Listen to the interview in real audio here

With many, many thanks to Beth

Terry Gross:
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Brothers Ralph and Joseph Fiennes have each starred in Academy Award-winning films. Ralph played a Nazi in "Schindler's List" and was the romantic lead in "The English Patient". Joseph Fiennes played Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love". While both are reluctant to talk to interviewers about their lives they're using their star power to call attention to the final book written by their mother, Jini, who died of breast cancer in 1993 at the age of 55. I spoke to Ralph and Joseph Fiennes and their sister, Sophie, a documentary film maker. Their mother's final novel, Blood Ties, is published under her pen name, Jennifer Lash. I asked Ralph Fiennes to tell us what it's about.

Ralph Fiennes:
Violet Farr is Irish. She is married to her husband, the ineffectual Cecil, a repressed homosexual and in a moment of joyless union they conceive a son who is called Lumsden. But they are unable to show him any kind of love. He becomes a ne'er-do-well and fathers himself an illegitimate child, Spencer. And when this severely traumatized boy is dumped on Violet, his grandmother, he then becomes the focus for all the despair and disappointment that her son has loaded upon her.

TG:
In the novel the mother, Violet, considers her son dishonest, sexually deviant, a parasite, and a liar. And she thinks that he was cursed the night that she gave birth to him. Ralph Fiennes can I ask you to read an excerpt from your mother's book? And the scene I've chosen is a scene in which the son, the son who she is so repelled by...

RF:
Lumsden.

TG:
Yeah. Lumsden awakens from a dream, and he's dreaming about a stag -- I just mentioned that because there's a reference to a stag in the reading - and he finds his mother at the foot of his bed staring at him. Could you read the scene for us?
(Ralph proceeds to read a part about Lumsden and Violet and their encounter in Lumsden's room.)

TG:
That's Ralph Fiennes reading a passage from his late mother's last novel, Blood Ties. Well here's a question to Ralph and Joe Fiennes. Was it odd for you to read your mother's novel about such a really disastrous mother/son relationship?

Joseph Fiennes:
Um...no. We obviously had an extraordinary, compassionate upbringing and, um, we were stimulated constantly by, um, a creative environment. And maybe it wasn't so much so for my mother. I think she was brought up in a different environment and a possibly lack of expression and love towards the children in her family, and that may be, I don't know informs the book, um.......

RF:
Nothing about this relationship that I've just read is a reflection on our relationship, Sophie, or Joseph, or Martha, or Jacob, or our adopted brother Mick. We were loved intensely by my mother and our father. This... this relationship that I've read to you is much more, I think, inspired by, um, not anything specifically in her life, but you must know that her own childhood was very unhappy. Violet is not my mother's mother. Not for a second. And nothing in this book is veiled autobiography, but she was very astute, my mother, at observing parent/child dysfunctional or mutual rejection, dysfunctional relationships.

TG:
I'm wondering when your mother was sick and she was, I think, diagnosed with cancer in '86, and died in '93, if there was times when she was sick and you really wanted to be with her, but you were torn between commitments to films and being with your mother. I think there are times for a lot of people when it's very difficult to figure out just in the course of a long distance how much time you can spend at home and how much time you must spend.......

RF:
Well you see, there are three of us in the studio now, and there are actually 6 children, 7 if you include our adopted brother Mick, which we do include, and she definitely considered him as one of her 7 children. Um, and there was a huge support system for my mother when she was diagnosed as having cancer. Sophie maybe you could talk a bit about it?

Sophie Fiennes:
Yea, I mean, I think that Jini was a woman who was fascinated by being a mother, and she was compelled to be a mother, and she took it on board in a very full on way. But she was also, she had a very strong spiritual dimension to her, and in fact when she was diagnosed terminally ill she actually chose to spend a lot of by herself and I think that was a very important choice that she made. And we all had to respect that which was actually quite difficult, but at the same time we knew that she was making a very conscious choice and the pilgrimage is actually an extension of that kind of search that she felt she had to make for herself, within herself, that was sort of beyond even the love and compassion and support of the family. And I think that that's something that is possibly an interesting choice that she made.

