News | February 17 - November 27, 2007

November 27, 2007 (from RAF)

Ralph Fiennes Christmas message

Actor Ralph Fiennes took time out of filming this week to record a Christmas message for military personnel on operations all over the world. He was speaking during filming of The Duchess at Halton House Officer’s Mess. The film, a period drama, co-starring Keira Knightly will go on general release next year. Ralph said he felt immense pride and admiration for what our servicemen and women were achieving and wished them a very warm Christmas wherever they are serving.

Mrs Jeannie Beha, Halton’s Commercial Business Manager, who has assisted in arranging the film shoot, said: ‘Ralph was a complete gentleman when approached to record a Christmas message, he took time out of a very busy schedule to say how proud he was of our personnel all over the world, and wished them well.’

November 17, 2007 (from Times Online)

Lord Voldemort’s nephew has the villainous blood for film role

By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent

Ralph Fiennes’s nine-year-old nephew has landed a part in the next Harry Potter film – playing a younger version of Fiennes’s character.

Hero Fiennes Tiffin will join his uncle and cast regulars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in which he plays Lord Voldemort, the villain, as an 11-year-old. Frank Dillane, the 16-year-old son of the actor Stephen Dillane, will play the teenage Voldemort.

The announcement, made yesterday, will disappoint thousands who turned up for casting. It also comes days after thousands of teenage girls who auditioned for the role of Lavender Brown, who has eyes for Grint’s character, Ron Weasley, discovered that Jessie Cave, a 20-year-old professional actress, had won the part.

Cave, who is due to appear in the new CBBC drama Summerhill and will appear soon on the big screen opposite Dame Helen Mirren in the film Inkheart, is two years older than the age stipulated at the audition in July. Producers had held an open casting call for girls aged 15 to 18 at Earls Court, London, and said: “No acting experience necessary.”

A spokeswoman for the production told The Times: “With the roles of Lavender and the teenage Voldemort, the casting director had someone in mind but felt they should have one more look.”

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling has made Lord Voldemort a growing threat to both muggles and wizards, and Hogwarts is no longer the haven it once was. Potter suspects that the dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster, is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is approaching.

Leading actors joining the cast, making their Potter debuts, include the Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent, whose films include Iris and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, who will play Horace Slughorn, the Potions Professor, who gives Harry an old potions textbook that had once belonged to the Half-Blood Prince.

The award-winning actress Helen McCrory, recently seen in Becoming Jane and The Queen, will play Narcissa Malfoy, mother to Draco Malfoy and sister to the evil Bellatrix Lestrange.

They will be reunited with returning cast members including Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith.

Steve Kloves, who scripted the first four films in the franchise, is adapting the screenplay. David Yates, who directed this year’s summer blockbuster Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, returns, and the producer is David Heyman, who has produced all the Potter films.

Filming has begun at Leavesden Studios, Watford.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be released next year.

October 12, 2007 (from Whatsonstage.com)

Ralph Fiennes Plays God in Reza’s New Comedy

By Terri Paddock

Ahead of his Oedipus at the National next autumn, Ralph Fiennes will return to the West End in the new year to star in the UK premiere of The God of Carnage, the new comedy by French playwright Yasmina Reza which is due to start performances at the Gielgud Theatre on 7 March 2008.

Reza is best known for her multi award-winning three-hander Art which, during its eight-year West End run to January 2003, featured a series of high-profile casts including Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Ken Stott, Henry Goodman, David Haig, Richard Griffiths, Frank Skinner, Jack Dee and the League of Gentlemen. Reza’s other plays include Life x 3 and The Unexpected Man, both of which also had West End runs.

The London production of The God of Carnage reunites for the first time the team behind Art - translator Christopher Hampton, director Matthew Warchus and producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers (who are also busy preparing the Broadway transfer of Equus with Daniel Radcliffe). Speaking to the Daily Mail, Pugh said: “This is ten years after Art and for me, this is Yasmina at the top of her game again. It’s funnier than Art, although I couldn’t quite get my head around calling it The God of Carnage when it’s a comedy.”

In the new piece, Fiennes plays the lawyer father of a nine-year-old boy who has hit another child on the playground. The victim’s parents have invited Fiennes and his wife round to discuss the matter.

The comedy marks a change for the actor, who, particularly in terms of his stage work, is best known for serious drama and the classics. He was last seen on the London stage in 2004 leading a 100-strong cast in Deborah Warner’s epic staging of Julius Caesar at the Barbican. His other theatre credits include Brand, Coriolanus, Richard II and the so-called Hackney Hamlet, which transferred to Broadway, where he appeared last year in Faith Healer.

