Prairie Miller O&L Interview

December 1997

OSCAR AND LUCINDA: INTERVIEW WITH RALPH FIENNES
By Prairie Miller

It can be a little disorienting when actor Ralph Fiennes casually saunters into the room. It's as if he had just effortlessly stepped off the screen and right into the chair next to you. The twice Academy Award nominated star of Schindler's List and The English Patient radiates a shimmering and nearly mythic presence around mere mortals like movie critics. Yet at the same time, the man with perpetually luminous eyes seems mysteriously shy and tense in the spotlight of anything smaller than a movie set.

This same fascinating unpredictability distinguishes Fiennes in his title role in Gillian Armstrong's Oscar And Lucinda. The actor stars as a troubled, irritable and even peculiar mid-nineteenth century British minister self-exiled to Australia. There he relieves stress engaging in compulsive gambling with a mutually lost soul and glassworks industrialist Lucinda, played by Cate Blanchett. Fiennes had some revelations to offer about getting out of 'character' in this screen adaptation of the Peter Carey bestseller, by downsizing for the role into a scrawny, unstable red haired Oscar.

PRAIRIE MILLER: What was special about the character of Oscar for you?
RALPH FIENNES: His vulnerability, his torment...His poetic imagination, and his ecstatic feelings.

PM: You appear to have quite a passionate and intense identification with Oscar.
RF: Yes...I suppose it comes from reading the script and just really loving the part, loving the peculiar tragic nature of the story. It was just a gut response for me to want to play the part.

PM: You seem like a shy person.
RF: [He puts on his booming stage voice and rocks the room] I'M NOT, REALLY! [We laugh].....They're weird, these occasions, aren't they?

PM: Don't worry, this is a friendly room!...It's truly a surprise that you're not the anticipated dashing romantic lead in Oscar And Lucinda. You didn't seem to mind not being alluring for awhile. Was that uncomfortable for you, or maybe even fun?
RF: [He mulls this one over] Well, I don't think of myself as a romantic leading man. I think of myself as an actor, and this is a wonderfully challenging part for any actor. Oscar's who he is. He's not a conventional hero. He's very feminine in many ways, and very undecided. He feels guilty, he's inspired at times, and he's honest about his own fear. We worked on the look, the trousers that are too short, and the funny, long boots. So I suppose he's not what people think of as a leading romantic hero. But then I don't think of myself as that.

PM: I hope you haven't been driven into a life of gambling by playing Oscar.
RF: I haven't! I quite enjoy it, but I don't think I'm going to be a compulsive gambler...But I did go to the darby day for the first time in my life as research for the role. And that was fantastic. I loved the whole setting, with all the different cross sections of England. The poorest people, gypsies too, and the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh on the balcony. It's extraordinary.

PM: Let's talk about that flaming red hair of yours in the film.
RF: I wanted to honor the description of Oscar in the original novel. And I was so thrilled. I thought, that's it, that's how I've seen it.

PM: You lost a lot of weight for this part, and even border on looking malnourished in Oscar And Lucinda. Did that ever frighten you when you looked in the mirror?
RF: No. There's a real satisfaction when you see yourself, that suddenly you're different. It helps you make the internal leap as well. But nothing crossed my mind about being unattractive. Oscar is eccentric, and that was the part. That's how it was written.

PM: It's apparent with Oscar And Lucinda that you're in no danger of being typecast. You're really showing yourself to be capable of a wide range of roles. Is that deliberate on your part?
RF: I don't have a set agenda for the parts that I accept. It's to do with a given time in your life. There are certain parts you've already played. It doesn't mean you won't play that kind of part again. But it's wonderful when you get an interesting script with a character that is something new, something challenging...And if you hear a certain actor is going to be playing a part, that's often a temptation. Like, it was fantastic working with Cate Blanchett. I saw a test she did, and she blew me away.

PM: What was the most astonishing personal experience for you while filming Oscar And Lucinda?
RF: Sitting in the glass church floating on the river. That was an extraordinary thing, because it wasn't a computer effect. It was real. And it was extraordinary to think, this is great, and this is how I'm earning a living!

PM: Why did you become an actor?
RF: The first experience of seeing an actor's work that really excited me and stirred my imagination was seeing Laurence Olivier's Henry V. I never saw him on stage, but his film presence is something magnetic. It gives you a lift in your heart.

The other day I was in Los Angeles. I got up very early in the morning because of the jet lag, and I turned on the T.V. And there was Henry V. I got so terribly emotional at four in the morning watching, and remembering being taken to see that as my first experience of an actor. I've always been interested in other actors, the mystique of the actor, and the transformation. Maybe it's about wanting to escape into the world of someone else's thoughts and feelings. It is a form of escape, I think.

PM: There's great dramatic struggle in Oscar And Lucinda between the idea of spiritual aspirations as opposed to the pleasures of being alive. Have you felt this struggle yourself?
RF: Yes, absolutely. And that's something I very much recognized in Oscar. Also, a part that I loved playing, Henry VI, has similarities. He's in the tradition of the holy fool, as Oscar is. I don't know why, but I find characters like that very moving. They're intrinsically good but lost, or allow themselves to get lost. That struggle inside people and in one's own life, I find very deeply human and deeply moving. And I think helping each other come through that struggle is part of what we do in life.

PM: Oscar is obviously a very tender character. How did you then make that leap with your follow-up role in the T.V. to screen version of The Avengers, as Mr. Steed?
RF: No, Mr. Steed is not tender. His conscience is never troubled, not remotely. He has not a worry in the world. But he's a gentleman, Mr. Steed.

I loved making the movie. It's a surreal story, it's a spoof. It's like an extended episode of The Avengers. It was such a cult series, that I'm sure there'll be people who will only want the wonderful Patrick MacNee...He's associated with the film in a way that I can't reveal!

He was on the set the first day I filmed, and he couldn't have been more generous and more supportive. But it's very hard to get someone like Patrick out of your head, who's created a part like that, because he's so good. I think he went on record saying Ralph Fiennes should not have his bowler hat and umbrella. But I couldn't not have it, it seemed writ in stone. That is John Steed. And actually once I had it, I loved it. If I didn't have the umbrella, I'd be completely lost. I'd say, can I have my performance please!

PM: With Quiz Show, Schindler's List, The English Patient, and now Oscar And Lucinda, you obviously can't walk down the street anymore without losing your sense of privacy. How has that affected you?
RF: There has been a loss of privacy, yes. And sometimes it's been very uncomfortable. But walking down the street and being recognized and complimented can be very flattering.

PM: You're leading the life of a star now. What is the most unpleasant thing about it, and what gets you most mad?
RF: People deciding to write about your private life, or conjecture about it. It doesn't surprise me, but the extent to which the press gets preoccupied with the private lives of people I find baffling and depressing. And it's sometimes made me very angry, that newspapers set themselves up as moral guardians. It just makes me angry.

PM: Is there one dream role that you've always personally longed to play?
RF: I think it was Hamlet...Until I played it! And since I got that out of my system - well actually, I think I haven't...I'm going to play Eugene Onegin next in a screen adaptation of Pushkin. So that's all I'm really thinking about.

PM: Does the role come with an umbrella?
RF: Ah, no!