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On this hot Sydney morning, a lifting breeze is peaking the waters of Sydney Cove outside and rattling the rigging of a pair of tall ships, while inside Gillian Armstrong is looking as modest as an acclaimed director on home turf can, especially one with a film which is generating as much heat in the all-important US market as this slightly surreal story about a compulsive gambler (Lucinda) and an obsessive one (Oscar). There has been talk of Oscar nominations of Oscar. Alongside her are Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett, the couple US film critics are already calling the best screen duo of the season. As cool as the breeze, bright-eyed and clear-skinned despite having arrived only the day before from the US premiere for the film's Australian premiere, the couple are almost translucent under the relentless glare of television and camera lights, There is a clarity in their presence which is absolutely remarkable.
Everyone wants to know what the glass church represents : the labour of love constructed by Oscar and Lucinda, which he delivers into the bush to win her trust, then to win a wager and - ultimately to make a sacrifice on the altar of unrequited love. And as the climatic metaphor of the film, to have them tell us its meaning is something of an inkblot test for all those involved in the project.
"A state of grace," says Ralph Fiennes, "Love," says director Gillian Armstrong, simply and succinctly. And finally, Cate's turn : "The glass church means danger".
Danger? "What you risk reveals what you value," says Cate. "Theirs [Oscar and Lucinda's] is a spiritual connection as fine as gossamer, the other ephemeral side love. They have a dangerous connection, they value things other people think are foolhardy.
Grace, love and danger. Faith, fate and chance. The elements which add up to Oscar and Lucinda, a pair of unlikely and ultimately ill-fated lovers. And, perhaps, an Oscar for Ralph Fiennes third time around. Now at the forefront of actors of his generation, Ralph has been nominated twice before - once in the supporting actor category for his role as the psychotic Nazi Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's holocaust film, Schindler's List, and for leading actor in the The English Patient.
But before that must come the buzz. The premieres, the publicity junkets. Across 48 hours, the team (including the director, producers and actors) does dozens of television, press and radio interviews to promote the story and firmly anchor Oscar and Lucinda as a real contender for a glittering prize.
In the middle of this, Cate Blanchett is the embodiment of fashion. Her makeup is pale, her hair streaked blonde in front, the lipstick deep, matte, brown/red. She's dressed in black, with small flowers raised on the sheer overdress. Any impression of fragility is dispelled immediately by her shoes - black, solid and very grounding.
To tell the truth - and she does - Cate Blanchett is finding all the attention a little surprising. " It's strange to talk to complete strangers about yourself for hours at a time," she says, "And it's dislocating, having come home but living in a hotel. I like to be in my own kitchen and I find it very strange not being able to cook. This morning I sent my husband off to work from a hotel room and wasn't able to cook breakfast." Cook ?
This self-effacing 28-year-old has burst like a supernova on to Australian and international screens. She made three films back-to-back; Thank God He Met Lizzie, which garnered her the best supporting actress award at the AFIs, followed by Bruce Bereford's Paradise Road then Oscar and Lucinda.
This last year has been no less hectic. She played Nina in Chekov's The Sea Gull managed to find time to marry, then spent months in England filming Elizabeth R, a costume drama based on the life of young Elizabeth in England. Opposite her, Oscar-winning Australian actor Geoffrey Rush and Joseph Fiennes, Ralph's younger brother.
Is this a trend acting opposite the Fiennes boys? "Well, there are seven children. Ralph's going to shoot Eugene Onegin with his sister Martha directing, so I'd like to get in on that," she says, joking.
With every step, Cate Blanchett was hailed as a find, the woman who is ready to follow Judy Davis's path to international stardom. Her next film project is already in development, an adaptation of Mandy Sayer's autobiographical story, Dreamtime Alice, about tap-dancing across the States with her musician father. She's doing the project with Cherie Nowlan, who directed Thank God He Met Lizzie.
It has been a heady rise for the Melbourne-born actor, who decided after a year of economics and fine arts at university then a year overseas that acting was the career for her. "Researching a character, examining a text, creating a role - it's like writing a university essay, but it is much more immediate." she says.
