Ralph Fiennes laments loss of leading ladies

LONDON, England (UPI) -- British actor Ralph Fiennes is keenly aware that most of his leading ladies don`t make it to the end of his films.

Juliette Binoche`s character died in "Emily Bronte`s Wuthering Heights," Kristen Scott Thomas perished in "The English Patient" and Julianne Moore expired in "The End of the Affair."

In Fiennes` upcoming romantic thriller -- based on John LeCarre`s novel, "The Constant Gardener" -- Rachel Weisz plays the handsome thespian`s doomed bride.

Asked about his attraction to ill-fated romances, Fiennes told United Press International: "Jennifer Lopez made it to the end of `Maid in Manhattan.` She wasn`t going anywhere."

The Oscar-nominated star of "Schindler`s List," who will be seen this fall playing villain Voldemort in the fourth Harry Potter film, added: "I don`t only want to play tragic love stories. The Merchant-Ivory film I just did (`The White Countess`) is a love story and both partners get through to the end -- intact -- together."

New Book and Exhibition - 100 Portraits to celebrate the RADA Centenary

As a special commission Cambridge Jones http://www.cambridgejones.com has spent the centenary year photographing all the best known faces who trained at RADA. Everyone from Lord Attenborough and Kenneth Branagh to Joan Collins and Sir Roger Moore.

This has never been done before and the intention, when Nicholas Barter and Cambridge Jones first sat down to discuss the possibility of the project, was to show the public just how much of the talent they see and hear everyday came from one single institution: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

The portraits will be exhibited at The Getty Images Gallery, Eastcastle Street in Summer 2005. (Getty Show opens August 10th). The Observer and BBC2 are covering the project.

An accompanying book of the photographs will be published in August 2005. This will have an essay by Miranda Sawyer to accompany the portraits and an introduction by Lord Attenborough. Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing.

RADA are offering a limited number of advance copies of the book, signed by Cambridge Jones at a 15% discount (Thus reduced to £17) if you purchase them and pick them up from RADA itself. Please email admin@cambridgejones if you would like one reserved for you.

Ralph Fiennes poses during a photo call held on March 22nd, 2005 at the Rehearsal Studios for Julius Caesar, London

© Cambridge Jones/Getty Images

Fiennes Irish butler in Duke film?

Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes are in final talks to star in 'Doris and Bernard', a film about tobacco heiress Doris Duke and her Irish butler Bernard Lafferty.

Duke, who died in 1993, named Lafferty, who died some years later, as the executor of her estate, a decision which led to a legal battle.

Variety reports that the film will be directed by actor turned director Bob Balaban.

Shooting is due to begin in New York in October.

Ralph Fiennes: Devil's Advocate

Age: 42. Mustworthiness: Give him a character who's intellectually cold and morally cloudy, and Ralph Fiennes will make him smolder and blaze. With The Constant Gardener - adapted from the John LeCare novel by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) - the two-time Oscar nominee (Schindler's List,The English Patient) delivers a buzzed-about performance as a British diplomat investigating his wife's murder.

Known for tightly wound men on the verge of implosion, Fiennes gets to uncork in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as the most mythic villain in contemporary fiction, Lord Voldemort (Sorry Darth). Immoral Fixation: So how does one play the incarnation of evil? "Good Question," says Fiennes, laughing. "My inclination was to underplay it, but you can't underplay Voldemort. He is evil. What I wanted was a you-never-know-what-he'll-do-next quality. My nephews and nieces visited the set - they were quite taken aback. Probably because I was bald."

On His Must List: "Sofia Coppola, I loved Lost in Translation, I'd love to work with her. Worst Job: Selling shirts during his struggling-actor years. "I would take this sack of shirts into offices and pitch them to working people who had no real need for shirts. It was soul-killing. Worse, I was terrible at it. There was another actor doing the same thing. He sold 20; I sold one."

Next: After The Constant Gardener (Aug. 26) and Harry Potter (Nov. 18), Fiennes has three other projects in the can, including the Merchant Ivory Drama, The White Countess.

Potter and Rings stars up for Narnia replacement

By Adam Kane, Wizard News Entertainment Editor

According to Narnia Web it was announced at the Biola Media Conference this weekend that Brian Cox, who was also in Troy with Orlando Bloom, is no longer doing the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which is currently in post-production. Apparently he has lost some weight and his voice has changed.

Also according to the report, Jason Isaacs, who was Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Sean Bean, Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Sir Ian McKellen, Gandalf in Rings, and Ralph Fiennes, who plays Lord Voldemort in the upcoming movie Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire, have all auditioned for the part, but no choice has yet been made.

Sala Baker, who was the Orc Leader and the Mouth of Sauron in Lord of the Rings, and Dawn French, who is the Fat Lady in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, also appear in the Narnia movie.

McKay's 'Norma' Attracts Fiennes

By Stuart Kemp

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - Ralph Fiennes is set to star in Malcolm McKay's "Who Killed Norma Barnes."

