Music, Style & Culture

Ralph Fiennes At BAFTA: A Life In Pictures

The actor reflects on his roles in Schindler's List, Harry Potter and Coriolanus.

Continuing BAFTA's run of Q&As with well-respected thespians, on Sunday 11th December the academy's London headquarters invited Ralph Fiennes to reflect on A Life in Pictures.

Open to BAFTA members and the public, a champagne reception precedes an hour and a half in the company of the great actor. Bounding on stage to enthusiastic applause, Fiennes gallantly kisses the hand of host Francine Stock, before being taken through his career in film.

The actor remembers being informed in his childhood spent peforming Shakespeare: "you have an ability". Attending art school as a teenager, Fiennes reveals it shook him up, opened his mind and shifted his perspective. Working on set designs, he soon released he wanted to be on the stage. He joined an amateur theatre group in Fulham, where playing the lead in Romeo and Juliet gave him the confidence to try out for RADA. When asked if he ever considered a career in film, he replied that the attitude always was "if you were lucky, the gods would ascend you to film".

After a season at Stratford, Fiennes landed his first on screen role in 1990, starring as T.E. Lawrence in television film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia. Soon afterwards, he landed his debut film, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, starring as Heathcliff opposte Julette Binoche's Cathy. Fiennes laughs as he recalls his only worry - the hair extensions he had to sport after his army buzz cut for Arabia.

Then came the film that would shoot him to stardom and award glory, that of Amon Göth in Schindler's List. After the audience endure one of his most chilling scenes, involving Amon's maid, Fiennes lightens the mood by recalling how he auditioned for director Steven Spielberg. Unbelievably, he met with Spielberg in Acton for an informal chat, with the actor recalling how keen the directing legend was to engage with him. Fiennes reflects on the role of Amon, saying how he couldn't simply see the Nazi officer as a monster. Watching accounts of Holocaust survivors who suffered at the hands of Amon, he conceded that while he was a terrible man, it didn't help if you have to get inside his head. Spielberg himself didn't want Fiennes to portray evil - he wanted the actor to show how Amon's work felt like a "pain in the arse". He then tells how Spielberg is a "thrilling, inventive and spontaneous" director.

Fiennes smiles as he recalls asking Spielberg for permission to audition for Robert Redford's Quiz Show, while he was still filming Schindler's List, but got annoyed as Fiennes lost his Amon weight to prepare for the role of Charles Van Doren.



When talking about his subsequent roles in The English Patient and The End of the Affair, Stock asks if he is attracted to caged, difficult characters. He says he finds them interesting, pointing out the "flinty, recessive" Count in Anthony Minghella's Patient. He also enjoys how people wrestle with Graham Greene, author of Affair, and his interest in God.

Fiennes talks about a very different role in David Cronengerg's Spider, which he states is akin to Beckett. Describing his physical approach to the role of a schizophrenic man, he points out the hunch, and recalls how Cronenberg would stop him if he did anything too extreme, like twitch. He touches on the impact The Constant Gardner had on the cast and crew, who set up a trust for Kenyan children.

Inevitably, Stock brought up the long-running role of Voldemort in the beloved Harry Potter series, and Fiennes - to the audience's delight - jokingly performs the "killing curse" on our host. He pays tribute to the casting director, the legendary and late Mary Selway, whose tenacity and persistance persuaded him to take on the villainous role, having been ignorant of the phenomenon. In fact, it was his sister Martha who told him he had to take it seriously.

After wondering how the sparky dialogue would work, he went on to steal the show as a gangster in the wonderful In Bruges. Stock mentions the banter is Pinter-esque, but Fiennes believes the rhythms in speech are simply very Irish. With such a serious and intense body of work being reflected upon, the room is in stitches at a clip from the film, which showcased his superb comic delivery opposite Brendan Gleeson.

With Fiennes' directorial debut Coriolanus opening in the new year, he reveals he had been curious about directing for three or four years. He wanted to make his debut with the story of an Inuit girl in the '50s, sent to live with her kind in Canada, but he and regular producer Simon Channing Williams couldn't get it to work. However, location scouting and pre-production discussion gave him confidence.

Fiennes admits he got to the point where he realised he was approaching 50 and he only had one life to live. It gave him the courage to crack on with the ambitious Coriolanus. A story that would never leave his head, Fiennes found it relevant and occidental - and always difficult. He looked at setting it in either Latin America or Eastern Europe for financial reasons, as they have a reliable film infrastructure. Belgrade ended up being the perfect setting, as a "bruised, wounded city". He cites dialect coach Joan Washington as being a huge help on set, as she "doesn't mince her words", and was crucial in helping him direct the performances. He admits there was pressure, "like a vice" on his head, but laughs as he recalls the "revulsion and neurosis" when watching himself on the rushes.

He speaks of telling famed cinematographer Barry Ackroyd to go in close, as he feels the frustration of the character works much better on film - he quotes: "cinema was born in the close-up". Finally he reveals his excitement at portraying Magwitch in Mike Newell's Great Expectations, especially filming the infamous graveyard scene. He couldn't resist taking on such an iconic role - "I'm out of my comfort zone".

Coriolanus opens in the UK 20th January - trailer below. For more information on BAFTA events, visit bafta.org.