Cate is careful about picking her roles and the people with whom she works. Slated for this year is a small role in The Amazing Mr Ripley, the new project from Anthony Minghella, who made Truly, Madly, Deeply then filmed the book many thought impossible to capture on the big screen, The English Patient.
She doesn't mind at all the lack of star billing. "If there is no passion in the work, I would rather not do it. It's depressing to work on things that are ill-conceived and don't spring from a real belief and commitment. If a project is simply a cynical exercise, then I would rather sit at home and cook. I go a little mad if I can't cook."
As well, there is her new husband, Andrew Upton, to consider. He's been working on George Miller's sequel to Babe, "But he never tells me a thing about it. It's like he goes off to work for ASIO every day!" she says. "The word 'honeymoon' has never passed my lips."
A honeymoon is exactly what Ralph Fiennes has been enjoying with audiences around the country these past five years. It's one which shows little signs of abating. He's acclaimed as a consummate actor, admired for his commitment to his craft as well as his physical presence; "There are some people the camera absolutely worships, and Ralph's one of them," says Cate.
At the fag-end of this intense promotional schedule, Ralph Fiennes is looking distinctly fagged out and he's looking straight down the barrel of a camera. All he can see in the lens is his own reflection as he sits for minutes at a time, carefully following instructions. For someone half dead with tiredness, this is some look. He's dressed for the climate, firstly in a taupe suit, with white, open-necked shirt. And now, for the photograph, he's wearing a cream linen suit, with a cream shirt and mustard-coloured braces.
He seems slightly bemused by all the attention, doesn't read his own press. "It's a strange thing for an actor who just wants to act," he says. "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. "
Occasionally, he lapses into reverie, his face turned into profile, as he quietly considers the question of why Oscar took the glass church into the bush and how there could have been any other outcome.
"For Lucinda, Oscar made the supreme gesture. Without thinking there could be any reward - he thought she was in love with someone else - he become the sacrifice. The church itself is a form of poetic language which attempts to describe the sublime."
He talks of poets such as Byron (carried off by malaria in Greece), Shelley (drowned in Italy), Pushkin (dead in duel) and the war poet, including Rupert Brooke and Keith Douglas. "Maybe the price of their vision is death," he muses.
And while he talks, there is an opportunity to watch him. Ralph Fiennes is beautifully made - clear blue-grey eyes set under a wide brow, straight teeth, beautiful skin. He's saved from the boredom of perfection by a nose which is considerable and a chin which falls a little short. His hands are long and fine.
No wonder Francesca Annis fell in love with him when they were starring together in Hamlet - she played his mother, and as the English press is fond of pointing out, she is old enough to be his mother.
The publicity which followed the break-up of his marriage to actress Alex Kingston (Moll Flanders, now starring in ER) coincided with the publicity junkets for The English Patient and the paparazzi attacked with gusto. Recent rumours that he and Annis have separated have put him back in the limelight again.
So it seems rather too intrusive a question to ask about the ring on his wedding finger. In fact many of the questions, save those relating to the work itself - about which he is articulate - seem intrusive. So back to the work.
His next project is Eugene Onegin, Pushkin's epic poem about a man who rejects the young woman who loves him during her youth, only to find her later in life when she is married. Then, he falls in love with her too late.
"I like the symmetry of the story," he says. "That and the tragedy of the man who misses the boat."
It's another tragedy for Ralph, who's made a career of playing the marginalised, the sad, the injured. He's planning more in the same vein, wants to do Richard II and Coriolanus.
But there is a slight impediment to this teary path - in his last film, just recently finished, Ralph plays John Steed in The Avengers. Opposite him as Mrs Peel is the American actor Uma Thurman (once tipped as a possible for Lucinda).
The world might suddenly come to see him not as a tragic hero but as a
romantic leading man. "I wouldn't mind that. I'd love to do Coward,
Private Lives would be marvellous." The prospect clearly pleases him.
He turns his face back and smiles a long, languid smile. Ever the
consummate actor, he leaves his audience wanting more.
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on March 23, 1998
EL STEPHO