Evening Standard, 01/20/2000
Joseph Fiennes speaks very softly, at times barely audibly. He reminds me of
a shy pop star, playing with the holes at the knees of his jeans, laces
dangling on his Timberlands, dressed Damon Albarn-style in tracksuit top.
He's just got back from a six-month travelling break - one of those amazing
trips you do in your late twenties (he's 30 this year) before really getting
your teeth into your career, a cross between a Grand Tour of Europe and a
back-packer's slog across Asia. He talks about Indian temple sculpture, and
his favourite paintings in Rome and St Petersburg.
And this is the odd thing about Joe Fiennes. Despite his success he's still
biding his time. A little over a year ago, he starred in two of the most
critically acclaimed movies of the past decade - Elizabeth, in which he
played the dreamy-eyed bit of ruff 'n' tumble Robert Dudley, and the
multiple Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love. Both movies looked at English
history through a Hollywood lens, but were classy enough to satisfy
art-house audiences. Both seemed certain to propel Fiennes into Damon and
DiCaprio territory. The Americans were slobbering over him, weren't they?
Eighteen months later, it's not quite happened. He's still celebrity-shy,
and - seemingly - unambitious. Industry gossip alleges that he turned down a
two-picture deal with Miramax, the makers of Shakespeare in Love, and that
this decision confounded the Hollywood suits. Why go and burn a winning
lottery ticket? Perhaps to buy time instead of fame; to be able to travel
the world without stopping at Los Angeles. When he says he's not "urgently
seeking success", you have to believe him.
The film he's here to promote is called Rancid Aluminium, an adaptation of
the James Hawes novel. It is British, low-budget, and defiantly parochial.
Fiennes describes it as "le Carré meets Carry On" and "a high-octane
thriller ... "It's a sort of a pastiche of a thriller, set in a film noir
context," he adds somewhat feebly: "I hope it's good."
"After Shakespeare I had lots of offers to play men in tights. Lots of other
scripts, in fact. But I'd committed myself to the Royal Court, so that's
where I went."
Specifically, he went to star in Nick Grosso's A Real Classy Affair,
alongside Nick "Lock Stock" Moran and Liza Walker. This was one of those
lads' plays: starring lads, about lads, set in laddish south London and
about as far away from Shakespeare as it's possible to get. It caught the
tail-end of a certain trend, but was a critical dud.
"The Court had a great vibe," he says now, hesitating, "and doing a short
run is wonderful, very civilised. But what I'd really like to do, what I'd
love to do, is work for six months for a company doing a selection of plays.
There's something about being part of a group. Shakespeare in Love was like
that. There was a great atmosphere. The initial read-through was like
reading a play."
Fiennes's love of the theatre partially explains why he didn't hop on the
Hollywood bandwagon immediately after Shakespeare in Love. He's one of the
few actors I've met who goes to the theatre regularly and knows exactly
what's going on in London.
In fact, his theatrical CV is already long. He spent three years with the
Royal Shakespeare Company before making movies; he worked at the National
and in the West End, including a back-breaking stint of The Woman in Black
opposite Edward Petherbridge. He mixed modern classics (Son of Man, A View
from the Bridge) with semi-experimental stuff (Les Enfants du Paradis at the
National, for example), and all of this earned him a reputation well before
the movies.
"Acting for me is about psychology and communication," he says. "I'm more
interested in the material, the play itself, than starring alongside Clint
Eastwood or something. Film is far more manipulative, for sure. I'm learning
a lot about it. But every piece of theatre is like a canvas: you take off
the paint and reapply it."
He uses artistic metaphors more than once. His mother was an artist and a
writer; his father a photographer who roamed the prettiest parts of Ireland
and the West Country, his large family in tow. "My father took photographs
of Ireland - he called them Insight Cards - and sold them to the Irish
Tourist Board. I used to be his assistant."
His schooldays were less idyllic. "I went to lots of schools and I was a
real horror as a child... I'd beat up my sister, until one day she hit back
and that was a real shock. I sort of side-stepped adolescence after that."
Fiennes has two sisters - Martha recently directed Ralph in the film Onegin,
Sophie is a producer - and four brothers, including a non-identical twin,
Jake, the only sibling not pursuing a career in the arts.
His desire to travel - and remain anonymous - perhaps comes from this
nomadic (though, he insists, not romantic) childhood. He's quite happy in
his own company, despite (because of?) such a large family. I'd heard that
the crew of Shakespeare in Love would gather in the pub for a drink after
filming, but that no one ever invited Gwyneth Paltrow. Did they invite him?
Fiennes sniggers. "No comment. I'm not sure that they did. Yes, yes, they
did. There's a pub at the studio, but you have to be very brave to go in
wearing a ruff."
Fiennes won't talk about girl-friends, though for a while he was serious
about the actress Catherine McCormack. He thanks Hugh Grant and Julia
Roberts for boosting the price of his flat in Notting Hill, and we chat for
a while about Chelsea FC's European campaign - he goes to Stamford Bridge
whenever he can - and I'm left thinking that he's successful in his desire
to protect his privacy because he manages to remain enigmatic despite having
his name in lights.
A football-loving classical actor; an artistic soul with blokeish
tendencies; sensitive (interested in Buddhism) and macho (loves a good
Scotch) all at the same time. He's either the 21st century's version of
Renaissance Man, or, well, a pretty ordinary guy who happens to be a
talented actor. Whatever: his stop-start career is still worth watching.
by Alison Roberts
(Transcribed by Tara)
