told me the background of the stories of Henry V and Hamlet. Her enthusiasm was catching.
SF: It was food for the soul, right?
RF: It had nothing to do with education, exams or being informed in any case.
SF: No, Mum hated this, none of us studied.
RF: Concerning her education, you can almost call her a stealing magpie. She gathered anything from anywhere. She had a sharp, ardent mind, but it was very uncomplicated in terms of academic measures.
SF: Our upbringing was varied because we went to different schools due to our many moves. She even temporarily taught the six of us at home.
RF: Yes, we moved to Ireland in 1973 and she taught us for two years.
SF: Your first appearnace on stage was in the public school, wasn't it? As Myrrh, one of the Holy Three Kings.
RF: I had to sing and the teacher had hidden a girl behind the curtain. She should jump in if I had failed. Which is what I did. I was singing with all my might and was thinking that I was sounding well and suddenly, this other voice was taking my part!
SF: What was the fascination with James Bond when you were a kid?
RF: In the beginning of the 70s, Daddy took me to a James Bond move and I completely overwhelmed. You know, these gorgeous women and how he came out of every difficult situation and remained cool. His laconic remarks..... After I saw the movie, I was pretty enthusiastic. Then Daddy read aloud the "Man with the Golden Colt". When he reached one of these parts....
SF: one of the sex parts?
RF: ...well, it deals with this killer, Scaramanga, who always needs sex before he goes and kills somebody. It is claimed that it increases the chances to hit if you just have had sex. Jini said to Mark, "You cannot read this aloud in front of an 8-year-old kid." Daddy tore the book to pieces and threw it into the stinging nettles behind the house.
SF: You were a good painter before you started acting.
RF: The academy of arts was very freeing after the grammar school in Salisbury. The teachers were relaxed, yes, simply anarchical. They demanded that you observe the room, the weight and the light which gave things their existence in the inner room. They showed us how you can give existence on a bi-dimensional plane. Acting was more than that I thought. I like the pieces and I took part in the school but I did not want to be an actor then. But I had enough self-consciousness to know that I could be an actor if I wanted to be one.
SF: And then you went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic arts. You are more reserved, yes, even shy so I find it astonishing that you can place yourself on a stage.
RF: That has to do with fantasy. You use your imagination and you act as if you were someone else. As long as you are inexperienced, it is a kind of pretense. This becomes more and more refined in time.
RF: From the actor's viewpoint, it is pretty frustrating. You have to be willing to love just moments. One scene is 30 seconds, the other is only 10 seconds (in films) and this has to replace a piece of 3 hours (in theaters).
SF: All of the persons you have played were pretty confused psychologically. What is your attitude toward these men?
RF: They say one thing and in the same time, you feel that they mean something else. I like the idea that Charles Van Doren ("Quiz Show") isn't really bad, just weak.
SF: How was it with the camp-commander Amon Goeth whom you played in Schindler's List?
RF: Well, we see the Holocause today from our (modern) perspective. But how was it then? How did the people who became SS-officers or Gestapo officials see the world? They thought that they were working for the whole thing, for Germany and for the German people. They really believed in this.
SF: Amon Goeth really lived. Hamlet, who you played on stage last year, is literary stuff, a folk story. Hamlet seem to be everything that is possible.
RF: You can interpret Shakespeare infinitely.
SF: How did you see Hamlet?
RF: Hamlet is the most personal of all roles. It is deeply rooted in the person who plays it. When I played Hamlet, it caused so many personal emotion and thoughts in myself that I did not have the opportunity to think about if Hamlet is like this or like that. It simply developed to a piece during rehearsals. I felt I had to be able to understand Hamlet's mental dilemma in a very particular way. Hamlet is a human being between sky and hell, in total chaos. He wants to understand and to take and to have a relationship with God but instead, he sees himself being pushed to bloodshed, hell and sin.
SF: And how did you like it, to play Hamlet in Hackney, in London's East End, after you had just shot "Strange Days" in Los Angeles with Bigelow?
RF: It was great, really exciting. The Hackney Empire is a municipal theater and we didn't want to turn it into an enclave for the typical, wealthy WEst-End audience. We wanted to play Hamlet for the people of our surrounding, for everybody. And we actually had an enormously mixed audience. It was different in New York. Shakespeare is rarely played on Broadway. There have been big performances, but not too often. Therefore, the expectation were high. It was a very popular stage production, almost as rapid as a thriller. Very energetic, it - in any case - shouldn't be...
