Ralph Fiennes - an actor in front of cameras as well as on stage. He often played villains: the Tooth Fairy in Red Dragon, Lord Voldemort or Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. But he also lent his voice to animated characters (The Prince of Egypt) and took a Role in a RomCom (Maid in Manhattan). OutNow.CH met with Fiennes at the Venice film festival and talked about the British society, his political views and how he had a crush on Audrey Hepburn as a child.
OutNow.CH (ON): Fernando Meirelles is quite an unusual director and hasn't got much to do with British culture. What makes him so suitable for this film?
Ralph Fiennes (RF): When I heard that Fernando was interested, I was very happy, because there is a danger with adaptations of Le Carré. They show themselves to be suited for television, they haven't got the time to explore and introduce their characters. I think Fernando's cinematic sensibility being so un-English actually was a good thing to give the story a different kind of energy than people expect. And it was also because Fernando wanted very much to show a situation in Africa that I was interested in participating in this movie, not only because of the character of Justin. When I watched the film for the first time I thought that Kenya was like its own character with its strong imagery. You see the world of Nairobi, Kibera and the Northern part of Kenya.
ON: But he hasn't got any British background and the society in the script is typically British. It's interesting that, more so than the English themselves, foreign directors create British movies, like Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, what is the secret behind that?
Ralph Fiennes is "The Constant Gardener"
RF: When you're English you probably grew up with so many predictable ways of seeing your own culture and it's not easy to make a film about your own society. But if you're from abroad you have no preconceptions. Fernando found it very hard to understand the nuances of English class, the hierarchy, who is who in the High Commission, even what a High Commission actually is. We tried to explain, that when you have this background of school you'll probably do that and so on. But he just said that he won't get this mad English society. (laughs) That was good, because he didn't have to focus on the details. I mean Le Carré brilliantly shows the nuances of English class but Fernando didn't worry about that, he let us do this job. I had to know who Justin was, his background, his position in society. Fernando had to put all the characters together and couldn't spend too much time with tiny little things. If the film works, and it seems that it works, then it is because of his emotional side, the love story, and Fernando deserves all the credit for that.
ON: Would you consider yourself to be a typical English man?
RF: Well, there are all these cliches about all our countries and we have to shake them up. You often hear, that being English means being unemotional, but I think that English are deeply emotional people. Actually, they are so emotional they created something like a wall to protect themselves. But for example, we have a thriving theater and theater is highly emotional. In my opinion, English are full of emotions and very sensitive. I actually distrust people that seem to carry their emotions on surface very quickly. I always wonder if it's real or just played.
ON: Do you do researches when you play a person from another country?
RF: No, I don't like this general language about nationality. In the end everyone has to be an individual, otherwise it becomes pathetic.
ON: You've already worked with Rachel Weisz in Sunshine, did that change your relationship for this movie. It probably made it easier, didn't it?
RF: Well, it always helps having already done a movie with someone, but working with her for The Constant Gardener was more intense.
ON: The novel's title is "The Constant Gardener". What does gardening mean to Justin, how do you interpret that?
RF: My father was a fantastic gardener, but unfortunately I'm not at all. It can mean all kinds of things. It can stand for a love of nature, seeing things grow and change, a passion for life. I think it means to be always present with the cycle of things, it gives you a lot of insight into life. Gardeners are usually quite wise people and they are persistent, patient and continuos, and exactly those qualities Justin needed in order to find out why Tessa died.
ON: Do you like watching yourself in a movie?
Ralph Fiennes in "Spider"
RF: It's weird, it's like with the mirror in the morning, some days you like what you see, other days you don't. Usually it's a good sign for the film when I like seeing myself acting and in this case I thought the movie is working very well. But that would be a reason for playing theater, you don't have to deal with that problem (laughs). You feel free when you know that you aren't in the focus of a camera. For me this is one of the hardest things while shooting a film, to act as if the camera didn't exist.
ON: If you had been filming in London in July when the bombs exploded in the city, would you have carried on?
RF: Well, I was filming in Toronto when the planes destroyed the World Trade Center and I felt that we should continue, because stopping wouldn't have helped anything. It was an attack on our way of life and a film is a form of freedom of expression. Of course there were people who wanted to be sent home, but I wanted to keep working. With their attack they wanted to stop everything, but they shouldn't stop us. I think, yes, we would have carried on in London.
ON: You were shooting on many locations all over the world. What did you learn from that?
RF: When you travel you see all kind of new things and I think a person opens up when meeting new cultures and habits. You have to connect somehow and if you don't speak the language you have to communicate with gestures (laughs). I mean it's fantastic, in Africa for example we worked with many Kenyan people and despite their poverty they showed a great love of life and sense of celebration, which is what I take away most. And what is surprising is their will to share although they often have nothing.
His next film: "White Countess"
ON: The Constant Gardener is a love story, but also a political thriller. Fernando Meirelles is a man who speaks about political aspects, just like he did in Cidade de Deus. Are you concerned about politics?
RF: Yes I am. I feel that corporate power can be a danger and in this case it's pharmaceutical corporate power. I think the big corporations are not transparent and not answerable enough whether they're oil or media companies. Every opportunity to demand answers from government or corporate power is important and is to be taken.
ON: Do you expect any reactions from the pharmaceutical industry?
RF: I guess they'll say something like "this isn't how it really is" or write defensive articles that say that it is absurd that any company would do such a thing. But the novel is based on a real thing that happened. Even in my country there was a pill on the market that had negative side effects and had to be withdrawn.
ON: There is the scene where a tribe attacks a village in the Sudan and nobody helps. What's your opinion on military interventions?
RF: I suppose that as an idealist I would like to think that the UN could work. The ideal of the UN as a peacekeeping force would be the one I would support, but it never seems to work. I mean, there is the unilateral invasion of Iraq, the UN couldn't stop the USA. I think every issue, every single case or argument for intervention has to be considered individually. I don't want to make a blank statement about interventions.
ON: Could you imagine working in the high commission in Kenya?
RF: I wouldn't be very good. (laughs)
ON: Why?
RF: I just don't have the right qualities to do that kind of job. You have to be very smart, I mean only the cream of the crop of University, the most intelligent make it into the diplomatic service. I don't know if I would have made it.
ON: Can you tell us your first celebrity crush?
RF: (laughs) That was Audrey Hepurn in My Fair Lady. When I saw that, I was twelve and she had a sort of quality, a fragility and vulnerability I remember, but also that beauty. Some years after this film had been made I saw it in the town we were living and I had that funny ache wishing she would know me. (laughs).
ON: Thank you.