TG:
The pilgrimage you refer to is a pilgrimage that she took toward the end of her life. It was a religious pilgrimage. She had been a Catholic but said that she no longer really practiced. What do you think that she was looking for on this pilgrimage? And she did write a non-fiction book about the pilgrimage before she died.

SF:
Yeah, she wrote a travel book because she decided when she was ill to make a pilgrimage because really she was fascinated by ancient places where people would be, had gone for centuries and she was fascinated by religion and belief. And she was really a magpie for these things and she had a strong, she had an excitement about the idea of faith and the idea of what she would refer to as an illuminous deity and she really went in a search to find her own relationship to that. And I think there's something that comes through very strongly in both books which is her connection to nature and the practicality of life and the naturalness of that sort of practical aspect. So traveling and being on route and being in the process of a journey is in a sense a metaphor for the whole phenomenon of life itself. So she really enjoyed that and I think the book has a lot of humor in it. She comes through very strongly in On Pilgrimage, personally herself.

TG:
Did your mother have her demons, too, and did you know about them when you were growing up?

JF:
Yes. Yes, we did. (laughter from all three.)

TG:
What were they and how did they manifest themselves?

SF:
She was certified an incurable hysteric three times before she was 22. Really because she was just very emotional as a child and also she came from, this was in a period when mental health was regarded very differently to how it is regarded now. And she definitely was a highly emotional......

RF:
She was quite volatile, and, you know, she could fly off the handle unexpectedly....

TG:
Was she ever institutionalized?

RF:
Only when she, briefly, when she...at this time Sophie's talking about, but I mean, no.

TG:
Uh-huh.

JF:
When she was in her twenties.

RF:
But only, like, one or two nights, or something.

SF:
Yeah.

TG:
It must have been confusing as children to have a mother who was so mercurial and who's mood could change suddenly.

RF:
Yes, but it was like a surface thing because it never...it never was a fundamental, um, it wasn't.....we could witness one of her mood changes and know that it might be uncomfortable, and sometimes even hurtful, but it didn't actually touch on the fundamental love for us.

JF:
She was very articulate to all the children about these demons because it was the conflict of bringing up the children, um, and allowing them, and making us understand and participate in the kind of, the stress of bringing up a family and trying to write books and paint and fulfill ones own artistic aspirations. So I think she was articulate and I felt that we were very much aware of the pressure that she was under, and the silence that she needed amongst seven children.

TG:
My guests are actor's Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, and their sister, documentary film maker, Sophie Fiennes. We'll talk more after a break. This is Fresh Air.

(commercial break)

TG:
My guests are Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, and their sister, documentary film maker, Sophie Fiennes. Their promoting the final novel by their mother, Jini, which has just been posthumously published in the US. It's called Blood Ties. Your mother was a writer, and an amateur painter. Your father was a photographer. I'm wondering if there......

JF:
Is still.

TG:
IS still a photographer, good. I'm wondering if their work made it easier for you, Ralph and Joe, and you, Sophie as a film maker, to imagine yourselves going into the Arts. You know, becoming performers or film makers. I think it's SUCH a leap for some people who don't grow up in families or neighborhoods in which there are artists to imagine becoming one themselves.

RF:
Well I think we were very lucky that my mother was passionate about words, literature, ideas, the imagination, and she and my father, also talked to us, discussion, and conversation was encouraged. It wasn't even a self-conscious thing, it just was there, because my mother loved to talk about ideas, and discuss books, ideas of films, plays, pieces of music, and she, I remember, she would always come back from an event, if we were too young to have seen a certain film or gone to a certain concert, she would come back and say, "We saw the most wonderful concert last night. The composer was such-and-such. Or we saw an amazing play last night and it was this kind of play and the story is this." And I think we all were on the receiving end of this enthusiasm. So, in that sense it, I suppose, it may be....to choose to follow a career in, what I suppose, we have to call the Arts, um, didn't seem a big step for us because of the nature of the environment that Jini gave us.

TG:
Did you get to see much in the way of theatre or movies when you were growing up?

RF:
YES! Yes. I think, um, I can remember being taken to see Lawrence Olivier's Henry VI when I was about 5.