Fiennes’ many films include The Constant Gardener, The English Patient, Schindler’s List, The End of the Affair, Harry Potter, Quiz Show, Oscar and Lucinda and Strange Days.

Currently at the Gielgud Theatre, Rupert Goold’s acclaimed production of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood, finishes its limited ten weeks on 1 December 2007, and is followed by another Chichester Festival transfer, Jonathan Church and Philip Franks’ revival of the two-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which runs for 66 performances only from 8 December 2007 (previews from 5 December) to 27 January 2008.

September 26, 2007 (from The Hollywood Reporter)

Hamptons fest will host 17 world premieres

By Gregg Goldstein

The 15th annual Hamptons International Film Festival will host 50 features including 17 world premieres, beginning with the opening-night presentation of Bob Balaban's Doris Duke biopic "Bernard and Doris" starring Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes.

The event, which runs Oct. 17-21, will close with Kirsten Sheridan's musician drama "August Rush" starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard and Robin Williams.

Vanessa Redgrave will be honored with the annual Golden Starfish Award for Career Achievement in Acting and a talk with moderator Alec Baldwin sponsored by New Line/Picturehouse. Veteran director Sidney Lumet also will discuss his 50-year-plus career as part of the "A Conversation with ..." series.

The fest programming was led for the first time by five-year HIFF veteran Josh Koury and Newport International Film Festival special consultant David Nugent. Former artistic director Rajendra Roy was named Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film in May. The HIFF board is still on a search for an executive director to replace Denise Kassell, who left this year, to work alongside board chairman Stuart Match Suna and festival director Gianna Chachere.

This year's competitors for the Golden Starfish Narrative Competition are Will Geiger's morbid romance "Elvis and Anabelle," Chaz Thorne's black comedy "Just Buried," Tom Collins' friendship drama "Kings," Birgit Moller's German character study "Valerie" and actor Chris Eigeman's mother-son thriller "Turn the River" starring Famke Janssen. The jurors include Arianna Bocco, Elvis Mitchell and John Sloss, and the winner will receive over $185,000 in goods and in-kind services.

The Golden Starfish Documentary award will go to Marshall Fine's Rex Reed profile "Do You Sleep in the Nude?" Steven-Charles Jaffe's cartoonist sketch "Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird," Matthew Galkin's "I Am an Animal: This Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA," Bettina Blumner's German docudrama "Pool of Princesses" or Greg Whiteley's debating study "Resolved." Liz Ogilvie and Jamie Johnson will appear on the jury.

Several features with high-profile filmmakers will be shown in the Spotlight Films section. Albert Maysles' docu "Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway," Ellen Spiro & Phil Donahue's Iraq docu "Body of War," Alison Eastwood's "Rails and Ties," Tamara Jenkins' "The Savages," Andrew Wagner's "Starting Out in the Evening" and Paul Schrader's "The Walker" are among the featured films.

This year's Rising Stars program, connecting new acting talent with filmmakers, will include Hannah Herzsprung ("Four Minutes"), Blake Lively ("Elvis and Anabelle"), Egbert Jan Weeber ("Vivere") and Sundance Film Festival winner Jess Weixler ("Teeth").

The program 15 Years 15 Stories will offer anecdotes about the fest's history from Michael Lynne, Gary Winick and others. Other programs include Films of Conflict and Resolution, the Hallmark Channel-sponsored "Focus on Family Film Series" and Gray Matter films dedicated to the late Spalding Gray.

The fest will be held in East Hampton, N.Y., with additional venues in Southampton, Sag Harbor and Montauk.

September 6, 2007 (from Metro.co.uk)

Ralph to play Keira's Duke

Ralph Fiennes has been lined up to play Keira Knightley's husband in new period film The Duchess.

Set in the 18th century, the movie tells the tragic story of fashion icon and mother Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and will begin shooting in London on September 23.

It also stars Dominic Cooper as The Duchess' lover Earl Grey and Hayley Atwell as her best friend Lady Elizabeth Foster, who shares a threesome with the Duke and Duchess.

A spokesman for Pathe Productions, who is working alongside BBC Films on the production, said: "The Duchess is a very contemporary tale of fame, notoriety and the search for love.

"Although the story unfolds at the end of the 18th century, the passionate tale of Georgiana bears uncanny parallels with that of her descendant, Diana, Princess of Wales.

