Today show Transcript

November 30, 1999

RALPH FIENNES DISCUSSES HIS NEW FILM, "THE END OF THE AFFAIR" ANCHORS: MATT LAUER

MATT LAUER, co-host: In the new film, "The End of the Affair," two-time Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes plays a writer who's passionately and jealously in love with a married woman.

(Clip from "The End of the Affair")

LAUER: This guy is good. Welcome back. Nice to see you.

Mr. RALPH FIENNES ("The End of the Affair): Thank you.

LAUER: This film is based on a Graham Greene novel. Were you familiar with the work before you saw the script?

Mr. FIENNES: I wasn't familiar with "The End of the Affair," but what was funny was that two friends had separately said to me, 'You should read "The End of the Affair," because there's a character in it that you could play if it was ever a film,' even though it had already been a film. But I bought the book to read it, and then Neil Jordan, the director, sent me his script. So it was a bizarre coincidence. So then, well, I said, 'Everyone tells me this is such a great novel,' I made myself read the novel first, and then I read the script, which is a brilliant adaptation.

LAUER: So did you agree with your friends? Was this character, Maury Spendrix, someone that was written for you basically?

Mr. FIENNES: It was just a great role. I mean, you're taken inside some--the--the head of a jealous writer, a jealous--he's jealous about a lady he's been in love with before, the affair is over, and he encounters the husband some years after the affair, and he's still obsessed by her. And the book and the film takes you right into this man's head and right into his obsessiveness, and his--the cruelty of him. But because--I think in the film and in the book, the audience is taken into this man's head, he's--although he's full of jealousy and quite cruel with it, I think they--I hope they have an understanding that he's--it comes from really being very, very in love, desperately in love.

LAUER: And, you know, I think with so many characters when they display an emotion, it's hard for the audience to identify with that exact emotion. But almost all of us can identify to some extent with jealousy.

Mr. FIENNES: Yeah. It's really a state of fear, I think. It's a state of anxiety. You're not--it's a state of neediness of the thing that you can't have. And it's really because there's something in you that is uncertain and frightened, and then you react against that by being aggressive and by being hateful, as in the case of Maury Spendrix. He starts off saying--he's typing, and it says, 'This is a diary of hate.' And I hope that as the film goes on, you get to see, in fact, it's not really hate, it's really love. But because he can't have the woman he loves, it's become inverted.

LAUER: And he's perfectly wonderful at expressing his jealousy. At one point he says, 'I'm jealous of everything that moves, even the rain.'

Mr. FIENNES: Yeah.

LAUER: And he becomes so jealous of this woman that he hires a private investigator...

Mr. FIENNES: Yeah.

LAUER: ...to look into her life and that's the scene we're going to look at right now.

(Clip of "The End of the Affair")

LAUER: 'She has secrets.' How comfortable are you with telling a little bit more about those secrets. I don't want to give something away that we shouldn't give away, but she does have secrets.

Mr. FIENNES: Yes. I don't think it would be right to give it away, but she--the husband thinks there's another lover. Not the husband, I'm sorry, Maury Spendrix, the ex-lover, thinks that now she's on to another lover, and he wants to find out who her new lover is. And it's a real surprise who it is. And it's actually a lover you can't compete with. I think I shouldn't say any more.

LAUER: I think that's a good place to stop. But overall, you would say that this is a love story, as opposed to a movie about jealousy.

Mr. FIENNES: Well, the jealousy segues into love, and into faith, really, and really in the end that's compassion. The character I play, he was full of cruelty. In the end, even though he still is raging, you see, I think, that he has--he has the resource of compassion.

LAUER: I want to switch for a second, because you have another movie that's opened abroad, and will be here soon, called "Onegin."

Mr. FIENNES: Yeah.

LAUER: And this one was directed by your sister, who is a very successful commercial director in England. What was it like working with her on a film? This is her first film.

Mr. FIENNES: Well, I approached my sister, I had read this Eugene Aun Yeagen when I was young, when I was a student, in fact. And I approached Martha, who was very successful at making commercials. And it was really quite a private idea. It wasn't 'Let's get out there and let's tout this film.' It was 'This is a great story, and I think it has great cinematic potential.' And just together we just wrote a screenplay--developed a treatment, rather--then we got a writer in to write the first two drafts of the screenplay. And it snowballed very, very slowly. And I think we developed our working relationship a long time before we made the film. And so when we got to shooting, I think we were very, very close. And I realized as we got more towards film shooting, I wanted her to direct me. I want--you know, I wanted--I think initially I was sharing the screenplay from the other side of the camera. When we got to the point of photographing, I knew that I wanted to play the role and she had--and I wanted--I wanted that relationship I was familiar with. So it was great.

LAUER: Interesting working relationship. That one's called "Aun Yeagen." This one's called "The End of the Affair." Ralph Fiennes, always good to have you here.

Mr. FIENNES: Thank you very much.

LAUER: And good luck.

Mr. FIENNES: Thank you.

LAUER: Eight forty-five. And by the way, "The End of the Affair" opens in select cities on December 3rd. It will go nationwide on January 21st. We'll have some gift suggestions for fitness buffs and wannabes on our holiday shopping lists. But first, this is TODAY on NBC.