Star Interview

April 2 & 3, 1998

RALPH FINDS HIS VOICE

BARBRA Streisand thinks he's "the best young actor of our time". And at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he studied he was nicknamed the "Voice Beautiful".

Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines) has captured the imagination of the film-going public in the last three or four years.

His speciality is playing complex and enigmatic men - the sadistic Amon Goeth in Schindler's List and the dying Austrian count in The English Patient.

Fiennes' next character is a shy and neurotic 19th century English clergyman in Oscar And Lucinda (out Friday, April 3).

"It's all about coming to terms with faith."

Australian director Gillian Armstrong waited two years so she could cast him. It's a role that's probably closer to the real Fiennes than any part he's played, she believes. She says of him: "Ralph has an inner strength, and there's pure heat and a great intensity about him."

In Oscar And Lucinda Fiennes, 35, plays a religious man addicted to gambling. "It's all about coming to terms with faith," he says.

His character flees his English father's radical religious beliefs. He meets an heiress (Cate Blanchette) on his way to Australia and their passion for gambling seals their fate.

"It's a tragic story of someone whose religious background causes him deep unhappiness. He's trapped," says Fiennes.

In person, Fiennes is not a physically imposing man. There's an air of frailty about him. His eyes are an icy blue, his hair dark brown, his thinnish face dominated by a strong nose.

A precocious interest in the opposite sex.

As the whole world knows, his current lover is actress Francesca Annis, herself an actress. They are still together despite a recent report that she had thrown him out of her home.

Despite his aesthetic image he was a robust adolescent with a precocious interest in the opposite sex. Fiennes' clergyman in Oscar And Lucinda longs to live an earthly life but feels guilty. Says Fiennes: "Oscar takes a glass church in Australia to win the love of Lucinda. The floating glass chapel is beautiful. A great buzz." Is Ralph Fiennes shy? He says: "Not really. I think I give that impression because I'm naturally defensive. If you're doing this job just for fame it will limit you in the end."

[PART 2]

RALPH FIENNES, star of The English Patient, plays a priest in love in Oscar And Lucinda (released today) and reappears later this year as cool English gent Steed in The Avengers.

And his sidekick as Mrs Emma Peel is Pulp Fiction's Uma Thurman - currently expecting her first child with Gattaca co-star Ethan Hawke.

It's a mark of Fiennes' versatilty that he can tackle an emotionally heavy role like Oscar, then play the wittily cartoonish John Steed.

Fiennes brings emotional intensity to his roles - so it's all the more surprising to see him as John Steed in the film version of The Avengers.

Though Fiennes selected the wrong bowler hat for the part, the original Steed, Patrick Macnee, has already paid tribute to his performance.

Fiennes emphasises that The Avengers is, in his own words, "a comic thriller. We're saying in this film, 'Isn't it bizarre that Steed can be involved in a long fight and remain immaculate.'"

"I must say it's addictive."

The Avengers was filmed at Shepperton Studios and gave Fiennes the opportunity to be kitted out by Savile Row tailors. "We spent ages going through various pinstripes and weights of cloth," he says. "I'd never been to Savile Row in [Image] my life and I must say it's addictive."

Before that the enigmatic actor will be seen in Oscar and Lucinda as a guilt-ridden clergyman addicted to gambling, who falls in love with a woman.

Recent years have seen huge changes in Fiennes' life - including the death of his mother in 1993 and the break-up of his marriage to actress Alex Kingston.

He is now involved with actress Francesca Annis who's 18 years older than he. In 1995 they starred together in Hamlet with Annis playing his mother. Of his mother Jini, who died of breast cancer, he says: "When she died we buried her in an electric blue coffin. She was more a friend than mother.

"I'm one of six children. My father is a tenant farmer turned photographer. My mother was the novelist Jennifer Lash.

"It was a very hand-to-mouth existence. My parents were broke. But we were all encouraged to do whatever we wanted to do. Family life was very strong. My mother saw that the positive side was that we had to learn so much, be able to adapt. I think we were able to because we were loved so much at home."

Adapted from Peter Carey's novel, Oscar And Lucinda is about two people who do not know what love is. In The Avengers we have two people (Steed and Emma Peel) who may know what love is but are far too cool to be worried about it.