The film's producers said Friday (April 15) that Fiennes will star alongside Emily Mortimer in the movie, which is billed as a dark tale of sexual obsession based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot." The cast also will include Emily Blunt.

Scheduled to shoot in the fall, "Norma" marks the feature debut of writer-director McKay, whose television credits include the adaptation of Mervyn Peake's sprawling gothic trilogy "Gormenghast" for the BBC.

McKay, who has known Fiennes for more than 10 years, since the actor's days at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, said in an interview that Fiennes is "totally committed to the project."

Budgeted at $5.6 million, the film is being produced by U.K. indie television and film production banner Company Pictures.

Ralph shows he's in Fiennes fettle

Movie star Ralph Fiennes is going into thespian overdrive.

As you know from this column, he's about to open at the Barbican in Julius Caesar- and I've been whispering that he might do Brian Friel's Faith Healer. Now I can confirm that he will star with Ian McDiarmid in a production of Friel's play at the Gate in Dublin, directed by Jonathan Kent.

Mr Fiennes had also hoped to do Hamlet, but scheduling problems meant that project had to be put on hold for a year or two.

Kent and McDiarmid did a version of Faith Healer four years ago (McDiarmid was brilliant). After playing Dublin in the New Year the play will go to Broadway next spring. Meanwhile Ralph has several movies coming out in the next 12 months.

Of course, he plays Lord Voldermort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and he's also in Merchant Ivory's The White Countess, but I must say I'm looking forward to seeing him in Fernando Meirelles's movie of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener - it has a very high buzz quotient.

(thanks to Fiennes Forum for sharing this with us)

Coetzee's Disgrace to Be Filmed

By Biénne Huisman, Johannesburg

OSCAR-nominated British actor Ralph Fiennes is set to star in the big-screen adaptation of Disgrace, by South African author JM Coetzee.

Fiennes, who won critical acclaim for his role in The English Patient, will play the central character in the book, a Cape Town professor involved in a disastrous love affair with a student.

Disgrace won the prestigious Booker Prize in 1999 and Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

The movie, which will be filmed in South Africa, will be directed by Australians Steve Jacobs and Anna-Maria Monticelli. The two have teamed up before, most notably in La Spagnola, a 2001 art-house black comedy about volatile family relations.

"I have always loved this novel and am a great admirer of Coetzee's work," Monticelli told the Sunday Times this week, adding that Coetzee had given the project his blessing.

Cape Town-born Coetzee emigrated to Australia in 2002 and lives in Adelaide where he holds an honorary position at the University of Adelaide.

"We believe Ralph will be wonderful in the role," said Monticelli. The rest of the cast has not yet been finalised and the filmmakers will visit Cape Town in the near future to discuss the project with South African film companies and authorities.

Fiennes will portray twice-divorced Cape Town academic David Lurie, a professor of literature who retreats to his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape after an affair with a student shatters the fixed routine of his life.

While the countryside seems to be a healing environment, Lurie soon becomes entangled in a disturbing web of post-apartheid politics.

Certain academics believe that the love affair in Coetzee's book was based on an incident that played itself out at the University of Cape Town where Coetzee was a professor in the English department.

The enigma that is Coetzee has neither confirmed nor denied this.

His agents in London, David Higham Associates, confirmed the movie deal but declined to elaborate.

The reclusive novelist also won the Booker Prize in 1983 for his novel Life & Times of Michael K.

Meanwhile, Fiennes is due to appear on cinema screens shortly as the wicked Lord Voldemort in the fourth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Beale & Rhys Confirm for Fiennes & Julius Caesar

By Terri Paddock

As previously tipped, Simon Russell Beale and Paul Rhys will join Ralph Fiennes for Deborah Warner’s staging of Julius Caesar, with John Shrapnel taking the title role. The epic production, which will feature a cast of 30 and 100 extras, will play from 20 April to 14 May 2004 (previews from 14 April) at the Barbican Theatre prior to a European tour to Paris, Madrid and Luxembourg.

Beale, who plays Cassius, is well known to theatregoers for his many National Theatre credits include Humble Boy, Jumpers, Money, Summerfolk, Hamlet, Candide, Volpone and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as well as numerous seasons at the RSC. In 2002, he starred in Sam Mendes' farewell double bill of Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse, winning a hat trick of Best Actor awards in London before transferring to New York. He opened last night, taking the title role in the Almeida’s new production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Rhys, who plays Brutus, has starred on stage in The Invention of Love, Hamlet, King Lear, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Design for Living and, most recently, the Complicite-NT co-production of Measure for Measure. On screen, he’s been seen in Love Lies Bleeding, Nina Takes a Lover, Chaplin, Vincent and Theo, I Saw You, Anna Karenina, Dance to the Music of Time and The Healer. Shrapnel’s recent film credits include Troy, Gladiator, Notting Hill and K-19.

