Top 67 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph Fiennes
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British actor Joseph Fiennes.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
I have two sisters that are directors: one's in documentary, one's in film. My mother was a writer and a painter, so I've been surrounded since childhood by dynamic women and female voices in arts.
I love life. I'm fascinated by human behavior because that feeds back into my work.
I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.
I love to read profiles about people, but I'm interested in their processes. I only ever do them for newspapers that I love.
What I don't find compelling is doing classical plays that everyone already knows - and people are following with the text in their hand because no one is listening.
But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in 'The Dukes of Hazzard?' I mean, hello?
I want my daughters to live in a world where there is equality and parity of pay.
Doubt is crucial, I think, in every character I have ever played.
Give me a sword fight any day.
I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can't really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it's my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world.
I love new writing, new blood, modern works by unknown writers.
You know what? Joy is the only guide. I'm going to have fun regardless.
I think 'The Handmaid's Tale' always had that power since it was written over 30 years ago. This extraordinary piece of feminist literature had its fan base then, but TV has given it an enormous reach.
I may seem to have worn a lot of tights in films, but actually, those are just the films that have been most visible or worked best. I have worn jeans a lot, too, but those ones haven't tended to work so well.
There is a bit of me if I'm pushed in one way I might bounce back and go the opposite.
I was thrust, excitingly, via 'Elizabeth' and 'Shakespeare in Love,' into a position one can only dream of, but it was startling, too. I was offered a multitude of roles riding horses in flouncy shirts, and I just thought, 'Hang on, I've just done that. What next?'
If you want to make idols accessible - which I think Shakespeare should be - then you have to bring a human touch, make it self-effacing and warm.
It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don't like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.
I love travelling. I love cultures.
I think everything I do is my early work. I can't wait to get on to the later stuff.
I guess, as an actor, you have to bring something personal to the character - you've got to identify and love one element of the character, or else you can't really inhabit and find ownership.
The great thing about films is that you have access to this whole world of experts who teach you the skills your character's supposed to have.
People call my family a dynasty, but I'm not sure what a dynasty actually is. And I don't feel part of one. It belies the truth of my real upbringing, which wasn't grand at all, and it flies in the face of the fact that, at root, I'm just a jobbing actor.
From the age of about five to twelve I was very bad, a hideous little terror who beat people up. I was a member of the Rough Gang - we went around and terrorized all the pupils in school.
What I love about my work is that I'm forced to look through my character's eyes.
I think everyone around me played a part in raising me; there isn't one individual I could pick out - it was more a case of it taking the whole village to raise the child.
At home, our parents never compared us. I mean, there were seven of us kids. Obviously, I always looked up to my brother and his work, and I have nothing but utter respect. But I never felt we were in competition.
There is more meat and mileage in complex characters, like 'Running with Scissors.'
I was baptised a Catholic and, although I'm not a churchgoer now, I do have a strong sense of the integrity of doing what you believe to be true.
When you wake up, and you see that America has pulled out of the climate deal in Paris, that sends huge messages about putting coal before the planet.
Working backstage as a teenager made me realise there's not much glamour in this profession - just lots of hard work. That's a good thing to learn early on.
Film is not as exhilarating, not as physically, mentally, or spiritually challenging, as theatre.
I like language, and in film, language is diluted by the visuals and the music. Theatre is what I was trained for.
There are always going to be times when it doesn't flow as much as you were hoping. So of course I'm going to fail. And when I do fail I hope I fail better and better, again and again. I am happy to fail.
I am a twin, but my brother and I aren't identical, so it's not such a big deal. But when you share bunk beds and birthdays and a womb with someone, you have a special connection. It definitely feels different from the relationship I have with my other siblings - my twin and I are more connected. Jacob is a conservationist.
I can only put myself in the process and try to learn through the process. Sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won't.
I've got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books.
I meet people in my business who have this extraordinary ability to understand human nature in their work, but in real life, they don't seem to have the first clue.
I never went into acting to do film. I went into it to do theatre - classical roles.
I don't know what my limitations are until I reach them. I look for the challenge.
The idea that I had a bohemian childhood is laughable.
Conditioning can be not a big heavy thing. (For instance:) I've got a brand new pair of shoes, by mistake you step on it and you make them muddy and dirty, I'm conditioned to go "Hey, what are you doing?" That's my conditioning, I have a response. So, maybe we have to learn to find the pause before we react, because reaction is our conditioning.
Maybe we need more dialogue in terms of our faith, in terms of those who are believers, or even nonbelievers, about that aspect, and what that might mean if you were interpreting. You don't have to believe it; maybe you could draw a metaphor from it.
I think all experience is, in some way, shape or form, filtered down to help you, in your present moment. With Shakespeare, you're trying to act with a fairly archaic language, although in certain aspects, it's deeply modern.
It takes years to establish yourself, and then you have one big film and everyone calls you an overnight success. You think, 'Christ, I've been sweating and crying for seven years.'.
It's all about human condition, ultimately. That's what you're looking at. You're also looking to have some fun, as well, because that also translates. Maybe wearing tights once in awhile helped. Getting up on a horse a couple of times before might have helped.
I like the fact that we're stripping the icons away. They're the WikiLeaks for the age that we're revealing, with the transparency of the characters. We're unearthing the truth beyond or underneath the myth. I love that aspect.
There are a couple of films that I've done, where I've had to get on a horse and wear a pair of tights, so that helped. But, nothing could have prepared me for the fun of wielding magic like Merlin does, especially in the perverted mind of Chris Chibnall.
I wanted to say, "Hey, Pope Francis," but I cried like a baby. I was reduced to a very humble set of feelings, because it was not about what was said: There's a presence. That was a blessing for myself and my family and everyone there to be a part of that.
He [Merlin] is slightly from another world and place, so it [challenge in bringing the role to life] is about having fun and presenting it in a new way. He's more of a politician, and slightly Machiavellian, but there's also a lovely relationship going on between Merlin and Arthur. There's so much to be had, really.
'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.
I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.
So getting that balance between what is honoring scripture and the Word and also acknowledging the fact that by the virtue of putting it on film there's going to be a variation and adaptation, I mean, it's a fine dance and a balance. Our producers and directors have worked so hard to get that right and I'm really proud. I think it's a pretty good job.
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.
Youth is a predominant factor. We are seeing a young King Arthur, and thereby a young-ish - as I'm into my 40s - Merlin. It was about how to tackle it, from that point view.
Whether you're a believer or not, I think there's a huge value in understanding the quality of redemption.
From the age of about five to twelve I was very bad, a hideous little terror who beat people up. I was a member of a Rough Gang - we went around and terrorised all the pupils in school.
I guess there's nothing I don't like about Merlin, in this presentation. I love everything, even the things I find despicable and abhorrent in Merlin. They're actually a joy to ride on the tailcoats of.
When I was offered the part in Shakespeare In Love a voice in my head said 'not another tights role!
I've always believed that you shouldn't want to mend a broken heart, because that's someone you don't want to forget. Scars can be good.
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