Joseph Fiennes
Joseph Fiennes
Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennesis an English film and stage actor known for his portrayals of William Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love, for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, Sir Robert Dudley in Elizabeth, Commisar Danilov in Enemy at the Gates, and Monsignor Timothy Howard in the second season of the TV series American Horror Story...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth27 May 1970
I'd like to be a passion fruit. Not because it's passionate, but because someone I know is mad about them and has got me onto them.
So there was a sense that we were always quite interchangeable.
I love life. I'm fascinated by human behavior because that feeds back into my work.
I read as much as I could, but really just spoke to Chris Chibnall and asked all the pertinent questions. That made me feel like we weren't going to do an off-the-peg Camelot, which has been touched upon in many films and TV series before. I really just picked his brain and, in doing so, I got fired up by tackling Merlin in a fresher angle.
'How do you balance the creative with the biblical?' One could pick up the scripture and read it to oneself and you would be communing directly with that information. As soon as you go into film, as soon as there's a camera, and there's an angle, and there's lighting, and there's editing, you're into the adaptation.
There are a few remarkable directors who have a great creative streak and then simply go on streaking ... Today we have another remarkable director in our midst.
Yes, in a way. Film is a by-product of my love of theatre. Theatre is for me the greater challenge. In many ways it requires more skill.
When I was offered the part in ShakespeareIn Love a voice in my head said 'not another tights role!