Spanish collector card by Accion. Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show (Robert Redford, 1994).
British postcard by Boomerang Media. Photo: Buena Vista International / Miramax. Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996).
Closely connected to the stage
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1962. He is the eldest of six children of photographer and illustrator Mark Fiennes and writer Jennifer Lash. The marriage also produced Magnus (composer and music producer), twins Joseph Fiennes (also an actor) and Jacob Mark (forester), as well as daughters Martha Maria (director) and Sophia Victoria (documentary film director).
His artistic talent was noticed at an early age by his mother, who encouraged him and his siblings intensively. After leaving school, Ralph Fiennes initially studied fine art at the Chelsea School of Art, but switched to acting after a year. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1988. Fiennes remains closely connected to the stage to this day. Even after his international breakthrough, he continued to appear on stage on numerous occasions.
In 1995, Fiennes made his Broadway debut playing Prince Hamlet in the revival of 'Hamlet', for which he won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play. In spring 2006, he played Frank Hardy in Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer' at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The successful production moved to Broadway in New York in the summer. He was Tony-nominated for his role as a travelling faith healer.
In 2011, he played Prospero in William Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In 2016, he played the title role in Shakespeare's 'Richard III' at the Almeida Theatre in London, where he had previously played 'Hamlet' (1995), 'Richard II' (2000) and 'Coriolanus' (2010).
Ralph Fiennes met English actress Alex Kingston when they were both studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After a ten-year relationship, they married in 1993 and divorced in 1997, following Fiennes' relationship with actress Francesca Annis. They met in 1995, during the production of 'Hamlet' in which Annis, who is eighteen years his senior, played Hamlet's mother. In 2006, this relationship ended due to Fiennes's affair with the Romanian singer Cornelia Crișan. In 2007, Fiennes had sex with a Qantas flight attendant on a flight from Darwin to Mumbai. After initial denials, it was established that they had sex in the plane's lavatory, and the flight attendant's employment was terminated by Qantas. The incident was referenced in the Australian sketch TV show Comedy Inc. Fiennes has been a national ambassador for UNICEF since 1999.
Dutch postcard by Boomerang School Cards. Photo: UIP / Universal. Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis in Strange Days (Kathryn Bigelow, 1995).
German postcard by Edgar Medien. Photo: Vox. Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes in The Avengers (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1998). Caption: Uns sendet die Queen.
Harry Potter's arch-enemy, the new M and a flirty and eccentric concierge
Ralph Fiennes made his screen debut in a small role in two episodes of the TV mini-series Prime Suspect (Christopher Menaul, 1991) starring Helen Mirren. Then he starred as T. E. Lawrence in the British television film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (Christopher Menaul, 1992). Fiennes made his film debut as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (Peter Kosminsky, 1992), opposite Juliette Binoche. He had a major role in Peter Greenaway's historical drama The Baby of Mâcon (1993) with Julia Ormond, which provoked controversy and was poorly received.
He gained international fame for his role as Amon Göth, the commander of the Płaszów concentration camp, in the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993). Fiennes was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and won the BAFTA Award in this category. In 1994, he portrayed the American academic Charles Van Doren in Robert Redford's drama Quiz Show, opposite John Turturro and Paul Scofield. His second Oscar nomination followed in 1997, this time in the Best Actor category, for his role as Count Laszlo Almasy in the World War II epic romance The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996), in which he starred with Kristin Scott Thomas.
In 1998, he played John Steed in the remake of The Avengers (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1998) alongside Sean Connery and Uma Thurman. However, the film was not a success at the box office and was nominated for nine Razzies at the 19th Golden Raspberry Awards. Again, Fiennes did not win the award. From the fourth instalment of the Harry Potter film series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005), onwards, Fiennes took on the role of the evil Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter's arch-enemy, in the Harry Potter films (2005-2011). He played the protagonist in The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008), adapted from the novel of the same name, alongside Kate Winslet, and co-starred in The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008), which was his third Best Picture Oscar-winning film.
In 2011, Fiennes made his feature film debut as a director with Coriolanus (2011), a modern interpretation of William Shakespeare's play, in which he also played the title character, opposite Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave. Two years later, he directed his second film, The Invisible Woman (2013), about the affair between Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan, which lasted for thirteen years until he died in 1870. In 2012, Fiennes played former secret agent Gareth Mallory in the James Bond film Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) starring Daniel Craig. In the course of the film, Mallory became the new ‘M’, taking over the position of Judi Dench's character. He reprised the role in Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015) and No Time to Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021). Fiennes was the narrator in numerous audiobook productions and a voice actor in animated films such as The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells, 1998) and the stop-motion animated film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box, Nick Park, 2005).
Ralph Fiennes made quite an impression with his farcical turn as a flirty and eccentric concierge, Monsieur Gustave, in The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014), which won the Silver Bear at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival. He starred as a music producer in Luca Guadagnino's thriller A Bigger Splash (2015) alongside Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts, and played the fictional Laurence Laurentz, an acclaimed European film director, in Joel and Ethan Coen's comedy Hail, Caesar! (2016), which is set in 1950s Hollywood. In 2018, his third directorial effort, Nureyev – The White Crow, was released, based on a biography of the dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Fiennes himself took on the role of ballet master Alexander Pushkin. Fiennes starred alongside Carey Mulligan and Lily James in the British drama The Dig (Simon Stone, 2021), playing the Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown. The film received positive reviews, with critics praising his performance. Last year, he received his third Oscar nomination for his leading role in the political thriller Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024). He played Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who organises a conclave to elect the next pope and finds himself investigating secrets and scandals about the major candidates. This year, Ralph Fiennes starred in 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025), the third film in the series, which is set in a post-apocalyptic Britain.
Chinese postcard. Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in The Dig (Simon Stone, 2021).
Swiss poster card. Poster: Collection Movie Art. American poster for The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014).
Sources: Gustaf Molin and Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
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