Oscar and Lucinda Associated Press Interview

December 24, 1997

Oscar's Wild: Fambling With Fiennes
By PATRICIA BIBBY

NEW YORK (AP) - A soft afternoon white winter sun is settling over Central Park and filtering through the pale curtains of Ralph Fiennes' hotel room.

This gauzy sunlight just barely meets Fiennes' eyes and, like light splintering through a crystal, changes their color from charcoal gray to brilliant green and then something in between.

Like the late-day winter sun that surrounds him, there's a certain softness about the British heartthrob, something gentle and otherworldly, almost ethereal.

It's fitting, this angelic air.

Fiennes is touting his latest film, ``Oscar and Lucinda,'' based on Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel, in which he plays a 19th-century minister- in-training. He also has an unfortunate penchant for gambling and an almost savant talent for handicapping the horses. Gawky and scrawny, he's uncomfortable in his own skin and, even as a man of God, truly a lost soul.

It's when he meets Lucinda, played by the porcelain beauty Cate Blanchett, that he is found. But theirs is a love that's doomed and ``Oscar and Lucinda'' ultimately is a tragic tale.

Coming on the heels of Fiennes' role in ``The English Patient,'' another story of epic love lost, does Fiennes consider lasting love impossible?

``I hope it's not, but I fear it sometimes is in the end,'' Fiennes says, himself newly divorced from actress Alex Kingston (known to ``ER'' viewers as the new top British doc). He left her two years ago for actress Francesca Annis, who is 18 years his senior and played his mother in a stage production of ``Hamlet.''

``Death comes in the end if nothing else comes already,'' Fiennes says wearily.

Listening to Fiennes speak is like trying to hear cotton balls drop. He speaks so softly, it seems that he's purring his words in an exquisite, extended whisper.

``Downer this!'' he suddenly pronounces with a light laugh after considering love's tragic side. ``I must stop being serious. Let's not be so serious!''

Serious, however, could describe most of the roles he's chosen over the years. Serious and seriously complex.

Born the eldest of six children to a farmer-photographer father and a novelist-travel writer mother, Fiennes, 35, began his studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, England's premier school for acting.

In 1988, Fiennes began four seasons with the acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company. His breakthrough came when Steven Spielberg cast him as the cruelly ruthless Amon Goeth in ``Schindler's List.''

His performance in the film brought Fiennes - whose name is pronounced ``Rafe Fines'' - critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Two starring roles soon followed: ``Quiz Show,'' about the 1950s TV game show scandals, and ``Strange Days,'' a science-fiction thriller. In 1995, he won a Tony for his portrayal of Hamlet on Broadway.

It was ``The English Patient,'' however, in which he played the swarthy adventurer Count Laszlo de Almasy, that truly drove up his Drool Rating.

So pervasive was the swooning, many women saw the film over and over, dubbing themselves ``The English Patient's patients.'' And the image of Fiennes struggling to carry the mortally wounded Kristin Scott Thomas through the desert was one that launched a thousand - make that a million - sighs.

But don't expect that tanned hunk in ``Oscar and Lucinda.'' As Oscar, he's a frail bird of a man with great clumps of disheveled red hair. In fact, Fiennes said he shed so much weight from his 5-foot-11-inch frame that the studio ``got worried and said 'gain some more weight.'''

Still, he hardly seems robust now in his perfectly tailored Savile Row suit. He tips the scale somewhere between 160 and 170 pounds, he says.

Was the decision then to play Oscar a deliberate attempt to avoid The Hunk stereotype?

``I would love to play (the) so-called hunky hero, whatever that means,'' he says. Even an action hero?

``Yeah. I love Harrison Ford's heroes,'' Fiennes says. ``I love that doubting side that they have. These are wonderful qualities - not being sure.''

There's something of that ambiguity at the heart of Oscar, too. He's a man conflicted by his devotion to religion and the sin of his gambling. Fiennes says he liked the issues of ``moral fallibility'' and the prism of ethics and the question of who sets them.

But gambling, he says, holds little lure for him.

``Going to the races was actually more interesting for me than the casinos because there's something more primitive about a racetrack. It's more sexy, in fact, with the horses, the people dressing up,'' Fiennes says. ``And horses are sexy. The feet of the horse ... the muscle of the horses.''

He never considered his decision to become an actor a gamble. His first part at age 19 was in an amateur youth group's production of ``Romeo and Juliet.'' Though he had never acted before, he auditioned for the lead role.

``It was a real audition process and I hadn't been part of the company so the odds were against me,'' says Fiennes, speaking in a language Oscar could certainly understand.

The long shot prevailed, however, and, for the most part, he's been on a winning streak ever since.