When Shakespeare In Love star Joseph Fiennes began work as a dresser at the National Theatre, thanks to older brother Ralph, it was far from being a breath of fresh air. "It was pretty unglamorous picking up smelly pants and socks for egos every night. But if you can do a job like that behind the scenes, I think it's a great grounding."

Today Joseph Fiennes is thankful for that grounding as he is being swept into the Hollywood stratosphere.

Since the young actor played Cate Blanchett's seducer in the sumptuous Elizabeth, a buzz has been building about his imminent seduction of the film-watching population, particularly women. Last month, Cosmopolitan magazine perfectly captured the tone of the hype, saying of Fiennes' latest film, Shakespeare In Love: "If Shakespeare's not your thing, go see Ralph Fiennes's bro, Joe, who's worth throwing yourself off a balcony for."

When Fiennes sits down for a personal chat, it become clear that he has no sense of the impact he has on people. He is embarrassed to hear about the fawning staff outside, and tries desperately to deflect question about the reasons for his growing popularity with women. "Often we project our own ideas, our own fantasies (on to the characters onscreen), and that's the brilliant thing of film of theatre, I think, to escape from the rat-race and be entertained," he reasons. "It's a moment in which we can project our wants, or needs, our neuroses or whatever, on to someone else. So I'm aware that people's responses are obviously now for me, they're for the piece."

Sure. Fiennes is either too modest for this world or a little obtuse.

In the Tom Stoppard-penned film, Fiennes plays Will Shakespeare, a playwright with writer's block who is being pushed by his comically Machiavellian producer, Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), to churn out commercially viable swashbuckling adventure stories. "Comedy, love and a bit with a dog -- that's what they want," urges Henslowe, who orders up a play entitled Romeo And Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter.

Henslowe's plans are dashed, however, when Will falls for Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow), a young woman of higher class. He gate-crashes her father's party, climbs up on the trellis outside her bedroom balcony, and the idea for Romeo and Juliet is born. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Shakespeare, Viola dons a man's disguise and insinuates her way into the theatrical troupe, winning the role of Romeo.

The 28-year-old Fiennes makes a dashing romantic lead. He jousts athletically in a leather jacket, seduces with sonnets, wears a cool hoop earring in his left ear and loses his heart to a girl dressed like a boy. He is, in fact, the ideal '90's hero -- masculine yet sensitive. And Fiennes plays him with an ardour that calls to mind Cary Elwes's Wesley in The Princess Bride or John Cusack's tortured idealistic playwright in Bullets Over Broadway.

Fiennes smoulders -- and has a habit of writing half-naked, shirt undone and cheeks flushed with ardour. No suspension of disbelief is required when he tells Viola: "For one kiss, I will defy a thousand Wessexes (rivals)."

Sitting in the hotel suite, however, there's very little that is ardent about Fiennes. He may wear a pale pink dress shirt and a fashionable Paul Smith black, box check suit that bespeaks confidence, but his mannerisms are tentative and self-conscious. He speaks delicately, landing softly on the consonants as though a little frightened of them. His eyes, which flash darkly in Shakespeare, look as though they might tear up if he wear to hear something unkind. Everything about him seems poised for a fight -- although he's over 180cm tall, he sits hunched over, as if to avoid notice.

Fiennes possesses the intense magnetism of the extremely shy. That shyness might be an asset onstage, but it may not help when Fiennes is forced to confront the demands of the global public relations machine.

Of all people, he should know the personal costs of fame, after watching his 35-year-old brother Ralph (Schindler's List, The English Patient) marry, divorce, and take up with a famously older actress, Francesca Annis, 53 -- all in the white heat of the British tabloid press.

Yet Joseph thinks he'll be able to keep the world at by going home at the end of every day and locking the door. Simple as that. He has no idea of the schemes already being attached by publicists and journalists eager to generate good copy.

Fiennes repeatedly state that he and his brother get along fine and that he loves and has great respect for Ralph. In fact, he seems to get along fine with all five of his siblings: Sophie produces films, Martha directs them, Magnus is a composer. Only Jacob, Joseph's twin, brother, has a regular pay cheque. He's a game keeper.

Blame the Fiennes parents for their artistic inclinations. Their mother, Jennifer Lash, was a novelist (she died of cancer in 1993); their father, Mark, is a landscape photographer, whose profession kept the family moving around. Joseph Fiennes calculates that the family moved 14 times in as many years -- dislocations which instilled in him both creativity, a willingness to embrace change and a scrappy independence.

It's easy to understand Joseph's reticence about his famous older brother. He's just a young man trying to avoid the inevitable, nasty suggestion that he's riding on Ralph's coattails. It's true, his brother did once help him get him that job as a dresser at the National Theatre. That position, Joe now says, was uniquely valuable in helping dispel any notions he had of the theatre as a romantic profession.

Since then, he's made his own way. Acting is one profession in which -- Baldwin brothers to the contrary -- nepotism will carry an actor only so far. That's as far as opening night, to be precise, after which fate and reviewers take over.

Critics were only too happy to proclaim the discovery of a breakthrough talent when Joseph Fiennes hit the boards in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995. The London Sunday Telegraph pronounced him "one of the most promising young actors around." And The Guardian's Lyn Gardner, after admitting she was smitten with Fiennes, declared: "He is good. Seriously good. Even better than Ralph, say many in the know. On stage, Ralph is all cool, cerebral charisma. Joseph is all hesitant emotional warmth."

With notices like that, it was only a short few months before Fiennes had film work. His movie roles so far are instructive for the differences they illustrate between theatre and film. Where Fiennes's theatrical roles turned on his ability to inhabit a variety of tortured, dark roles, his film work has exploited his lighter touch, his way with women and, well, his pretty face.

After a few lined in Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (1996), Fiennes landed a part in the British romantic comedy Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. He followed that with the part of the "Virgin Queen's" lover, Lord Robert Dudley in Elizabeth, opposite Cate Blanchett -- who had just come off the drama, Oscar and Lucinda, with brother Ralph.

Apparently, he hadn't had his fill of wearing Elizabethan doublets and hose.

Another one by Simon Houpt
Can you spot the differences (and the mistakes)?

Putting on a Fiennes performance

The Sunday Times, March 7, 1999
By Simon Houpt