USA Today - Fiennes enacts Shakespeare at every opportunity

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Fiennes enacts Shakespeare at every opportunity
Ralph Fiennes is well rid of Lord Voldemort, the embodiment of evil who was Harry Potter's archnemesis.


He's not haunted at all by the nose-challenged troublemaker now that the boy wizard's film franchise has come to an end.

"I think he's been put to sleep," Fiennes, 48, says with a resigned sigh while attending the film festival here.

Instead, the soft-spoken though mellifluous British actor — who has often gone to the dark side in such roles as the sadistic Nazi commander in 1993's Schindler's List and as a fiery Hades in last year's Clash of the Titans— is consumed by an even more complex literary creation, both behind and in front of the camera.

The Shakespeare specialist, whose stage résumé ranges from Romeo to Marc Anthony (and whose beard was grown to play Prospero in a London run of The Tempest this fall), takes the director's reins for the first time and stars in the title role in the just-opened Coriolanus.

"It's a bit mad," he says of his double duty while shooting one of the Bard's later tragedies on location in Belgrade, Serbia. "But I couldn't let go of it."

Luckily, Fiennes was able to recruit some formidable talent to back him: Vanessa Redgrave, who is already the recipient of Oscar talk as the general's strong-willed mother, Volumnia; Gerard Butler as foe-turned-ally Aufidias; and Jessica Chastain as gentle wife Virgilia.

Instead of a soliloquy-stuffed rendition of the Roman military genius whose downfall is his haughty refusal to act the part of a political leader, the actor has turned the battle-heavy piece into a stripped-down contemporary action thriller.

"I always thought the story was modern," he says, "particularly now with all these upheavals in the world and dramatic shifts in relationship to authority and the people's right to power, to speak and have a voice." Adding to the current-day feel is the use of TV news updates and cellphones to further the plot.

'Challenged by characters'

After spending five months as Coriolanus in a 2000 theater production, "I had an obsession with the part. I liked this compacted man with a sort of gross integrity, which is intolerable. He's proud, he's arrogant, but he is a soldier, and he has a soldier's disdain for civilians."

Fiennes, whose ferocious warrior ends up being banished from his own city, has no problem with inhabiting such a prickly man. "I'm very impatient with this notion of whether someone is likable. I like being challenged by characters who are difficult and outrageous, and then be reeled into their life and who they are."

Still, that lack of likability might be one reason why Coriolanus, never one of Shakespeare's most popular works, hasn't had a big-screen treatment before. "I think people are nervous about the confrontational qualities of the play," he says. "Everyone is moving and shaking and maneuvering. There is no love center in it, except Virgilia, who is deliberately made to be silent."

While rallying his own troops on set, Fiennes tried to follow the example of his Schindler's List director, Steven Spielberg. "I was blown away by the momentum that he kept up, and people love that. They love that sense of 'You achieve, you finish and you move on.' There is nothing more un-energizing than the sort of painfully slow process of shooting the scene and the director being rather slow and meticulous. I knew I just needed to move fast."

He made a fan out of Butler, who led the charge as the Spartan king in the 2007 war epic 300.

"Ralph was incredibly supportive," says the Scottish actor. "I was entering a world I'm not used to, diving into a Shakespearean movie with semi-classical language. His excitement for my performance helped. He was specific and layered in what he wanted."

Mano a mano

Their soldiers, who harbor a conflicted man-crush for each other, also engage in some highly physical face-offs.

"Ralph put me to the test," especially during a knife fight, Butler says. "It was two of the most intense days of just grappling with one another. I wanted to bite his tongue, rip his tonsils out and eat his spleen. The rolling around was almost sexual as well, with a mix of hatred and respect."

Despite all the anxiety and worry involved in directing, Fiennes reveled in calling the shots. "I really loved it."

But for now, he is concentrating on acting. Coming up: a role in the James Bond adventure Skyfall, a return as Hades in a Clash sequel and a stab at the criminal Magwitch in a film based on Dickens' Great Expectations.

But making his way through Shakespeare's canon remains a priority. "I'm hungry to do three or four more roles in the next 10 years," he says.

Unlike Harry Potter, the wizard of Avon is forever.