by Ron Givens

If you didn't have a clue -- like, say last name -- you'd never guess that the somewhat callow, downright dreamy young man is the baby brother of Ralph Fiennes.

Yes, this young man is an actor. Yes, he did Troilus and Cressida at the Royal Shakespeare Company a number of years after Ralph did. Yes, he began a movie career a number of years after Ralph did.

But they do not look the same. Ralph's beaky looks seem appropriate to the Arrow Shirt man of F. Scott Fitzgerald's time. This young man's tousled handsomeness could be out of a page of today's J. Crew catalogue.

For the moment, he is known as "Ralph's brother," but that seems destined to change. Fiennes, at the ripe old age of 28, may not have turned his very talented sibling into "Joseph's older brother." At least not yet. But he has definitely arrived, albeit in tights and puffy pants.

The second coming of Fiennes talent starts with the biopic Elizabeth in which Joseph is the guy who takes the virginity of England's queen. On Friday, the image of Fiennes as the as a heartthrob is further solidified by the arrival of Shakespeare in Love, in which he plays the Bard as a young hustler whose creative juices begin with his passion.

The new flick has brought Fiennes to New York to his first-ever press junket. He missed the one for Elizabeth by being hard at work.

"I try to work as much as possible so as to avoid doing the publicity," he says. "I'm split...part of me understands that you have to ride the beast when it comes to publicity. That it's part of your job. But there's a part of me that's vehemently opposed to violating the boundaries between work and private life."

Fiennes understands that his movie career is picking up considerable steam -- and not just in the sex scenes with Shakespeare's Muse -- played by Gwyneth Paltrow. He knows that the demand for his talents is about to skyrocket. He knows that being coy about his private life is only going to "invite more interest."

But for all his talk about not being "enigmatic about my private life," he becomes very cagey and obtuse, when talking about his brother Ralph. "I think that one has to keep a firm impression that possibly certain people don't want to be talked about. I would never offer to begin a dialogue on that subject, and I feel protective, not only about myself but those individuals. So, while I'm happy to talk about them, I also have a protective instinct." So protective, in fact, that he says that he and his brother Ralph, as well as his other four brothers and sisters -- all but one of whom have show biz careers -- never talk shop. Only when pushed does he concede, "Yeah, there's bound to be one or two passing references." Mostly, he insists, they talk about ordinary sorts of family stuff.

When the questions turn to the family's past, Fiennes opens up a little. "I guess it was all sort of chaotic," he says, referring to the struggles of his photographer, farmer, renovator father and his author /painter/ housewife mother. At first, Fiennes estimates they moved 11 or 12 times around Ireland and England when he was a kid, then he increases that figure to 13 or 14.

"For me, it was a different school every year. Sometimes more," he says. "It was a chance to reinvent yourself again. If you were stuck in school for a longer period of time, you were a certain sort of person. And often that can bog you down, being labeled, as such and such."

When asked if this compares to the reinvention of personality that takes place on stage, Fiennes hesitates, "If I sat down on a couch and began psychobabbling, it might lead to that."

There is no question, however, that acting, for whatever reason, had a strong attraction early on. At the age of 9 or 10, he was cast in a school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. "I remember so vividly it was at primary school at Wandsworth (in London) one of the many schools,"says Fiennes. "I wasn't allowed to sing. I don't know why. I didn't mind it so much because I was playing Joseph and I got to wear the coat. That really had a profound effect."

Although he began studying art, Fiennes switched fairly soon to drama school. Then it was on to theatre in London. Now, after a couple of small roles in moves, including Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, his movie career has kicked into gear.

While Queen Elizabeth and William Shakespeare overlapped for nearly 40 years in the 16th century, Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love travel very different paths.

"One {Elizabeth} really follows historical narrative, giving up a little bit of that to celluloid license to stimulate an audience," says Fiennes. "The other is a fantasy of the age and had less to do with Shakespeare the stuffy, boring poet that is thrust upon us in school and more to do with a young writer in a mad pox-infested part of London with ruffles and pimps and this Rensaissance tottering on the verge."

As much fun as he has in working on these movies, Fiennes still feels the strongest tug from the theatre and becoems restless when he is away too long. "Even after I've done a really long run, two weeks after I feel: "Why am I not coming to the theatre?" says the actor. "That's where I'm and home and that's where I have my purpose. I'm a bit lost outside of that. I don't know why."

Reinvention, which was once a means of survival, seems to be a habit that Joseph Fiennes cannot break. The movie industry can be grateful for that.