With his electrifying gaze, elegant comportment, and lips that look as if they could breathe life into concrete, Ralph Fiennes has caused many a jaded filmgoer to reaffirm the existence of British sex appeal. Since 1993, when he first impressed international audiences in the decidedly unglamorous role of Nazi sadist Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, Fiennes has delivered performances marked by dignified passion and relentless intensity.
The oldest of six children, Fiennes was born in Suffolk on December 22, 1962. His father was a self-taught photographer and his mother a novelist who wrote under the pen name Jennifer Lash, professions which virtually ensured a unique upbringing. Fiennes' family moved a number of times while he was growing up, and the children were encouraged in their creative pursuits. Thus, it is less than surprising that four out of the six Fiennes siblings went on to work in the entertainment business, with Ralph and his brother Joseph becoming actors, his two sisters a director and a producer, and another brother a musician. Originally wanting to be a painter, Fiennes enrolled at the Chelsea College of Art and Design before transferring to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. Following graduation, he joined the Royal National Theatre in 1987, and he became part of the Royal Shakespeare Company a year later. While a member of the company, he performed a wide range of the classics, playing everyone from Romeo to King Lear's Edmund.
Fiennes first became known to a wider audience in 1991, when he starred as the title character in the acclaimed British television production of A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia. The next year, he gained additional exposure, making his film debut as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Starring opposite Juliette Binoche, Fiennes glowered his way across the screen with suitable aplomb, something that he would do again to devastating effect the next year in Schindler's List. As the psychotic Nazi commandant Amon Goeth, Fiennes blended quiet yet absolute menace with surprising charisma (even more surprising given that he had gained over 30 pounds for his role) to such great effect that he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and a British Academy Award for his portrayal. Fiennes' work in the film incited a flurry of interest in the actor, whose intensity and odd name (its correct pronunciation is "Rafe Fines") made him the subject of many a magazine article.
Interest in Fiennes only increased the following year, when, back to his normal weight and sporting an American accent, he played the more sympathetic (but tragically flawed) Charles Van Doren in Robert Redford's Quiz Show. Critics loved him in the role, and he further consolidated his acclaim two years later in Anthony Minghella's Oscar-winning adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, which won Fiennes Oscar and Golden Globe nominations as Best Actor. Given his newfound heartthrob status, many audience members were surprised to see Fiennes next turn up in the title role of the gawkish, ginger-haired minister with a gambling problem (playing opposite a then-unknown Cate Blanchett) in Oscar and Lucinda (1997). He gave a highly eccentric performance in the film, which received a mixed critical reception. Where Oscar and Lucinda was only vaguely disappointing, Fiennes' next project, a 1998 film version of the popular 1960s TV series The Avengers, was one of the most lambasted films of the year. Fiennes somehow managed to avoid most of the critical wrath directed at the film, and in 1999 he could be seen starring in no less than three disparate projects. In Onegin, directed by his sister, Martha, Fiennes played the title character, a blasé Russian aristocrat; in The End of the Affair, directed by Neil Jordan, he portrayed a novelist embroiled in an adulterous affair with the wife (Julianne Moore) of his best friend (Stephen Rea); while in Sunshine, directed by István Szabó, he played three different roles in a saga tracing 150 years of the affairs and intrigues of a family of Hungarian Jews.
If his roles to date had served to showcase Fiennes' talent at about the rate of a solid performance per year, 2002 provided a trio of diverse and demanding roles that would prove just how well he could perform under pressure. In Red Dragon -- the first of those efforts to hit stateside screens that year -- Fiennes' chilling performance as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde shifted between meekness and menace at the drop of a hat. Thankfully eschewing the grandiose theatrics of Hannibal for a tone more in keeping with the original Silence of the Lambs, the film proved a hit at the box office, and Fiennes' performance rivaled that of Ted Levine's in providing the film with a chilling villain straight from the pages of the most lurid true-crime encyclopedia (Fiennes' character was purportedly based on the exploits of an uncaptured Wichita serial killer who went by the name "Bind, Torture, Kill"). A few short months later, audiences were treated to yet another deeply disturbed characterization by Fiennes, that of a schizophrenic man haunted by his childhood in director David Cronenberg's dark psychological drama Spider, based on author Patrick McGrath's bleak novel of the same name. Fiennes' performance substituted the menace of Red Dragon with a more sympathetic protagonist whose memory slowly regresses to reveal a scarring childhood tragedy. No doubt having had his fill of disturbed characters that year, Fiennes once again caught audiences off guard with a disarmingly charming role in the romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan.