(laughter from all with Sophie being the loudest)

TG:
What did you make of it at the age of 5?

RF:
I loved the music by Sir William Walton. I loved the battle scenes.

TG: Uh-huh.

(Joe laughs)

RF:
It was a great film. I mean it, it's got such great cinematic energy that, I think, that an alert 5 year old can respond to it. It's such a brilliant piece of film-making. It's a proof that Shakespeare needn't be the stuff of A-level exams. It's alive. It's story-telling. It's visual.

TG:
What else made a big impression on you as kids?

SF:
Well, now I was just thinking of the, I remember being taken to Waiting For Godot when I was 9. Because she was a passionate Samuel Beckett fan.

TG:
Another children's favorite. (laughing)

(Joe laughs.)

SF:
Yeah, exactly. I love Lucky. I thought Lucky was a brilliant character.

JF:
It is. It's great vaudeville. It's wonderful. Broad comedy.

SF:
So, um, yeah....no, I think, definitely her enthusiasm for, um, for creative work was something that was very inspiring for us to be a part of. And it definitely conveyed....

TG:
With seven kids in the house did you get into a "Let's Put On a Show" type of thing?

SF:
Well, I'll, uh....I'm going to interject here because I remember as a, sort of, 5 year old being subjected to a 7-hour long performance of...

JF:
No interval!

SF:
Of a Pollocks theatre production...

RF:
It's a toy theatre.

SF:
Which is a toy theatre, like a sort of proscenium stage, that was produced, directed, and EVERY single part played by Ralph. And I think there was Treasure Island, and, what was the other one?....The Corsican Twins, was it?...

RF:
The Corsican Brothers, Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella.....

JF:
You mustn't get him on to this....(laughter)....really, you should move on very swiftly.....

SF:
It was a brilliant theatre, because what he'd done was, he'd made little footlights in tiny matchboxes. So, there were actually footlights at the bottom of the theatre, and the cut out characters, um, which were on, attached to little wire, um, poles that got moved in and out in front of the proscenium. It was, it was brilliant....

RF:
I've still got it. I'm doing a show next week.

(laughter)

TG:
How long is it going to be?

SF:
Would you like to come on the road...

RF:
Eight, eight hours.

JF:
You see, he's not really plugging Blood Ties.

TG:
Joe, you uh, you have a twin brother. Is he an identical or a fraternal twin?

JF:
Fraternal. Um, very, very different. Um, uh....he's a bit taller, blue eyes, blonde hair.

(laughter from the siblings)

TG:
Why's everybody laughing?

JF:
Describing his, uh....he's sort of the Aryan-looking one. Um, yeah....Jake went in a very different way and moved into wildlife......was compelled and, um...fascinated by wildlife at an early age.

RF:
Tell the story of Adam and Eve.

JF:
Well there was....(laughs).....I think as twins, um, uh, there was....it wasn't too bad for us (laughs)....oh God, okay....um, we were labeled as the twins although encouraged very much to be individual. But obviously when you're young and together, and paired off at school, you are constantly fighting for, to find your individualism. I remember a time in Ireland, when we had moved there at the age of 4, I think we were camping with my mother and father, and, um, Jini told us, it was an early, wonderful, beautiful, misty morning, and Jini told Jake and I to go and wash in the stream. It didn't really appeal to 4/5 year olds, um, too much. And so she, in order to invoke us to do this she said we should play out the roles of Adam and Eve, and we took the bait, and thought this was rather glorious and wonderful, so we ran off bounding down through the, down the meadow to the stream, but only moments later there was a God almighty row, and a terrible fight broke out, and it seemed that there was some confusion, or an issue rather with the casting because neither of us wanted to play Eve. And, I guess that was the first moment in our lives when we discovered how to fight for our individualism.

TG:
And for the best parts.

JF:
Absolutely. I think I should've taken up the challenge really. It might've opened up my range at an early age.

RF:
There's still time.

TG:
So, who were you finally?

JF:
Aah....well, I'm now going to try and pursue any roles...female roles like Eve.

TG:
Well, this could've been good preparation for SiL when, you know, all the women's parts went to men, yeah, I think that's what your mother had in mind.

