Cornelia Crisan
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Fiennes has won a Tony Award and has been nominated twice for Academy Awards. He is also a UNICEF UK ambassador.
Fiennes was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, into an English aristocratic family, the son of Jennifer Lash (1938–1993), a writer, and Mark Fiennes (1933–2004), a farmer and photographer whose father was industrialist Sir Maurice Fiennes (1907–1994). His surname is of Norman noble origin. He is an eighth cousin of HRH the Prince of Wales, and a third cousin of the adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The eldest of seven children, his siblings are actor Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love, Luther, FlashForward); Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film Onegin, he played the title role); Magnus Fiennes, a composer; Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker; Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist. His nephew Hero Fiennes-Tiffin played young Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in West Cork and County Kilkenny for some years. Fiennes was educated at St Kieran's College for one year (during which time his painting, Portrait of Mr McGurran with Hippo won in the Texaco Children's Art Competition), followed by Newtown School, a Quaker independent school in Waterford. They moved to Salisbury in England, where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School before attending Chelsea College of Art.
Fiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park and, also during the late 1980s, the National Theatre before becoming a star in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche, for which he received substantial acclaim and praise throughout Europe.
1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon with Julia Ormond. Though the film was poorly received, Fiennes' career suffered no lasting consequences. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Göth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win the Oscar, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Movie Villains. To look suitable to represent Amon Göth Fiennes gained considerable weight, but he managed to shed that fat afterwards.
In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show. In 1996 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the World War II-epic romance The English Patient in which he starred with Kristin Scott-Thomas. Fiennes' work has ranged from thrillers (Red Dragon) to animated Biblical epic (The Prince of Egypt) to campy nostalgia (The Avengers) to romantic comedy (Maid in Manhattan) to offbeat dramedy (Oscar and Lucinda) and historical drama (Sunshine). In 1999, Fiennes returned to playing brooding, tormented lovers in Onegin and The End of the Affair.
The Constant Gardener, another vehicle for Fiennes as brooding lover, was released in 2005 with Fiennes in the title role. The film is set in Kenya, dealing in part with poor people in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani. The situation affected the crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education for children of these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity.
Fiennes portrayed Lord Voldemort in the 2005 fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He kept the role for both Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will be released in two parts in 2010 and 2011. However, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there is a flashback scene in which Voldemort is an 11 year-old boy — the character was played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Fiennes's nephew, for this scene.
Fiennes' 2006 performance in the play Faith Healer gained him a nomination for a 2007 Tony Award. In 2008 Fiennes worked with frequent collaborator director Jonathan Kent to play the title role in Sophocles's Oedipus the King at the National Theatre in London. In 2008, he played the Duke of Devonshire in the film The Duchess, and played the protagonist in The Reader.
In February 2009 Fiennes was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He filmed his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
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