All going fine for Ralph
R *alph Fiennes * is flying high. No, he hasn't repeated the incident in 2007 in which he became the most famous member of the mile-high club.
Rather, the celebrated English actor is getting rave reviews for two current movies - playing the fussy, flamboyant concierge Gustave H. in *Wes Anderson *'s The Grand Budapest Hotel and donning a wig and whiskers to incarnate Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman, opening today.
What makes this touching love story about Dickens and his illicit relationship with a woman many decades his junior ( *Felicity Jones *) special is that Fiennes also directed the movie, his second time calling the shots after his stunning debut with Coriolanus in 2011.
Fiennes says he has worked with so many great directors throughout his career - among them *Steven Spielberg * in Schindler's List, *Fernando Meirelles * in The Constant Gardener and *Anthony Minghella * in The English Patient - it was natural for him to step behind the camera.
"I was particularly inspired by Anthony Minghella, who was the first director to include me in the process. That was the beginning of my curiosity about directing," Fiennes said over the phone from Melbourne yesterday where he was promoting The Invisible Woman.
"It takes a lot of courage for an actor to cross the line and direct a movie. People see you as one thing and it can take a lot of convincing for them to regard you as somebody capable of bringing a script to life."
While The Invisible Woman is very much in the realm we associate with Fiennes, his hilarious turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel reveals him to be a comic actor of the first order.
"What? My career is full of comedy! Come, come, come," laughed Fiennes, who said it was a thrill to be asked by Anderson for a role that may well earn him an Oscar nomination.
MARK NAGLAZAS
'It takes a
lot of courage for an actor to cross the line and direct a movie.'
