IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OLIVIER AND O'TOOLE


by MATT WOLF
London
UP AND COMING
Sunday May 3, 1992
UP AND COMING -- Ralph Fiennes

 For an actor who cut his teeth on stage as an ensemble member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines) is making a heady bid to become a leading man on screen. On Wednesday, he treads bravely into Peter O'Toole territory, playing T.E. Lawrence in "A Dangeous Man: Lawrence After Arabia," a "Great Performances" presentation at 9 P.M. on PBS. This fall he follows in Laurence Olivier's charismatically moody wake as Heathcliff in Paramount's film remake of "Wuthering Heights" -- known as "Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights" to avoid confusion with the 1939 version.

O'Toole and Olivier are daunting precedents by anyone's standards, especially when the sum total of your screen experience is a bit part in the British TV series "Prime Suspect." But Mr. Fiennes, who is 29, thinks his two new projects are distinct enough from their predecessors to minimize inevitable comparisons. "A Dangerous Man," for instance, is concerned less with deserts than diplomacy; in it, Colonel Lawrence and the Arab prince Feisal come together at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to determine the shape of the Middle East in the aftermath of World War I.

Mr. O'Toole's white-robed spectre in David Lean's epic, "Lawrence of Arabia," Mr. Fiennes says, "didn't really worry me -- not because I thought I could do better for a minute, but I suppose I felt that the film is so firmly placed as a great huge piece of cinema" "A Dangerous Man," he says, "is on a much smaller note. It's much more interior both physically and metaphorically, so I was more daunted by trying to do T.E. Lawrence -- his courage and intelligence and imagination."

Nor did Olivier haunt his Heathcliff once Mr. Fiennes threw himself into the 1847 novel. "The book was a revelation," the actor recalls between mouthfuls of venison at a London arts club. "It's so sort of visceral and bleak and violent and passionate."

Mr. Fiennes acknowledges that his fine-boned, fragile good looks don't automatically suggest Bronte's rugged romantic. "I know a lot of people thought I was rough casting for Heathcliff, and part of me felt I was too, to be honest. "I just thought, physically, vocally, I was too lightweight. I imagined a sort of Ted Hughes type," he says, referring to Britain's current poet laureate. "Someone kind of craggy-faced and hoary." Mr. Fiennes is neither, possessing instead what Peter Kosminsky, the director of "Wuthering Heights," calls a "hypnotic quality, an emblematic intensity that draws you in." That intensity, coupled with an almost musical voice, like that of a young John Gielgud, got him steady work, and critical acclaim, in the theater following his 1985 graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. At the Royal Shakespeare Company he played, among others, Troilus, Edmond to John Wood's Lear, and a memorable Beerowne in "Love's Labor's Lost." Now unemployed for the first time in ages and nervously awaiting judgment on his celluloid ventures, he admits to missing the life of the theater: "Movies are probably more lonely. Although you get cars to pick you up, and you get cosseted and people bring you tea, the parameters are very strict, so within that you feel quite alone." By contrast, he says, "In the theatre, you're a kind of team. I just do love the ensemble feeling at its best."


Matt Wolf is an American based in London.



 

Please visit the other link pages on this site:
Ralph Fiennes Links Page

 Ralph Fiennes Astrology Page

Back to the Jennifer Lash Links page
 

Back to the Ralph Fiennes - Jennifer Lash Main Page

This page was created with the Stonehenge.ttf font and is best enjoyed if you
have the font yourself.  If you want it please click on the green name Stonehenge.ttf above to download and install it to your PC.
Sorry not available for Mac's.  Thanks.
 

These pages are Copy written by Mary Sibley.  All rights reserved.
Please do not use anything within these pages without permission.
Please send an EMail to Mary Sibley for permission, thanks.