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His portrayal of cult'60s TV icon John Steed - originally played by Patrick Macnee - in the new £40 million action blockbuster The Avengers is a revelation.
Reticent Ralph smiles. He cracks jokes. God, he even looks as if he's having a good time.
"Yes, I loved making The Avengers. It was very, good fun," he says, carefully choosing his words as if he was a United Nations peace negotiator. 'I loved the character. His conscience is never troubled - not remotely. And the sets are fantastic, very surreal.
'Steed's a man who walks into a room and hasn't a worry in the world, but he's a real gentleman. The intention was to capture the spirit of the original series and I hope we've done that.'
Fiennes, 35, plays the suave bowlerhatted hero with Uma Thurman stepping into Diana Riggs tight leather catsuit as Mrs Emma Peel. They battle the vile Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery) and assorted bad boys including the brilliant Eddie Izzard.
'It's a very floaty and relaxed film," he says. 'There definitely is a style that was in the television series - when you watch Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee, they're brilliant. When I watched the show as a child I never would have appreciated their technique, their skills. People just think, 'Oh, they're having such a great time up there. We could easily do this - bang, bang bang! Oh, isn't that great?!' But that's all very hard to achieve, especially now when everyone is so telly literate or cinema literate. It's a very particular style - slightly camp, with a sort of veneer of Bondian slickness.
"Basically, it's all a bit ludicrous, but it nods at its own ludicrousness. It has enough style to it to say,'Yes, he's in the pinstripe and she's in the black leather catsuit, and they're incredibly charming and call each other Mr and Mrs.'
'It's the counterpoint between the two which makes it work. Emma's always ultramodern, an independent tough lady, sexy and graceful. And there's just the vaguest hint of attraction and flirtation, but it never goes beyond one kiss - quite a chaste kiss," he adds hurriedly.
Ralph, who kept all Steed's natty suits from the movie, had a shock on the first day of filming when Patrick Macnee turned up to shoot a cameo role in the film.
'He couldn't have been more generous and supportive,' recalls Ralph. "It's very hard to get someone out of your head because they are so good. But you don't want to mimic them. For instance, I couldn't not have the bowler hat and umbrella - that is John Steed. When I didn't have my umbrella during the shoot I felt completely lost without it.
"I asked Patrick why Steed had an umbrella and not a gun. Apparently he'd seen too many of his friends killed in the Second World War and he didn't want Steed involved in such overt violence.
'But I found it hard trying not to mimic Patrick Macnee, to copy that wonderful relaxation and nonchalance he had. It is a skill that a generation of actors - people like Cary Grant or James Stewart - had, and a very difficult thing to act. It is something we are in danger of losing, that we cannot do now."
The Avengers was shot at Shepperton Studios and on location at Blenheim Palace, Greenwich Naval College and at other landmark locations in the capital.
Ralph, who left his wife, ER star Alex Kingston for actress Francesca Annis - 18 years his senior - says he picks roles based purely on his gut reaction.
He became an instant movie star five vears ago with his mesmerising Hollywood debut as Amon Goeth, the sadistic and detestable commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp in Steven Spielberg's epic Holocaust film, Schindler's List.
Ralph had stunned the filmmaker in his audtition for the role. 'He was absolutely brilliant,' remembers Spielberg. 'After seeing take one, I knew he was Amon. I saw sexual evil. It is all about subtlety - there were moments of kindness that would move across his eyes and then run cold.' His later role in the Oscar-winning The English Patient sealed Ralph's star status.
Born the eldest of six children to a farmer-photographer father and a novelist-travel writer mother, Fiennes studied painting at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London.
But after one year, he switched to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for a three-year course, where he earned several impressive theatre castings. These days he can command £5 million a movie and it can't be long before he wins an Oscar having already been nominated for Schindler's List and The English Patient.
But he's still wary discussing his craft, and the mask goes back on.'It's
a strange thing for an actor who just wants to act' he concludes. 'All
this attention. I want to support the things I do, and I am happy to
support them. The financiers and the producers want you to do that as
well. But talking about yourself is a long way from acting, which is
really what I want to do.'
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on September 22, 1998
EL STEPHO