PARKINSON SHOW
21 January 2000
The following is a partial transcript of an interview that was given by
Ralph Fiennes to Michael Parkinson and his Chat Show in the United Kingdom.
I have chosen to print the parts that were pertinent to Jennifer Lash.
MICHAEL PARKINSON: Another film of yours that I saw, that's doing the rounds at present, is Onegin, which is directed by your sister, Martha, and the music's by Magnus, and reading about you, you were an extraordinary family, weren't you, the Fiennes, bound together by this remarkable mother of yours, I mean, she had a profound influence on all of her children.
RALPH FIENNES: She was, well, she loved us all unconditionally, as did my father, but she -- one of the things she believed very much was that every child should be given room and encouragement to express themselves in whatever way that child - whether it was maths, or science, or tree doctoring or musician or whatever, she would say "Go on, do it, try it," and, um, and I think that has given us all a sort of confidence, I suppose. And also, my foster brother Mick who came to our family when he was 11, he had been to various homes and my mother and father took him on and I think he was someone who was lost. He hadn't had any real love at all, up until the age of 11. And I think the advertisement said, "Boy who wants to read books" and my mother said, "All right, we're going to have him." And he, outside of my immediate brothers and sisters is someone who had the full force of her attention and love and guidance, so I think we all -- that has helped us, I suppose.
MICHAEL PARKINSON: In a sense now I suppose, that whatever you do in life after such a powerful influence you do it for that person.
RALPH FIENNES: For my mother --
MICHAEL PARKINSON: Is there a sense of approval --
RALPH FIENNES: Not for approval, no. I mean, I don't think any of us think that not a day goes by when we don't wish she could see what we're doing or participate in some way, and I suppose you tell yourself well, she's somewhere there [smiles] but she was - she could meet someone and within five minutes she could say "That person's got a problem - it's XYZ" or "I love that person because they - for this reason." She was very very sharp about people, and when you're an adolescent and you're in that sort of emergent phase, when you're sort of hiding little things, you know, a girl you're attracted to or a boy who bullied you, or -- and she would always pick up on it. She'd say, "What's wrong? Are you okay?" Even on the phone, if you were ringing up, if you had a problem, or if you maybe had something good to say and you didn't want to say it directly, she would just intuit that there was something else that you had to talk about.
MICHAEL PARKINSON: Did she live to see your success?
RALPH FIENNES: She was very ill, but she did get to see the screening of Schindler's List.
MICHAEL PARKINSON: She died of breast cancer, was it just after -
RALPH FIENNES:
Yeah. End of 93.