The one thing Ralph Fiennes has always detested about acting: “Oh god, I hate it”
Actors can often come across as a moany bunch, and it’s hard to feel sympathy for people complaining about their day job when they get paid a lot of money to do it. For the most part, Ralph Fiennes loves everything about it, apart from the one aspect of thespianism he can’t stand.
It doesn’t matter if he’s appearing on stage, in an independent film, a prestige picture, a big-budget blockbuster, or the flaming dumpster fire of utter nonsense that was 1998’s The Avengers; Fiennes is one of those names that audiences can rely on to never phone it in.
Even when you’ve got the sneaking suspicion that he’s showing up for no other reason than the money, he’s still good value, not to mention any scenery-chewing and delightfully hammy turns as Hades in Clash and Wrath of the Titans in particular. And yet, there’s one thing guaranteed to make him a miserable git.
There’s a faint scent of irony in the air, though, since his most grievous issue with his chosen vocation is largely unavoidable. Before any on-camera performer sets foot on set, they need to be suited, booted, and ready for their close-up, and it’s the last part that the star actively abhors.
“I hate makeup,” he informed Vanity Fair. “I hate being in the makeup chair. I almost would not do a film to avoid being in the makeup chair. Oh god, I hate it. I don’t know why I’ve developed a pathology about the makeup chair.” Maybe because it sounds boring as fuck, but he’s earned a pretty penny from it.
After all, the quintet of Harry Potter movies that he appeared in as Lord Voldemort account for five of the six highest-grossing releases that he’s ever been in, with Sam Mendes’ billion-dollar Skyfall the other. Even those aforementioned money jobs as Hades sit comfortably into the top ten, so it’s fair to say that the more makeup Fiennes has to wear, the more tickets those pictures are likely to sell.
Obviously, mindless escapism isn’t the three-time Academy Award nominee’s bread and butter, but everyone has bills to pay at the end of the day, even the best actors of their generation. Sitting still for a while while somebody paints your face and applies prosthetics before you stand around and wave your arms in front of a green screen isn’t really suffering for your art, but he hates it nonetheless.
If it were up to Fiennes, he’d simply throw on his costume and start the day’s shooting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, because no self-respecting filmmaker is going to let anyone do anything until they’ve deemed their actors camera-ready. As a result, he’s stuck with it until the day he retires.
You can almost hear those tiny violins playing in the background, and the easiest way for Fiennes to avoid his number one bugbear about the business he’s dedicated his life to is to avoid any parts where he’ll need to spend hours upon hours being caked in slap.
