Ralph Fiennes: A serious player

He's known for his repressed Englishmen, so Voldemort was something of a departure for Ralph Fiennes. Just don't expect another rom-com, he tells Alice Jones

"My view on awards is that there are no bests in anything", insists Ralph Fiennes. "Generally a film is recognised because it achieves something, it challenges us, it entertains us, we escape with it, we're provoked by it, we're moved by it - whatever. But the way I like to look at awards is to see them as celebrations of film-making."

It seems churlish to point out that Fiennes is in a stronger position than most to hold such a generous view. To top off what is the best year of his career so far, he has just been nominated for a Best Actor Bafta for his performance in The Constant Gardener. If he is successful, the golden statuette will stand alongside his 1994 Bafta for best supporting actor in Schindler's List.

When we meet, Fiennes is on the briefest of trips back to London from Dublin, where he is in the final week of rehearsals for Brian Friel's The Faith Healer at the Gate Theatre. "I wanted to be an actor because of theatre, not because of film. I like being in front of an audience; each night is so different. If I'm away from it I have withdrawal symptoms," he says. Although he has made five or six films over the past two years, theatre is his first love. "I'm quite lucky in that I've been in productions that have for the most part been favourably received in recent years..." He trails off, perhaps aware of how absurd his modesty sounds. "Touch wood!" he concludes, banging the table rather alarmingly.

Conversation with Fiennes is full of such maladroit moments, which make him a more endearing interviewee than rumours - of a cantankerous attitude to journalists - suggest. He is softly (and impeccably) spoken and hesitant in his replies, almost to the point of stuttering. He also seems younger than he often appears on screen. He is 43.

A successful awards season would be the icing on the cake of an eventful 2005. As well as The Constant Gardener, Fiennes stole the final scenes of Britain's highest-grossing film last year, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as Lord Voldemort, and provided the voice of local villain Victor Quartermaine for the universally acclaimed Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

He also stars in the final Merchant-Ivory film The White Countess, which is due for release on 31 March. Fiennes plays Jackson, a one-time American diplomat living in 1930s Shanghai. After losing his family and his sight in an explosion, he becomes disillusioned and seeks solace in the city's seamier side, eventually opening his own nightclub and forging an unlikely relationship with an impoverished Russian countess turned lady of the night (Natasha Richardson). It is, says Fiennes, "a film from another era", with a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro.

"People may feel it's too static. I'm sure it will be criticised for being over-literary and therefore not inherently cinematic, as people think now, but I actually think there's a place for film where extended scenes can be played out and people have extended conversations." He cites Yasujiro Ozu's gently paced 1953 film Tokyo Story, throwing in for good measure his own rendition of Japanese Noh theatre, complete with growls and rhythmic table-tapping.

In Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener - an adaptation of John Le Carré's novel - Fiennes plays another diplomat, Justin Quayle, who sets out to discover the cause of his wife's brutal murder in Kenya. I suggest that a diplomat is a good role for him: buttoned up by convention, forced to repress emotions for a greater good. "I know what you mean," he muses. "What I feel is that the central relationship between Tessa [Quayle's wife, played by Rachel Weisz] and Justin works, and people respond to it emotionally and not just as a political thriller...The thing about a lot of leading parts, if they're any good, is that you have to chart a journey. Justin goes through this wonderful, slow evolution. I always thought that it was latent in him and that losing Tessa led him to bring out these qualities."

Fiennes was born in Suffolk in 1962 into an artistic family. His father, Mark, was a farmer turned photographer, and his mother, Jini, a novelist and painter. He is the oldest of six children, including Joseph, also an actor, and Martha, a director.

He graduated from Rada in 1985, after completing an art foundation course at Chelsea School of Art. He worked at the RSC and the National Theatre before making his movie debut in Wuthering Heights, playing Heathcliff to Juliette Binoche's Cathy. His big film break came with his Oscar-nominated role as a Nazi in Spielberg's Schindler's List, after which he returned to the stage to play Hamlet. The production won acclaim and notoriety in equal measure as Fiennes broke off his 12-year relationship with the ER actor Alex Kingston to pursue a romance with Francesca Annis, 18 years his senior and playing his mother on stage at the time. The English Patient, Onegin and The End of the Affair confirmed his status as a British romantic lead.

It is fitting that Fiennes has made his return to major-league films at this particular moment. He agrees that we are currently witnessing the era of the "serious, weighty film": alongside The Constant Gardener in the Bafta nominations are Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. ("I saw it in New York and I felt the way it landed on the audience - wow.")

Nevertheless, his role in The Constant Gardener didn't inspire the famously reticent actor to start campaigning. "It's never been my instinct or in my nature. I've always been slightly on the back foot about protesting," he says, although he did take part in the London anti-war march in 2003. "I'm glad I went on that march, and I would support everything Harold Pinter said in his Nobel Prize speech," he says. For him, "the protest is the film itself. I've never felt more strongly how we need these films to be made. We need it like hell."

With his serious credentials beyond all doubt, was the decision to work on Harry Potter and Wallace & Gromit a conscious effort to prove his versatility? His previous attempts at light-hearted - The Avengers and Maid in Manhattan - are among his least successful ventures. Fiennes denies that he had any kind of plan. With Wallace & Gromit, he thought: "Great film-makers, the pressure's off. You can be very silly and do umpteen takes, and then it's all in the genius of Nick Park and Steve Box."

On the other hand, he agonised over Harry Potter. He has read none of the books except the one of his film, and even then he "got a bit impatient" because his character does not appear until the end. "I wasn't caught up in the whole mania at all. It was a slow-burn decision, culminating in Mike Newell showing me pictures of what Voldemort might look like. I think I just had this rather childish response: 'Ooh, yeah, great. Look, really evil, spooky lighting.'" He rubs his hands in glee.

I make the mistake of describing his image as computer-generated. He corrects me sternly. "No, no, no, only my nose. Be clear about that. I shaved all of my hair off, had some pieces to take out my eyebrows, had some manky teeth put in and very pale skin. The digital removal of the nose was the main effect."

He hopes to return to Hogwarts. "I really loved doing it. It has a huge budget but it doesn't feel cynical at all. There's a real sense of enjoyment in what they're creating."

As an actor who has made his name by playing the tortured soul, Fiennes freely admits that comedy doesn't come easily to him, although he sheepishly admits to enjoying the odd one. "I'm afraid I liked Hitch. I thought it was very funny. Will Smith is very clever but he has this charm and an ease and this comedic relaxation that I envy," he says, a little sadly. "I think I might be better suited to a more zany, more alternative form of comedy. Maid in Manhattan was very mainstream... But I don't feel I'm someone who can just", he clicks his fingers, "be funny."

It's not something that worries him greatly, though: "I think I've put to one side the preoccupation of having to prove that I can't or I can do so-called comedy in films," he says firmly.