The Life and Times of Fiennes

A Biography of Our Almighty Thespian:
from Baseline's Enclclopedia of Film (with tidbits from me.)

A magnetic stage actor with England's National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, Fiennes justly received critical raves for his horrifying yet complexly human performance as
Amon Goeth, commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Plaszow in Steven Spielberg's acclaimed epic of the Holocaust,
Schindler's List (1993). After giving up painting to pursue a career in acting, Fiennes quickly bounded from his studies at RADA to acclaim onstage as Troilus and Henry VI (He wrote an essay about this experience in "The Players of Shakespeare 3"). Although he seemed to come out of the blue in Schindler's List, he actually made his film debut in an even more promising role, that of Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1992), the first effort from Paramount's European wing. The results, however, received only very limited release in the UK—and bad reviews—and the film was promptly swept under the rug. Fiennes fared better in his second Hollywood film, Robert Redford's Quiz Show (1994), as a central figure (Charles Van Doren) in the game show rigging scandals of 1950s TV. Fiennes marked his Broadway debut in 1995 with the title role of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. While some reviewers faulted the overall production, Fiennes walked away with raves for his dynamic portrait of the usually melancholy Dane. For his efforts, he was awarded the Tony for Best Actor in a Play. Fiennes also appeared in Kathryn Bigelow's sci-fi thriller Strange Days, as Lenny Nero, a sleazy dealer of high-tech contraband. After this effort that didn't go down well with critics, or boxoffice dollars, he came back, and he came back big baby!!! With the 1996 masterpiece "The English Patient". To some the greatest thing to be put on celluloid, the "Patient" has made an enormous sucess, with 80 million at the boxoffice to date (7/11/97). And with a re-release for three weeks before it comes to video release.

His Works Other Than Film:
Stage credits include:

Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" for the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
Theseus/Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the New Shakespeare Company's European Tour
The Son in "Six Characters in Search of an Author"
Arkady in "Fathers and Sons"
Lisha Ball in "Ting Tang Mine", all at the National Theatre
Henry VI in the RSC production of "The Plantagenets" (three parts of "Henry VI" plus "Richard III).
Other RSC and Barbican Theatre roles include Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing, " the Dauphin in "King John," Troilus in "Troilus and Cressida, " Berowne in "Love's Labour Lost, "
Edmund in "King Lear, " Bert Jefferson in "The Man who Came to Dinner" and Gant in
"Playing with Trains."
Hamlet in the Almeida Theatre Company's 1995 production of "Hamlet", at the Hackney Empire in London and later on Broadway at the Belsaco
Theatre.
Winner of the 1995 Best Actor Tony Award!

Author of an essay on Henry VI in "Players of Shakespeare 3" - Russell Jackson 1994

Some of His Personal Quotes:

"It's 'rafe', actually." (that's not over-used!)

"I veer away from trying to understand why I act. I just know I need to do it."

"The screenplay spoke to something inside
me, I suppose. It's a love story, a tragic love
story, but more than that. It's multilayered,
with several protagonists traveling on their
own journeys who intersect. It wasn't just my
part, you see, it was the context in which it
all happened. And it was also the way it was
written, the way the dialogue lives on and off
the page."

- Ralph Fiennes (the last one-speaking about "The English Patient")

Some Ralph Trivia:

Of the roughly one dozen actors to play Hamlet on Broadway, Fiennes is the first to win a Tony Award for doing so!!!