USA Today Article

January 22, 1998

Ralph Fiennes, from the outside in
By Elizabeth Snead

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Don't bother telling Ralph Fiennes "Surf's up." Word is he took up surfing while shooting his new film, Oscar and Lucinda, in Australia.

A mortified Fiennes fairly sputters in protest.

"I DID not surf!" the fragile, fine-boned British actor insists. Director "Gillian (Armstrong) is telling lies! I lay on a board for an entire day with these hunky surfer guys surfing all around me, and I couldn't catch a wave to save my life.

"It was pathetic. I love swimming. I love the sea. But this has to be said: I'm never going to be a surfing dude, I never will be one," he says with a sigh.

Moon Doggie may be the one character Fiennes cannot approximate. The 35-year-old classically trained actor (his name is pronounced "Rafe Fines") has been dubbed "the new Olivier" for his morphing ability.

He's Mr. Versatile

In his first major film, Steven Spielberg's epic Schindler's List ('93), Fiennes packed on 30 pounds to become the murderous Nazi commandant Amon Goeth. Next he was the all-American academic Charles Van Doren in Robert Redford's Quiz Show, then a bitter ex-cop in Kathryn Bigelow's futuristic Strange Days.

In the Oscar-sweeping The English Patient, Fiennes embodied the handsome pilot, Count Laszlo Almasy, and became the stuff swoons are made of - even though Amalsy lay dying, charred beyond recognition, for much of the film.

Disparate roles, all. But the appeal is their complexity.

"Conflicted characters are much more fun to play," he says, sipping honey ginger tea to soothe a slight cold. "I think it's important to get a sense of how the character sees the world, how they think.

"That's what I love, getting inside their skin and their heads. It's also an adventure into your own head, I think."

His 'Oscar' persona

Then Oscar Hopkins, his Oscar and Lucinda role, must have been a carnival ride. Oscar is an Anglican priest, a childlike innocent with a passion for wagering who compares faith to gambling on God. By chance, he meets fellow risk-junkie and glassworks heiress Lucinda Leplastrier (newcomer Cate Blanchett), and they bet all on an insane labor of love, transporting a glass church across the rugged outback.

Australian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, The Last Days of Chez Nous, Little Women) cast Fiennes six years ago when he was an unknown. "He hadn't done any movies, but he did a test that was great," Armstrong recalls. "But I thought, how will we ever raise the money with this unknown Englishman?" When she heard he was cast in List, "They said he was playing a Nazi, and I said, 'Well, that's not going to be very good for his career.' "

Famous last words. By the time Armstrong was ready to film Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel, Fiennes' dance card was full.

"I was doing Hamlet in London, which was exhausting, and I had Patient, this big epic film after that," Fiennes recalls. "I told Gillian, 'If you can wait to see how I feel when I've finished Patient, do. But if you must move on, I understand.' "

He's glad she waited.

"There is something about Oscar that is so open and pure and good-natured," Fiennes says. "It was something fresh after the hidden qualities of Almasy. He (Oscar) doesn't have any skin. He's also full of flaws, uncertainty and insecurities, but I loved that."

'Fragile' Fiennes

Some hint that Fiennes is more like Oscar than other characters he's played. Co-star Blanchett says Fiennes "actually has such a fragility about him. And he wrestles with things."

Armstrong adds: "The shyness, sensitivity and soul-searching is definitely part of Ralph. And there is a genuine sweetness to him most people aren't aware of."

For the part, Fiennes once again transformed, dying his hair red, losing 7 pounds and fading his skin vampire-white by slathering on sunblock, even while vacationing in Italy. He wears pants cut short and jackets with tight armholes to make him look the "odd bodkin."

"When I was in drama school, I thought it all has to be interior," Fiennes explains. "Of course, that's true to an extent. But I have found it is the externals of a character that help me find a way of playing it. That's how I find my way in."

A dapper 'Avenger'

For the upcoming The Avengers, based on the British cult hit '60s TV series, Fiennes dons a bowler and Saville Row suit to become dapper detective Jonathan Steed to Uma Thurman's sexy sleuth Mrs. Emma Peel.

"Steed is untroubled. He's never conflicted," Fiennes says smiling. "I actually found it quite hard to play a character without a problem."

Steed is but a brief respite from Fiennes' complex screen roles. This spring he'll star in (and produce) Onegin, from Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin's tragic tale of love and friendship, Eugene Onegin. Fiennes' sister Martha will direct.

Fiennes plays Onegin, a wealthy young Russian aristocrat who rebuffs his best friend's sister's (played by Liv Tyler) advances, kills the friend in a duel and returns years later to fall in love with the now-married sister.

"Eventually, he confronts her and says, 'I love you, I love you.' And she says, 'I'm sorry, I loved you once. But now I am married to someone else, and I'll be true to him for life,' " Fiennes says, his voice soft and low. "Then she leaves the room. . . . And he's left there."

Love and privacy

Fiennes' own love life, albeit kept properly quiet, has the ring of a complex love story. He and actress Alex Kingston (now on NBC's ER) met at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and lived together for 10 years before marrying in '93. They divorced in '95, and he began seeing his Hamlet co-star, Francesca Annis (who played his mother), almost 20 years his senior. Fiennes and Annis were arm-in-arm at the Oscar premiere in New York.

Although unceasingly polite and attentive, Fiennes is uncomfortable divulging information about his personal life. As he speaks, his long, delicate fingers busily restructure a book of matches, splaying and curling each with unnerving precision.

But his face lights up at the mention of his favorite British actor, Michael Gambon (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; Wings of a Dove). "I'm blown away by him! I'd love to work with him!"

Fiennes leaps to his feet to animate an old, infamous tale of Gambon auditioning for Olivier by doing a soliloquy from Richard III. Olivier, of course, had been hailed as the greatest Richard III.

"Michael grabbed a pillar in the middle of the room, stood with his back to Olivier and then swung himself round the pillar, "Now is the winter . . ." Fiennes bellows as he swings around an imaginary post.

Unbeknownst to Gambon, there was a nail on the post, and it ripped his hand open.

"Michael carried on with the scene, blood all over himself," Fiennes continues, barely able to contain his amusement. "At the end, Olivier said to him, 'My dear boy . . . you're bleeding.' "

Fiennes pauses, suddenly concerned. "I do hope I'm telling this correctly."