SF: ....boring?
RF: Yes, exactly.
SF: You were completely sold out in both cities and you were given the Tony. Since you have been successful in the cinema, you are suddenly able to lead a stage production to success...
RF: Well, yes. Movies are very popular and they get much promotion. If you take part in them, you have a face that is recognized by many people. But that also means that you can the chance of standing there without an audience! The people know that actors sometimes fail. Yes, it is sufficient that they say you are "not as good as before".
SF: You probably find it hard to understand you new situation.
RF: Yes, that isn't always easy.
SF: A pretty terrible question, isn't it?
RF: So why did you ask it?
SF: Why did I ask it? Well, I...
RF: I thought that if I did this interview with you, you wouldn't ask me such terrible questions. I should have known that your questions would be even more terrible. But, to be serious, it is exactly how you said it. You do not see yourself as others see you. I had Hamlet planned for a long time when the thing with Schindler's List happened. I just had good luck that this success made everything else so much easier.
SF: You just finished your new film "The English Patient". How long did it take (to film it).
RF: We were at the original sceneries (sites?) in Italy and Tunisia for five months. It was very strenuous.
SF: And what are your plans?
RF: I think that I will take part in a new stage production in aboaut one year. It is the arena of actors.
SF: Is it more organic?
RF: Yes, organic. What I like about theater is the directness. You are bodily alive and that certainly isn't in motion pictures. I like watching movies, but the making of films is very exhausting.
SF: However, it was nice to be with you in Los Angeles at the shooting of "Strange Days". This whole suite that was built there: wasn't that fun for you?
RF: It was a lot of fun. People say so many bad things about L.A. but it is a totally irresistible town. It is a mental wilderness, but it is also the town of the movie, the town of the beautiful sembalnce, where our fantasies....
SF: ...are made. Europeans often call Hollywood a kitschy company.
RF: There are many producers and directors among the independents but there are also some at the studios who make artistically complex movies, pictuures which are intelligent and for which audiences pay.
SF: There are a lot of English actors who have had success in Hollywood. Do you think that the excellent education is a reason for that?
RF: The education gives you a certain control about what you do. But I sometimes wish that I could get rid of it. The things that you cannot control are sometimes the most intersting aspect of something. I believe that is the secret of some of the best actors: They have kept something with which they surprcse themselves.
SF: Do you still draw?
RF: No, unfortunately now. But I like to doodle. (He is laughing. He has been scribbling on a piece of paper for about five minutes.) No, actually, these are not doodles. I always just draw boxes. Do you know what that means?
SF: Well, it likely is the ideal room. Or do you feel arrested? (Both are giggling.)
RF: It is probably the self-control...., the box is the room which I control!
SF: To create such a room must certainly be very satisfying.
RF: Oh yes, extremely.
SF: Do you believe in God?
RF: yes, even though I try to persuade myself that I do not believe in God. I went to this Catholic elementary school and therefore I will probably always see this old man with a beard in front of me, pointing his finger at me and says, "You are a bad boy, you have to be punished!" (Both are laughing.)
SF: So you suffer from a good Catholic's guilty conscience?
RF: I think I inherited it. I always hear a moral voice which urges me. If I do something and I am not sure about it, this voice starts: "That is pitiful, what you are doing there. You are so arrogant, such a bloody bastard. My God, how vain you are..." I remember this accusing voice. Jini was always very desirous to reproach us with our faults. She always censored us.
SF: What is astonishing is the none of rebelled against it. I mean, we knew plenty of people who became junkies or something like that. You were a kind of Punk-rocker for a while...
RF: No, not at all and not for a while. Let's forget this. I never was a Punk-rocker.
SF: But you were a fan of the Stranglers!
RF: A very moderate fan.
SF: Anyway, none of us rebelled, although there were a lot of things we could have risen against. What prevented us?
RF: I think our parents were able to walk on the borderline between fixed morals principles and the necessary doubt. Sophie, I guess this is a terribly boring interview!
SF: Don't be afraid. We will edit it.
RF: Okay. So, let's turn the tables and I will debrief you.
SF: An interview with me? That's out of the question!
RF: It is difficult to define you. What do you actually do?
SF: Stop! It's over now.
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on July 22, 1997
EL STEPHO