Largely absent from the cinema for the next two years, only appearing briefly with an uncredited part in Neil Jordan's Bob Le Flambeur remake, The Good Thief, Fiennes returned in 2005 with roles in more than five films. Among those, he would appear in his sister's sophmore effort, Chromophobia, alongside an impressive cast including Ian Holm, Penélope Cruz, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rhys Ifans, and Ben Chaplin. He could also be seen in the Merchant-Ivory film The White Countess and City of God director Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener, while additionally providing his voice for an animated Wallace & Gromit film. Also highly noteworthy was the casting of of Fiennes as the nefarious Lord Voldemort in the fourth film in the immensely popular Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; he subsequently portrayed the character for the remainder of the films. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes (1962-12-22) 22 December 1962 (age 49) Ipswich, Suffolk, England
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1985–present
Spouse
Alex Kingston (m. 1993–1997) «start: (1993)–end+1: (1998)»"Marriage: Alex Kingston to Ralph Fiennes" Location:(linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Fiennes)(divorced)
Ralph Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes was born in Ipswich on 22 December 1962, the eldest child of Mark Fiennes (1933–2004), a farmer and photographer whose father was industrialist Sir Maurice Fiennes (1907–1994), and Jennifer Lash (1938–1993), a writer of English and Irish descent.[2] His surname is of Norman origin.[3]
Fiennes later claimed that playing the role had a profoundly disturbing effect on him.[6] In a subsequent interview, Fiennes recalled,
"Evil is cumulative. It happens. People believe that they’ve got to do a job, they’ve got to take on an ideology, that they’ve got a life to lead; they’ve got to survive, a job to do, it’s every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There’s a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I'm saying, You don’t understand how hard it is, I have to order so many-so many meters of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B. And, you know, he’s sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job."[7]
Ralph Fiennes with Eddie and Gloria Minghella at the 2011 Minghella Film Festival
In 1999, Fiennes starred in the legendary role of Eugene Onegin in Onegin, a movie which he also helped produce. His sister Martha Fiennes directed and brother Magnus composed the score.
The Constant Gardener was released in 2005 with Fiennes in the central role.[3] The film is set in Kenya, dealing in part with real people in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani. The situation affected the cast and crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education for children of these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity.[8]
Fiennes' 2006 performance in the play Faith Healer gained him a nomination for a 2007 Tony Award. In 2008, Fiennes worked with frequent collaborator director Jonathan Kent to play the title role in Sophocles's Oedipus the King at the National Theatre in London. In 2008, he played the Duke of Devonshire in the film The Duchess, and played the protagonist in The Reader.
Fiennes in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2003 during his visit as a UNICEF UK ambassador.
In February 2009, Fiennes was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He filmed his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.[9]
Fiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador and has done work in India, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda and Romania.[10]
Fiennes met English actress Alex Kingston while they were both students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After dating for ten years, they married in 1993. They divorced in 1997.[11]
In 1995, Fiennes began an affair with Francesca Annis, whom he met when she played his mother Gertrude in the play Hamlet.[12] After 11 years together, the couple separated in February 2006.[12]
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (1985) – Role: Curio – Directed by Richard Digby Day – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1985) – Role: Cobweb – Directed by Toby Robertson – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1986) – Role: Lysander – Directed by David Conville and Emma Freud – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London and New Shakespeare Company's European Tour
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1986) – Role: Romeo – Directed by Declan Donnellan – New Shakespeare Company – Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1987) – Role: Arkady Nikolayevich Kirsanov – Directed by Michael Rudman – National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, London
Ting Tang Mine by Nick Darke (1987) – Role: Lisha Ball – Directed by Michael Rudman – National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1988) – Role: Claudio – Directed by Di Trevis – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
The Plantagenets: Henry VI, The Rise of Edward IV, Richard III His Death by William Shakespeare (1988–1989) – Role: Henry VI, ghost of Henry VI – Directed by Adrian Noble – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
King John (1989) by William Shakespeare – Role: Dauphin – Directed by Deborah Warner – The Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and The Pit Theatre, London
The Man Who Came to Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman (1989) – Role: Bert Jefferson – Directed by Ron Gene Saks – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Barbican Theatre, London
Playing with Trains by Stephen Poliakoff (1989) – Role: Gant – Directed by Ron Daniels – The Royal Shakespeare Company – The Pit Theatre, London
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (1990) – Role: Troilus – Directed by Sam Mendes – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
King Lear by William Shakespeare (1990) – Role: Edmund – Directed by Nicholas Hytner – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (1991) – Role: Berowne – Directed by Terry Hands – The Royal Shakespeare Company – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (2000) – Role: Coriolanus – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
Richard II by William Shakespeare (2000) – Role: Richard II – Directed by Jonathan Kent – The Almeida Theatre Company – Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
The Play What I Wrote by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben (2001) – Role: Sir Ralph Fiennes – Directed by Kenneth Branagh – The Duo The Right Size – Wyndham's Theatre, West End
The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton (2003) – Role: Carl Jung – Directed by Howard Davies – National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
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