"Beautiful and adored by the public, Georgiana was the most fascinating woman of the age. But her extravagant tastes and appetite for gambling and love made her infamous."

The Line Of Beauty director Saul Dibb will be overseeing the flick from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher which is based on the best-selling historical biography, Georgiana, Duchess Of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman.

August 24, 2007 (from Daily Mail)

Romping Regency love triangle as Hayley Atwell joins the people's Duchess

By BAZ BAMIGBOYE

Keira Knightley and Hayley Atwell will soon be sharing a Regency bed with Ralph Fiennes.

Keira and Ralph will portray 18th-century power couple the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire in The Duchess, which starts filming later in the autumn. Hayley will play the Duchess's closest friend Bess, Lady Elizabeth Foster, who later became even closer to the powerful Duke.

According to historian Amanda Foreman, whose bestselling book Georgiana, Duchess Of Devonshire, is the main source material for director Saul Dibbs's film, Bess and the Devonshires lived in a menage a trois for 25 years.

At one point, both women were with child by the Duke - and both produced daughters.

Georgiana was a popular figure and there are those who now perceive her as the 'people's Duchess', a sort of Princess Diana of her day. So you won't be surprised to learn that she was, in fact, Diana's greatgreat-great-great aunt.

Director Dibbs and producer Gaby Tana have also signed up Dominic Cooper to play one of Georgiana's lovers, and on Wednesday night some of the actors gathered at the Wolseley restaurant opposite the Ritz Hotel in London for a bonding session.

Fiennes will play the Duke in between shooting Stephen Daldry's latest picture The Reader, with Nicole Kidman.

Hayley has just completed playing Julia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited and will go to the Venice Film Festival next week for the launch of Woody Allen's film Cassandra's Dream.

Keira will also be in Venice, where Joe Wright's movie Atonement — the best film of the year so far - opens the festival.

August 18, 2007 (from The Hollywood Reporter)

Kidman, Fiennes paged for 'Reader'

Nicole Kidman and Ralph Fiennes have signed on to star in the Weinstein Co.'s "The Reader," directed by Stephen Daldry. The film will reteam Kidman and Daldry, who worked together on "The Hours," which netted Kidman a best actress Oscar.

Based on Bernhard Schlink's international best-selling novel, the story is set in postwar Germany and centers on Michael Berg, who is 15 years old when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns much about her, and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But to his horror, he discovers that she is a defendant in a Nazi war crimes trial, and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime.

David Hare, who adapted the Oscar-nominated screenplay for "The Hours," penned "The Reader."

Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack are producing the long-gestating project, which originally was set up at Miramax, alongside "The Hours" producer Scott Rudin. Shooting is scheduled to begin next month in Germany.

Kidman, who appears onscreen in the thriller "The Invasion," next stars in "Margot at the Wedding," "The Golden Compass" and "Australia." She is repped by CAA and attorney Alan Wertheimer.


Fiennes, who most recently played Lord Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," has been nominated for two Academy Awards for his roles in "Schindler's List" and Minghella's "The English Patient." He is repped by CAA, Simon Beresford in the U.K. and attorney Mike Adler.

July 17, 2007 (from ComingSoon.net)

Renner, Mackie & Geraghty Join Hurt Locker

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are toplining The Hurt Locker, an Iraq War drama from director Kathryn Bigelow. Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce also have cameos in the film, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Written by Mark Boal and inspired by true events and recently declassified information, "Locker" follows an elite Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal team in present-day Baghdad that fights an onslaught of bombs and snipers.

Renner will play the leader of the team, while Mackie and Geraghty are members of it. Fiennes is a mercenary; Pearce is another member.

Bigelow, Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro are producing. The film is a Voltage Pictures/First Light/Kingsgate Films production.

Filming is scheduled to begin next week in Jordan and Kuwait.

March 13, 2007 (from Production Weekly)

Perfect combination for ‘Locker’

Charlize Theron, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Willem Dafoe are attached to topline the Iraq-set action drama “The Hurt Locker”. Kathryn Bigelow is directing from a screenplay she co-wrote with war reporter Mark Boal, who recently co-wrote the story for Paul Haggis’ “In The Valley Of Elah,” starring Theron. “Hurt Locker,” follows the exploits of an elite bomb disposal unit. Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb. Principal photography is scheduled for later this spring. Farrell and Fiennes are co-staring in Martin McDonagh’s “In Bruges,” currently filming in Belgium.

