Western Daily Press Article

February 11, 2000

Chilling role for actor Ralph

RALPH Fiennes certainly earned his crust in the soon-to-be-released movie A Taste of Sunshine, an epic story of three generations of a Jewish family in Budapest.

It was a gruellingly physical role for the ex-Salisbury grammar school boy who plays Adam, an Olympic fencing champion.

Adam is pulled out of a crowd by Hungarian police, refuses to call himself a Jew and insists proudly that he is a national fencing champion.

He is told to strip naked in freezing temperatures, is tied to a vertical pole like a piece of meat, beaten, then hung in the air and hosed with water until he freezes to death.

Said Ralph, pictured, a former sixth-former at Salisbury's Bishop Wordworth school: "I had to be naked in the cold. It was somewhat uncomfortable.

"And I had to wear these three ice suits, which were made of synthetic material, but then it was uncomfortable having to wear a false beard in July, when it was boiling hot."

The role earned Ralph the best male actor title at this year's European Film Awards in Berlin.

The Hungarian film will be released in the UK later this year.