Washington Post Article

March 5, 2001

In Fiennes' Company
By Roxanne Roberts

First of all, it's pronounced Rafe Fines. (Don't ask; we don't know why.)

Second of all, movie star Ralph Fiennes is a fabulous Shakespearean actor -- notable for his Tony-winning Hamlet -- which is why he was presented with the Shakespeare Theatre's Will Award at a black-tie gala Saturday at the Library of Congress.

Third, one should never assume that an international sex symbol who plays intense, brooding characters (Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights," Count Almasy in "The English Patient" and Maurice Bendrix in "The End of the Affair") is -- in actual fact -- intense and brooding. "I think a lot of actors don't want to be known," Fiennes said passionately, staring intently with those deep blue eyes. Fine. So we didn't ask the 38-year-old actor anything about the melodramatic private life that those British tabloids write so much about. No, this night was about art. And women admiring his . . . art.

The Shakespeare Theatre's acclaimed artistic director, Michael Kahn, gives the Will to world-class actors who've never appeared on his stage in the hopes that they will fall madly in love and do a play here. This year's gala -- which included an elegant, Elizabethan-inspired dinner -- also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the "Text Alive!" program, which brings the Bard to local classrooms, and gave a belated Millennium Recognition Award to gracious alumnus Richard Thomas, who played the title role in "Richard II" at the theater and calls it "the finest resident company in America."

Reason enough for Fiennes to come to the nation's capital, which is the general idea after all. But which brooding, passionate role?

"Whichever one he'd like," said Kahn.