February 17, 2007 (from News.com.au)

Air hostess a 'sexual aggressor'

By Fiona Hudson

Actor Ralph Fiennes considers himself to have been the victim of a sexual aggressor in an alleged mile-high sex scandal.

Yesterday, the media-shy film star's personal publicist angrily broke a week-long silence from the Fiennes camp to tell the actor's side of an increasingly sordid story.

Media manager Sara Keene declared flight attendant Lisa Robertson had instigated the incident in a toilet cubicle of a Qantas flight between Darwin and Mumbai.

"She initiated the encounter," Ms Keene said, in the first confirmation from the Fiennes camp that an incident did occur.

"This woman seduced him on a plane. She was the sexual aggressor.

"Yet she said in her official statement (to Qantas) that he had initiated it... and virtually accused him of forcing himself upon her."

Asked if this meant Fiennes considered himself blameless, his PR manager reverted to her standard line: "I never comment on his personal life. I wouldn't comment on his actions."

Ms Keene also refused to either confirm or deny allegations that a relationship between Fiennes, 44, and Ms Robertson, 38, had continued once the plane touched down.

Asked if Fiennes could have turned down an apparent offer to join Ms Robertson in the toilet cubicle, Ms Keene said: "Of course he could have said no.

"The point I am making is that she initiated it. He didn't force himself upon her."

As fall-out from the incident continued, Fiennes held early-morning crisis talks with his London-based publicist from his hotel room in Bruges, where he is shooting a film with Hollywood bad boy Colin Farrell.

Ms Keene – who represents other celebrity clients including Jude Law and Kate Winslet – said Fiennes should not be expected to make any comment in defence of the honour of Ms Robertson.

And he should feel no guilt if Ms Robertson was sacked by Qantas or had to resign, she said.

Ms Keene said the flight attendant had changed her version of events at least twice, and had sold versions of her story to the highest bidder while Fiennes had kept a dignified silence.

"If you paid all the money in the world, it wouldn't buy him," Ms Keene said of her client.

"There's not enough money in the world that will make him respond in person.

"He never has, and he's never going to. The story is over now, as far as we are concerned."

The actor spent the evening standing in a picturesque market square in Bruges watching mate Farrell and a female co-star kiss for the cameras.

A relaxed Fiennes smiled broadly as the director offered Farrell, a notorious ladies' man, and his co-star hints on how to smooch better.

Ms Keen said she was personally angry at the way Ms Robertson had acted.

"I'm glad she's telling the truth at last. They are my words, not Ralph's," she said.

Ms Keen said she expected Sunday papers in Britain to carry further damaging claims from Ms Robertson against the star of The English Patient.

In all her years representing Fiennes – including two particularly dramatic break-ups – Ms Keene has rarely unleashed such a vigorous defence of the star.

Until now, her public statements since the incident hit the media spotlight have been restricted to a curt "No comment".

Fiennes refused to comment when approached yesterday.

February 17, 2007 (from The West Australian)

Seduced by Qantas hostie, Fiennes says

Actor Ralph Fiennes says he was seduced by an Australian stewardess during an alleged steamy, mid-flight bathroom encounter.

Ending his week of silence on the scandal, the Oscar nominee has spoken out about his liaison with Qantas flight attendant Lisa Robertson.

"She initiated the encounter," his media manager Sara Keene told News Ltd newspapers.

"This woman seduced him on a plane. She was the sexual aggressor.

"Yet she said in her official statement (to Qantas) that he had initiated it ... and virtually accused him of forcing himself upon her.

"The point I am making is that she initiated it. He didn't force himself upon her."

Ms Robertson told friends the pair had unprotected sex in a bathroom on a plane as it flew from Darwin to Mumbai, according to reports in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper this week.

During the nine-hour flight, the pair sat together on the crew jump seat, which is used for staff breaks, and chatted.

Ms Robertson said there was a lot of "body language" between them.

"I just stood up, reached down for his hand and told him to follow me," she reportedly said.

"We went into the toilet and locked the door and off came much of our clothes."

Once in India, Fiennes apparently called 38-year-old Ms Robertson on her mobile phone and they met at a hotel, where they again had sex, this time safely, according to the paper.

Qantas has suspended Ms Robertson, who has sold her story to an Australian women's magazine, while it investigates the matter.

Ms Keene said Fiennes, who is currently in Bruges working on a new film, intended to keep a dignified silence about the matter.

"If you paid all the money in the world, it wouldn't buy him," she said.

"There's not enough money in the world that will make him respond in person.

"He never has, and he's never going to. The story is over now as far as we are concerned."