by Greg Bottoms
Ralph Fiennes, star of numerous films,
including Schindler's List, Strange Days, The
English Patient, Oscar and Lucinda and, most recently,
The
Avengers, has played many "literary" roles, which isn't surprising
considering his mother, Jennifer Lash, was a highly-regarded British novelist,
publishing her first novel, The Burial, shortly after she
finished University in 1961. She went on to write eight critically-acclaimed
books before her death from cancer in 1993. Her posthumously published
novel, Blood Ties, was released in the United States by Bloomsbury
in October 1998. Gadfly recently spoke to Ralph Fiennes about his mother,
literature and film.
GREG BOTTOMS: Your mother published her first novel, The Burial, in 1961 at the age of 23. As a boy, how aware were you that your mother was an important artist?
RALPH FIENNES: Well, I was incredibly aware from a very early age that she was a writer, because she talked about it. But I didn't know what "important" meant.
GREG BOTTOMS: She confronted her illness head-on in her memoir On Pilgrimage. There is also a real darkness and sorrow in Blood Ties, but at the same time it is ultimately a very life-affirming work, a work about healing and hope. How much of the earnestness and power of this book comes from her dealing with her illness?
RALPH FIENNES: Some of it certainly comes from her illness, but I think she had the idea for Blood Ties before then. I think much of it comes from having had an unhappy childhood herself, which gave her insight and made her very perceptive about how a child might feel. She knew the importance of love for children; indeed, felt that this was the primary, most important thing.
GREG BOTTOMS: You've had many "literary" roles—The English Patient, Schindler's List, Oscar and Lucinda, and now you are doing an adaptation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Do you actively seek these roles?
RALPH FIENNES: I don't actively seek them, no. I do feel slightly odd that so many of my roles have come from books, but I choose them because the scripts are good, or because they work as a film. I'd love to do more work that isn't based on books.
GREG BOTTOMS: What books have most influenced you?
RALPH FIENNES: All of Shakespeare's plays.
GREG BOTTOMS: Who are you reading now?
RALPH FIENNES: I'm reading several books at the moment. The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford; re-reading Birthday Letters, by Ted Hughes; and I've just finished a biography of Isaiah Berlin by Michael Ignatieff.
GREG BOTTOMS: What books would you most like to see made into films?
RALPH FIENNES: This is going to sound contradictory, but I think that there should be more original screenplays and fewer adaptations—even though I've been involved in so many adaptations.
GREG BOTTOMS: Has literature, the written word, played a part in your acting?
RALPH FIENNES: My mother loved words
and language, and certainly her love of language influenced me. I loved
the theater and Shakespeare, and I learned that words spoken in a dramatic
context could be extremely moving and powerful.