(translated from German to English by Julia Heller)

WATCH OUT: VELVET SEX APPEAL

This man is something special. He knows something about tights. You dont have to search in the female box of tricks first in order to decode his male psyche. And you don't have to break down his reserve with the testosterone-topic grouse hunt. This man is English!

No, Joseph Fiennes is a ladies man, he knows how to take the part of a woman's best friend in the body of a Latin lover. You can get to the essentials with him right away. For example, to the advantages of bras over bustiers. He could unrestrainedly discuss such intimate taboo topics with us, whose fun-factor never dawns on the common man. And there are reasons for that. Since his success as the Queen's lover in "Elizabeth" and as William Shakespeare in "Shakespeare In Love", he knows about problems with gussets and comfort qualities of tights. The costume dramas - both are set in the 16th century - did not just turn him into the women's clothes expert you can talk to, but also turned him into the new supernova on the star-studded sky over night. Suddenly, critics discovered "a thinking woman's sex symbol" ("The Sun") in the 28-year-old: From the sex-obsessed Los Angeles up to the intellectual New York people are not getting tired of praising his "animal attraction", his "seductive mischief" ("Elizabeth"-partner Cate Blanchett), "His charm, his sensuality and his painfully obvious vulnerability" ("Shakespeare"-director John Madden). Fiennes reckons it dead funny that he now serves as a kind of pin-up for academics. "I have to laugh every time people are trying to tell me I'm the next hot guy. How can a guy in tights serve as a heartthrob?". He describes his experiences during the "Shakespeare"- shooting as rather humiliating in some places: "I was quite annoyed by those puffed breeches, which look like two giant hip-tomatoes". Of course the Londoner (he recently bought a house in the hip Notting Hill district) is flirting when he says such things. After all he's an actor. Appearance and reality manipulating each other in a role-play. And of course nobody, especially no woman, sees a ridiculous fop in support tights in him, especially as he in person wears a postmodern cool suit by Paul Smith ("I love it classic with a certain twist"). He can afford designer labels nowadays.

But no one knows better than he does how it feels to be broke as an actor without much success for years: He left school when he was 16, studied at the Suffolk Art School for a year and eventually ended up at the London National Theatre, where he started as a "maid-of-all-work". Fiennes on the genesis of his fame as an actor: "The real surprise was the enormous amount of dirty pants and smelly socks, which you have to keep struggling with. I then realised that this job has only very little to do with glamour, and is in fact hard work." Even worse was that even later on at the "Guildhall School of Music and Drama" and at the Royal Shakespeare Company he hardly earned any money. Joseph's rescue: love.

His girlfriend at that time, actress Sara Griffiths, he confesses, provided for him for six years. "She took care of us having something to eat and channelled me through all lows. In our job, you mainly have to learn how to deal with rejection, and we could help each other with that.

SUCCESS IN TIGHTS

The fact that they broke up just at the time when his career was taking off and the world was pining for him was slightly held against him by the British press. But in the end, curiosity about the new woman by his side won. Is it the former convent student and 26-year-old fellow actress Catherine McCormack ("Braveheart"), with whom he had allegedly spent a romantic week at the West Indies? Or maybe even Gwyneth Paltrow, his partner in "Shakespeare In Love"? Because of Fiennes, people say, she has left Ben Affleck and ignored him at the Golden Globes. Wasn't the passionate shine in her eyes treacherous when she publicly thanked Fiennes for their co-operation? Causes for those sorts of rumours are of course given by the erotically charged bed scenes in "Shakespeare in Love". The fantastic romantic comedy tells the fictional story of the go-getting, fiery bard Shakespeare, who suffers from writers block, while he is working on the abstrusely-titled epic "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter". When he meets Viola (Paltrow), a turbulent story of love and passion evolves, which results in Shakespeares most famous drama, "Romeo and Juliet". While gossip merchants are suspecting that Joe and Gwyn are not just talking about ladders and harem pants, "Romeo" Fiennes behaves like a true gentleman: "She is the most wonderful woman of all. Everyone on set fell in love with her. Me included, of course."

As if only the straightforward way helped, he teases about the hot love scenes, "I am extremely shy, that's why it is hard for me to undress in front of a whole load of people. But the issue becomes easier when the person you are having sex with is Gwyneth Paltrow." Less well-known is the fact that almost all of the Fiennes brothers and sisters work in creative jobs: The sisters Martha, 36, and Sophie, 32, are directors and producers. The brothers Magnus, 34, and Michael, 30, became musicians and actors. Only Joseph's twin Jacob went for a job outside the spotlight: He became a gamekeeper. Joseph is known to be easier to approach and "smoochier" than his big brother Ralph. Maybe, as his sister Martha describes, that is why he has had his rebellious phase at the age of eleven already. "My childhood was crazy, terrible and great", says Joseph. "Terrible because we had to move 14 times before I was a teenager." The bohemian lifestyle was mainly financed by father Mark, a photographer, who sold houses he had himself restored and the family had lived in. Mother Jennifer, who died of breast cancer four years ago, took care of emotional warmth, educated her children and taught them to "dedicate their innermost to a task, however small it may be" (Martha Fiennes). She also wrote half a dozen of novels and was a painter.

Joseph always carries a sketch book with him, too, in order to express his imagination at any time. Being sensitive and an aesthete, he is destined to portray Renaissance-men on screen. Joseph Fiennes loves the Elizabethan age. Partly because "back then men too were done up to the nines." Equal rights for all. But on set, he sometimes found his costumes a little embarrassing. "You should try walking through a horde of electricians in harem pants!"