Roughcut.Com Interview

December 14, 1999

Too Shy
By Roughcut.com's Christopher Brandon

The last thing you expect from a man who presents such nobility on screen is to watch him scour in fear behind a thick black sweater that he clings to his chest. But that's exactly what Ralph Fiennes does when he meets with the press in New York to discuss his latest movie, The End of the Affair. It becomes immediately apparent that all those people who said he was shy weren't kidding. During the discussion, he appears terrified, keeping his arms crossed, whispering in a soft voice, and hesitating to reveal a smile on that perfect face of his. But when he does speak up, it's also immediately apparent that this is an intelligent and well-spoken man with a strong sense of pride and passion about his work. He talked about what draws him to the roles he chooses, including the bitter novelist he plays in The End of the Affair. We also discover what he does in his spare time, and it's just the sort of thing you'd expect from a shy, reserved type like Ralph Fiennes.

Did you have any reservations about doing this film because of the surface similarities to The English Patient?

Well, there are some crude, key similarities in that of a married woman having a love affair, but it wasn't the spirit of the book and the inner life of the character. Bendrix is much more articulate. He did the voice over in the movie, he's a writer, he's given to examining his feelings in a way that the character in The English Patient isn't. The whole mood of the film is very, very different actually. The whole feel of the book and the film is much more contained. It's one room and it doesn't open much, deliberately. I think it concentrates people in rooms, having their feelings butting up against each other.

You seem to move in and out of different eras very easily. Is that something you enjoy doing?

People keep asking me, "Why do you always do period films?" I don't do period films constantly because they are set in another time. I do them because often the emotions of the characters and the events seem to have a reality and truth that really appeals to me. And a complexity too. Having said that, I've always loved history. I've always been interested in the past and the way people behave in the past. I am probably more imaginatively drawn to things that have happened some time ago.

Have you always been that way?

Yeah, I think so. I always loved history and events in history. They seem like another world.

In many of the roles that you've played, there's a bit of jealousy involved, Hamlet, The English Patient, The End of the Affair. Is that something you're prone to?

I just think that's the role. I don't think it's me. I mean, sure, I experience jealousy, but it's not an ongoing preoccupation.

What are your interests when you're not working?

I like to read. I seem to have been working nonstop until the end of this film in April. The last few times I haven't been working, I've been traveling, catching up with friends. I had a lot of catching up to do really. My day to day life is pretty mundane. I don't have a hobby or another passion that I obsess over. The last few months I've been very anxious about the future of this film I've done with my sister because that was the first time I've been part of a film right through to being sent out into the world to be screened. Because it was something that the producers were behind at an early stage, I've been involved in a film in a much more total way than being just an actor in the film. And that's really been my key preoccupation.

Is producing something you would welcome doing again?

I'm not sure about that. I think so. You think you will never do it again once it's been sent out. We took it to Petersburg for the bicentennial of Pushkin's birth in the end of May and June. And I've been travelling, we took it to Italy and spent some in Scotland.

All of your siblings are artistic. Was that brought about by your parents?

I guess my mother being a writer, and she painted as well. She was a strong influence on all of us and encouraged us. She didn't encourage us to get into the arts specifically, but I guess the environment when we were young was quite arts oriented with discussions about books or plays or ideas. Quite chaotic too. My mother wasn't an academic in any way, she was very perceptive and intuitive. Very intuitive, very loving too.

Will you work with any of your brothers and sisters again?

Well, I might, but my brother, my sister, we're not trying to set up a family business. It started between the two of us, and the pieces came together that way. I don't think we're all setting out to hatch a family film. I think we might be wary of that actually.

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

I'm one of six and I have an adopted older brother, so there are seven of us.

And where are you in that?

I'm the oldest of the six.

So you can still be the boss.

Not really. There've been a series of coups.

Is the family very competitive?

I don't feel that we're competitive. No. I feel we're very supportive of each other.

Do you live in England?

Yeah.

I would imagine you enjoy a different kind of celebrity than Bruce Willis. Do people approach you much?

Not much. It happens, sure. I always think if you go to places where it's likely that people are looking out to recognize people, then you will get that. But I go about, I travel around London, and I don't get hassled in that way at all.

Julianne Moore said you're pretty shy. Would that be accurate?

Wary.

Do you think it's important that an actor keep a certain mystery about himself so that when he plays a character onscreen, you don't feel like you know everything about him?

Yes I do, but just from the point of instinctive need for privacy. It's quite a bit odd to be thrown into situations where people want to know about you. I accept that there's a curiosity because I have had it to as a member of the public about an actor or a singer or even a politician, but I think you absolutely expect your work to be discussed and criticized and people want to know about your work and why you do it and how you do it. But I think you have a choice about what's not to do with your work. You have to except there's curiosity about it but I think you have to make the choice whether you want to discuss it or not.

The English Patient is on TNT this weekend. Do you watch your films?

I watch the films when they're really new. I'm interested when I see it for the first time and of course sort of nervous and looking at does it work. Am I any good? By the third viewing of a new film, I'm interested in how it's been put together. I think I'd like to direct one day. Doing these different films, I'm really interested in how different directors work and put it together and how they shape and phrase the film in the editing process. I learned a lot on this film and on Onegin with my sister because I was very involved in the process of editing. So, I think I look at the films much more analytically now after the first viewing.

You became an overnight sensation in Hollywood with Schindler's List, and then came Strange Days which didn't perform as expected. Then you came back really strong with The English Patient, then came The Avengers, which didn't work again. How do you deal with this business side of your career that goes up and down?

Well, isn't that what life is like? It's going to go up and down. I don't think I make choices for scripts as a plan, I go with a feeling, with the gut response and just an instinct about it. I think you know it's not always going to work. It's always a gamble. I feel it's more important that the process of making the film, the commitment that you have when going into it is really 100 percent, and then the rest is really up to fate.

What types of films have you turned down?

I'm offered many. I'd like to do a comedy. I think comedy is really hard. I think I'd have to have a director who I trusted and who'd help really sort of guide me. I think comedy is the hardest thing.

What's next? Do you have another film that we should know about?

The film I did with my sister, Onegin. Then, I did this film with Istvan Szabo, a Hungarian director, called Sunshine.