JF:
It's a great British tradition....cross-dressing.

TG:
That's right. Well, Joseph Fiennes did get to cross-dress for a scene in SiL in which his character, William Shakespeare, decides to accompany his lover, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, to a gathering without the knowledge of her fiance, played by Colin Firth.

(Then you hear the scene where Wessex comes to escort Viola, and Will comes out as the "country cousin".)

TG:
We'll be back with more from the Fiennes after a break.

(commercial break)

TG:
My guests are actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, and their sister, documentary film maker, Sophie Fiennes. Ralph you were the first in the family to get into film. It sounds like you knew pretty young that you wanted to be in the actor?

RF:
Well, a mother who loved theatre, loved performance, and had herself, talked to us about having seen the likes of ?????, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Richard Burton, on stage, and the passion ?? that she discussed, or told me the memories of seeing these actors, I really listened. It really excited me. And I know that wanting to be an actor was definitely rooted in her shared passion for the theatre.

TG:
Ralph, can I ask what her reaction was when you told her that you were going to play a Nazi in Schindler's List and work with Spielberg?

RF:
She read the script and she thought that it was a brilliant script and that the character I was about to play was a tragic character really, um, uh, I think she thought that Steve Zaiillian's writing of this part was particularly rounded and perceptive, and sad, actually....so I think that, she was, her reaction was that it was, that the script over all was, was brilliant and that the part was a wonderful opportunity for any actor.

TG:
Why don't I play a scene from Schindler's List. This is a scene in which, um, Ralph Fiennes, you know, as a Nazi is speaking to a young, attractive Jewish woman to whom he realizes he is very attracted, and he starts speaking to her in a way that is surprising considering he's a Nazi.

(Then you hear the scene in Schindler's List when Amon Goeth is in the cellar - the maid's room - and talks about wanting to touch her.)

TG:
That's Ralph Fiennes from Schindler's List, and after that comparatively sensitive moment he blames the young Jewish woman for trying to seduce him because he's so horrified that he's attracted to a Jew, he's so upset by the thought of it that just as he's about to tenderly touch her he instead erupts into a fit of anger and starts violently beating her up. Did your mother have any reaction to seeing that scene or to seeing this kind of..... to see you play such a really violent and unempathetic personality?

RF:
Well, I can't remember exactly what she said. She was very ill at that time and she had to be taken in a wheelchair to the screening. And she found it very hard to speak because the breath, her lungs were very badly affected by the cancer. So, I can only remember her just being full of praise, and being very effected actually by the whole film, as so many people were. Um, I think that's what's interesting in Blood Ties....

TG:
This is her novel.

RF:
Yeah. In Blood Ties, what she understands is that violence in somebody, somebody can behave, there is the potential for....for....I use the word warily, but there is the potential for redemption, and in the character of Spencer the reader meets a young boy totally rejected, almost from the moment of his birth, who could be very violent, and she never.....you know, he's definitely....he cuts off, he cuts off from people. He doesn't communicate. He becomes isolated and detached. You know, all his feelings are dead, but what is, what ex....I find moving about the book, you are led, the reader is led into understanding how this all came about. And.....and also then witnessing the potential for....for someone to change. And I want just to read you the very beginning of (On) Pilgrimage....because she touches on this in the first two paragraphs. It starts off.....it's not long......

(Then he reads that lovely "poor cancer" part about it being a constellation.)

TG:
In the studio now we have three members of the Fiennes family, all here to speak on their late mother's behalf, and I'm wondering if her sickness brought you closer together, or perhaps you were already very close.

JF:
Already very close, I think, um.......

SF:
Yeah, we're very close in age and, of course, it brings, I think, it did bring us together in a way, in a particular way, I think.

TG:
Uh huh. Well I want to thank you all very much for speaking with us about your mother. Appreciate it.

RF:
Thank you.

JF:
You're welcome.

SF:
Thank you.

RF:
Thank you very much.

TG:
Ralph, Joseph, and Sophie Fiennes. Their mother's final novel is called Blood Ties. It's published under her pen name, Jennifer Lash.