Speak Up Magazine Interview

December 1997

Ralph Fiennes. A TOUCH OF CLASS.

Among the bright new generation of British actors, Ralph Fiennes occupies a special place. By nature he is elegant, well-bred, cultured, like Charles Van Doren. But there is another, darker side, which he was not afraid to explore when he took on the role of a murderous Nazi.

In The English Patient, Ralph Fiennes spends a large part of the picture lying helpless on a bed wearing layers of make-up which stretch and contort his distinguished good looks into a hideous mask. He did a Method-style preparation for the gruelling experience, talking to a leading specialist in burns, and entered so fully into the spirit of the role that he began to feel the pain of taut, itchy skin in his own body. The ordeal won him his second -unsuccessful- Oscar nomination, but the critical acclaim heaped on the film and on his performance must have been satisfaction enough. Ralph Fiennes looks, talks and behaves like everyone's idea of an English gentleman, though he has only played one in his brief but brilliant career. Besides, there is an edge of toughness, an air of mystery and danger about him that makes him just right for a desert adventurer in the tradition of Lawrence of Arabia, a part he played on television. That essential component of his appeal, that 'mixture of sobriety and dignity' in the words of his co-star Kristin Scott-Thomas, makes him unique among the present generation of actors.

Born into a well-to-do farming family in Suffolk, Ralph Fiennes -one of those English names that seem to have been designed as a trap to show up people who pronounce them as they are written- was soon introduced into the world of fiction and fantasy by his novelist mother, Jini. As a child he used to imitate Clint Eastwood's walk in Rawhide and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art was an obvious destination. While he was with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was chosen by Chris Menaul, a television director, to play the title role in Lawrence After arabia, which delighted audiences and critics. He made his cinema debut as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, with Juliette Binoche as Cathy, but the film was roundly slated.

Nothing daunted, Fiennes agreed to play the bishop's son in The Baby of Macon. He had his first taste of suffering for his profession, as the part required him to be gored to death by a cow and spend five minutes writhing around stark naked, bathed in tomato ketchup, with his guts falling out. His reward was waiting, however. One fo the viewers impressed by his performance as Lawrence was Steven Spielberg, who offered him the part of the Nazi Amon Goeth, whose hobby is practising his marksmanship on the inmates of a concentration camp, in Schindler's List. His first task was to lose his elegant slim figure to become the paunchy, puffy sadist, at times he was even shocked by his own reflection in the mirror. The role was an example of his willingness to play totally insympathetic characters at whatever risk to his sex-symbol or leading man image and brought him his first Oscar nomination.

In Quiz Show he had a chance to play an American gentleman, the suave, cultured Charles Van Doren, who becomes a nation-wide TV idol by anwering questions for which he has been coached beforehand. The embodiment of cultured, middle-class WASP America, he is brought in to replace John Turturro, the Jewish mastermind. He has a wonderful line in well-mannered putdowns, when his friend Goodwin says 'I think you're lying' in a poker game, Fiennes purrs back: 'I think the workd you mean is 'bluffing' '. With a complete change of register, he played the sad-eyed, unshaven crack addict and virtual reality game salesman, Lenny, in Strange Days. Director Katherine Bigelow had spotted his dark side and used it to wonderful effect in the best futuristic movie since Blade Runner, unjustly ignored by critics and audiences alike.

The English Patient (this month's SPEAK UP video) was another story, one of the most acclaimed films of recent years. As Almasy, Fiennes has some superb moments: the love scenes with Scott-Thomas in the Cairo hotel, the separation at the open air cinema, the drunken crashing into the stuffy dinner party. Most of all he was given the best tragic romantic scene in the movies since bogart watched Bergman walk to the plane in Casablanca: the devastating moment when he carries his lover's lifeless body out of the cave, tormented by the knowledge that he left her to die alone. And the poignant ending, in which he worklessly motions Binoche to administer the lethal dose of morphine, would bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened.

For Fiennes the future looks bright. His marriage to actress Alex Kingston ended a while ago, but he is now with another fine actress, Francesca Annis, Polanski's Lady Macbeth. He has not abandoned the stage: his Hamlet in NY last year received glowing reviews. We should soon be seeing him as an Australian priest in Gillian Armstrong's film of Peter Carey's black comedy Oscar and Lucinda. And after that a real English gentleman: John Steed in the big screen version of the cult TV series The Avengers. Uma Thurman is his colleague Emma Peel and Sean connery plays the villain. And then? Wherever he wants to go.'