The cast also features Anthony Mark Barrow, David Glover, Jim Hooper, Alex McIntosh, Tim Potter, Paul Shearer, Struan Rodger and John Rogan. The production is designed by Tom Pye, with lighting by Jean Kalman, music by Mel Mercier and sound by Christopher Shutt.

Commenting on Julius Caesar in a press statement, director Deborah Warner said: “We are living in extraordinary times - human, natural and political. This is a play for those times. I'm looking forward to working on it with this remarkable group of actors.”

The new Shakespeare production follows last year’s success with The Black Rider, starring Marianne Faithfull, as only the second show produced by the Barbican itself. It’s co-produced with Theatre National du Chaillot, Paris, Teatro Espanol, Madrid and Grand Theatre de la Ville, Luxembourg, in association with the Young Vic Theatre Company.

Irish-American Exchange Has LaBute, Friel Works Set for Ireland; McPherson NY-Bound

By Ernio Hernandez

American scribe Neil LaBute will debut Wrecks in Ireland alongside Irish pen Brian Friel's The Home Place, while Dublin native Conor McPherson's Shining City is heading stateside, according to Variety.

LaBute — whose bash and The Shape of Things have been performed in Ireland — will stage his own new solo Wrecks at the Everyman Palace Theatre located in southern Ireland's Cork. The work will appear as part of the European Capital of Culture 2005 program in the fall.

Friel — whose Dancing at Lughnasa was the Tony Award Best Play winner in 1992 — premieres his first full-length drama in eight years, according to the trade magazine. Adrian Noble will direct The Home Place at Dublin's Gate Theatre, starting Feb. 1. The venue will also see a revival of Friel's Faith Healer starring Ralph Fiennes, either later this year or early 2006.

Variety also purports that The Gate is in negotiations to bring Irish playwright McPherson's latest work to New York in 2005. The play, Shining City, has played to positive critical response in London and Dublin last year with the author directing.

LaBute has enjoyed the extension of his recent Off-Broadway work, Fat Pig, and will next see the debut of his This Is How It Goes at The Public Theater, March 8-April 10. He also contributed one-acts to the recent inaugural Tribeca Theatre Festival and the upcoming MCC Theatre benefit.

Ralph Fiennes in Disgrace Adaptation

Ralph Fiennes will play the lead in the feature adaptation of 1999 Booker Prize winning novel Disgrace, written by JM Coetzee, reports Production Weekly.

Steve Jacobs will direct the politically charged story that will be filmed in South Africa, where it is set.

Fiennes will play a twice-divorced academic in Cape Town who retreats to his daughter's farm in response to the fall out from an impulsive affair with a student.

Film star brothers mourn father

HOLLYWOOD stars Ralph and Joseph Fiennes are mourning the sudden death of their father, who collapsed at his Suffolk home yesterday morning.

It is believed the two famous brothers have now broken-off from filming commitments to travel to their family home in Clare – where their father Mark and his second wife, Caroline, have lived for the past six years.

Mr Fiennes, 70, an acclaimed photographer, collapsed and died at his luxury five-bedroom house in Nethergate Street early yesterday morning.

Ralph Fiennes, 41, is currently shooting the new Harry Potter film, The Goblet of Fire, in which he plays Lord Voldemort. Joseph Fiennes, 34, has also been away filming for his latest role.

The brothers have become two of the best-known British actors of recent years after starring in number of award-winning films.

They are the sons of Mr Fiennes and his first wife, the novelist Jennifer Lash, who died in 1993. The couple had four other children; Magnus, a renowned music composer; Jacob, Joseph's twin, who is a Norfolk gamekeeper; Martha, a film director and Sophie, a producer.

Yesterday, Mrs Fiennes, a flower decorator, was too upset to talk about the sudden death of her husband, but tributes were paid to him from the local community.

The couple married in 1996 and moved to Clare around six years ago – swiftly becoming popular members of the community.

Pammy Pashler, who has been the couple's cleaner ever since they arrived in Clare, said: “Mark was one of the nicest people I have ever met, he would do anything for anyone.

“I feel so sorry for Caroline because she is a lovely woman and they were a very happy couple. Although they obviously had a lot of success in the family they were not affected at all, they were very down to earth and very involved in the local community.

“I have seen the boys and all the other children on numerous occasions and they are all such nice people. They are a very close family.

“Mark's death has come as such a shock, he had shown no signs of illness and was very fit. He would go on his treadmill everyday.

“I will miss Mark very much, he was a lovely man who thought the world of his wife and his children. The family is expecting all the children to arrive soon.”

After moving to Clare, Mr Fiennes, who is also a cousin of the famous explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, became a prominent figure in the community.

He was the secretary of the local preservation group, the Clare Society, and a keen supporter of the Stop Stansted Expansion campaign.

Anna Moore, chairman of the Clare Society, said: “Mark was a larger than life character and was very well-known and popular in Clare.

“He worked so hard and really embraced his role as secretary for the group because he loved Clare so much. He immersed himself in working to ensue Clare kept is historical and commercial essence.”