Ralph Fiennes's Quotes

I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.

I think Shakespeare is like a dialect. If I heard a broad Scots accent, I'd probably struggle at first but then I'd start to look for words I recognise and I'd get the gist. I think Shakespeare is like that.

I was grateful to have two weeks to shoot this one scene in Harry Potter. It's a big, big scene, but they have to deliver. And they have high expectations.

I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes. I got my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times. That was my research.

In the studio system, things are expected of a film. By the first, second, third act, there's a generic language that comes out of the more commercial system.

There is a tension in relationships between wanting to return to the womb, but also wanting to be free. Because sometimes the woman's attentions can be overly maternal, and you want to go, 'Ahhhh!'

There's a challenge to playing these fantasy figures because they are fantasy figures. You have to enter into this sort of imaginative world of the writer.

When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life.

One of the things that binds us as a family is a shared sense of humor.

He's really sort of the devil. He's completely emotionally detached. He has no empathy. You find that in psychopaths. It's about power with Voldemort. It's an aphrodisiac for him. Power makes him feel alive.

There is a humanitarian impulse that one aspires to and there are days when one doesn't do it very well.

I admire the world of the books and the characters that she's created, but I'm not an addict of Harry Potter. I don't feel possessive about it.

I'm sure acting is a deeply neurotic thing to do.

I guess I'd love to be surprised by something I had never thought of.

Within the process of filming, unexpected situations occur.

Gardeners are good at nurturing, and they have a great quality of patience, they're tender. They have to be persistent.

God is not anything human. God is a force, God is chaos, God is unknown. God is terror and enlightenment at the same time.

Little moments can have a feeling and a texture that is very real.

The film depends on the audience's belief in this relationship.

The tensions between authority and the people need to be heard, especially when they are suffering and they can't eat.

We'd all like to believe that perhaps people could stop killing each other.

You feel yourself working to show something. I've learned to distrust that feeling.

There are those moments when you shake someone's hand, have a conversation with someone, and suddenly your all bound together because you share your humanity in one simple moment.

As an actor, there's a bit of you that's decided you want to be looked at and watched, but there's a paradoxical bit that wants to run away.

Going to the movies was a big event in my youth. My father would be the initiator - he'd have me put on a jacket to see a film.

I certainly gained a lot by reading about Shanghai.

I don't feel I'm playing villains all the time.

I don't feel particularly comfortable about actors using whatever power they may have to push their beliefs, unless they're extremely well informed.

I don't plan a career. That doesn't work for me. I just have to go with my gut.

I have a lot of stuff I want to talk about and offer up. It would be odd not to have ideas about something.

I have grown up loving Shakespeare.

I like to keep fit, but I never lift very heavy weights.