Skyview
February 2000
By Garth Pearce

Joseph Fiennes has emerged from his brother's shadow to become a hugely successful actor. Garth Pearce meets the man in the tights, as "Shakespeare in Love" comes to Sky Box Office - First TV showing

He may have looked full of confidence and passion, but Joseph Fiennes admits that he was terrified when it came to getting Gwyneth Paltrow into bed. The naked sex scene in Shakespeare in Love was her first, and Fiennes was wilting at the thought of his William Shakespeare enjoying a night of illicit lust.

"It looks great, doesn't it?" he says of the famous scene. "But I was thinking: 'Oh no, here we go again.' I had supposedly taken the virginity of the Virgin Queen herself (played by Cate Blanchett) in the film Elizabeth, and here I was again, getting out of my doublet and hose, deflowering another beautiful virgin. Truth be told, it's some of the most difficult acting I've done. In front of the camera, with lights, sound engineers and a film crew, it's unbelievably tense and unsexy."

Where there's a Will...

But the result of Fiennes' efforts is a magnificent film which deservedly won seven Oscars last March, and such scenes have helped the 29-year-old actor establish himself as the hot new romantic lead of his generation.

Shakespeare in Love focuses on a fictional affair between the Bard and high-bred Viola De Lesseps (Paltrow) as he suffers writer's block while working on Romeo and Juliet in 1593. The script, written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, is a mixture of authenticity and invention. At its heart is the supposition that Shakespeare was a highly talented but flawed man, desperate to make a living from his work.

There are twists, surprises and some great characters: Queen Elizabeth (Dame Judi Dench) sans teeth, white mask cruelly cracked; playwright Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett) advising Shakespeare on his writing technique before being stabbed to death in a tavern house brawl; John Webster (Joe Roberts), a notoriously bloodthirsty playwright who penned The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, being introduced as a boy who likes to torture mice; and theatre manager Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) as a 16th-century wheeler dealer, ducking and diving from debtors as he strives to land a hit play.

While creating art, comedy and romance on screen, surrounded by a formidable cast of Brits including Colin Firth, Antony Sher, Simon Callow, Martin Clunes and Imelda Staunton, Fiennes had other things on his mind. "I felt a right prat in tights," he recalls. "Try walking through a pub packed with electricians and carpenters, and hear all the remarks. If you can survive that, you can survive anything."

The play's the thing

Fiennes, however, doesn't seem to suffer from the sensitivity his older brother Ralph is famous for. There are no long and rather awkward silences while he searches for the right phrase, as if he fears to see it in print. His brooding eyes are direct and challenging. And he's only too aware of his reputation with women, both on and off screen.

He recently split with his actress girlfriend of seven years, Sara Griffiths, to go on an exotic Caribbean holiday with Catherine McCormack, who played Mel Gibson's tragic bride in the Oscar-winning Braveheart. But now that romance seems to be over, too, with a statement from his agent that it has "run its course".

"I do prefer an actress girlfriend", he says. "It's wonderful for me to be with someone who understands what we suffer. I know every job has its problems, but acting seems to be about constant rejection. It has helped that I've seen Ralph go through some lean and difficult times, and I know there is no guarantee of anything. To have someone to share the insecurities is great."

A shaky start

Childhood for Fiennes and his six siblings was unpredictable, as they moved constantly with their photographer father Mark and late mother Jini, from Suffolk to the West Country and Ireland.

"We, as a family, had a brilliant but crazy upbringing," he says. "I fell down badly with all the changes of schools and different styles of lessons." He left school at 16 to attend art college, but headed for London a year later to work in youth theatre and backstage at the National Theatre. "This gave me a more accurate picture of what acting is all about. It made me realise that there's not much glamour and a lot of hard, sweaty work."

The years since then have been far from smooth. He got himself into the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for three years on the strength of an acting grant. It paid half the fees, and he also won sponsorship from a variety of companies, after writing more than 100 begging letters.

Avon calling

Fiennes has mixed memories of William Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon after two seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in plays like As You Like It and Troilus And Cressida. "There is too much emphasis on speciality works, depending on GCSE [GCSE stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education - exams you do before leaving school] syllabuses," he says. "The passion is all about putting bums on seats rather than a director really wanting to do a piece."

Besides, at the time, he was also broke. "There were times when I was actually losing money," he recalls. "I had the rent on my London flat and was being charged by the RSC another £120 a week for their little house in Stratford. My weekly wage came to less than the total of the two rents."

In retrospect, there were also some ironies. "A lot of tourists would knock on my door and ask if William Shakespeare had lived there, because I was in Chapel Lane, near The Swan," he says.

"I would be sleeping in after a night's performance and be woken by the opentopped tour bus which would stop near the cottage - and hear the same speech again and again. It was a strange part of my life - wonderful sometimes, awful at others."

"By the time I was offered the role in Shakespeare in Love, I knew quite a lot of the limited history which is available on the man himself. On issues of religion, sex and politics, he will always be a mystery.

"So I had to think, 'He's a young guy called Will, wanting to make a packet, get his name in lights, secure the rent and make sure his family is looked after. He was also my age when he wrote Romeo And Juliet, so I have a feeling for his emotions at the time."

Hitting the big time

Fiennes's breakthrough came with the release of Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel And Laurence in the summer of 1998, following a small part in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (1996). And hot on the heels of his performance in Elizabeth as the Queen's lover Robert Dudley (1998), Shakespeare in Love has established him as a Hollywood favourite. Although he was not an Oscar contender - it proved a winner for both Gwyneth Paltrow as Best Actress and Judi Dench as Best Supporting Actress - the film has earned Fiennes plenty of rich offers and much respect.

For now, though, he's opted for a more low-key approach. "I'm happy in England and like working here," he says.

Fiennes can be seen this year in a new British film, Rancid Aluminium, playing a mysterious accountant to Rhys Ifans' harassed businessman. He has also just started filming in Germany with fellow bright young Brits Jude Law and Rachel Weisz, in a film about the siege of Stalingrad called Enemy at the Gates.

"There are no codpieces, no tights and no love scenes," he reports. "It is, for the moment, a welcome relief."

To see or not to see...

Shakespeare in Love
Wednesday, February 9 - Tuesday, February 29, 2000, Sky Box Office
For times and details of how to book see pages 44-47
Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence
Saturday, Feb. 19, 2000, 8 pm, Film Four