Bard in Belgrade

Why would Oscar-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes want to direct and star in a violent film of one of Shakespeare's least popular plays? "Because I am perverse," he tells DONALD CLARKE 

YOU WOULDN'T exactly say that Ralph Fiennes lights up the room. Still impressively thin, possessed of sharp features, he speaks in a voice whose volume never increases above a gentle burble. His head remains slightly hung. This Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes is a cautious man. There has, of course, been the odd scandal over the past few decades.

His marriage to Francesca Annis dissolved messily in 2006. Various other unsavoury rumours have bubbled over the intervening years. But Fiennes need not be so cautious. Few actors of his generation are quite so admired. Since 1993, when he broke ground with Schindler's List,he has excelled in such pictures as The English Patient, The End of the Affair, The Readerand In Bruges. But despite his two distinguished decades in the business, popular newspapers will often now refer to him as " Harry-Potter-actor Ralph Fiennes". That's what happens when you take on the role of He Who Must Not Be Named (Lord Voldemort to you and me.)

"Well it is not ideal to be branded," he says. "And I suppose people do recognise me a bit more since Harry Potter. But I do look different. Unlike Voldemort, I have a nose."

If all goes well, Fiennes will soon be referred to as "the Coriolanusbloke". The actor directs and stars in a very impressive, nicely violent version of Shakespeare's problematic tragedy. Relating the adventures of a stubbornly independent, proudly brash soldier-politician - a more violent Gordon Brown, perhaps - it relocates the action from ancient Rome to a disturbed version of Belgrade.

Why Coriolanusof all things? Fiennes did appear in a production of the play. Then again, he's appeared in a great many Shakespeare productions.

"Because I am perverse," he says. "I wanted to do the one nobody else likes. I was in it and fell in love with it. He is in a mode of anger throughout. He won't let anybody in. But, if you strip the story down, you are left with a very strong narrative: civil unrest, banishment, elections. Every producer I pitched it to got the story immediately."

He explains that the Balkan setting was an accident. The film-makers were looking for a convenient, cheap location and Belgrade ended up just nudging ahead of Bucharest. The parallels between the Coriolanusstory - nested in civil war - and events in the former Yugoslavia evolved almost by chance.

"Yes, it was almost accidental," he says. "It could be the Balkans. But it's not exactly set in Belgrade during the 1990s. Not exactly."

The film confirms something we already suspected. Fiennes is a clever class of bloke. How many other film-makers would have thought to cast Gerard Butler (successfully, as it happens) as the shouty Aufidius? Mind you, Fiennes comes from intelligent artistic stock. Jennifer Lash, his mother, was a distinguished writer. His father, Mark Fiennes, worked as a respected photographer and illustrator. When Ralph, born in Ipswich, was just 10, the family decided to move to West Cork. This interlude now sounds just a tad Quixotic.

"My father built a house near Bantry. But we couldn't make it work. He thought he might develop property sites. He bought two or three properties, but people were already there doing that before he arrived. That was a wonderful dream. But there was no reality."

I assume he had a Bohemian class of upbringing. Tattered books of philosophy lying between sleeping cats; poetry recitals in the bathroom; long discussions about Baudelaire: that sort of thing.

"People have called it that," he says warily. "But I'm not sure I'd say that. There was a lot of moving about. We moved to Kilkenny shortly after that." After time spent at Newtown School, originally a Quaker establishment in Waterford, Fiennes moved with his family to Wiltshire. He originally fancied himself as a painter and, following A-Levels, did a foundation course at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. Somewhere in that year, the acting virus lodged in his metabolism.

"The freedom of the course opened me up," he says. "People challenging me to think differently gave me confidence. I had acted in school. I had some talent. But I was told: 'don't be an actor'. Then I saw an amateur youth group do a production and felt that calling. I knew it was stronger than the fine art thing." He says he was told not to become an actor but I can't imagine his parents would have discouraged him from acting. His brother Joseph is, of course, also a movie star. His sisters make films. Another brother is a composer. Creativity pulses through the family tree.

"They would never have said: 'Get a proper job,'" he agrees. "They were an enormous inspiration. My mother sensed that I felt something strongly. I got a lot more complaints when I said I wanted to be in the army. I visited a barracks and when I said it was not for me she was very relieved."

The move to acting worked out pretty nicely for him. After leaving the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he found work at the Open Air Theatre at Regents Park, the National Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare Comedy. By the time Spielberg cast him in Schindler's Listhe had established a reputation for guarded intensity. But the role of Amon Goeth, savage Nazi concentration camp commandant, propelled him into another league. It still seems astonishing that Tommy Lee Jones (for The Fugitiveof all things) beat him to the Oscar for best supporting actor.

"There are people whose way through life is to find an object of hate," he says of Goeth. "That is how they define themselves. Hitler accessed a lot of people that way. Historians would say that terrifying anti-Semitism was latent. From what I read of him he was always ripe material."

Does playing Goeth feel like a completely different job to inhabiting Lord Voldemort?

"Yes it does," he says. "Voldemort is something very different. He is a creature." Next up, Fiennes will play Magwitch, the escaped convict who terrorises young Pip Pirrip, in a film of Great Expectationsfeaturing Helena Bonham Carter as Ms Havisham.

With all this going on, Ralph hasn't had a chance to spend much time at his home in a trendy quarter of East London.

"I am not at home that much," he says. "I also have a place in New York. I feel I would like to be based there." What does he get up to when alone? "I don't really have spare time. I read a lot. It sounds boring. I mean I don't have a h- h- hobby." The last word comes out in a faintly horrified stutter. A hobby? A hobby? Relax, Ralph. I wasn't accusing you of taking up golf.

He laughs at that. Not a lot. But he definitely laughs.