Actor Ralph Fiennes has told The Londoner cancelling Russian art events over the invasion of Ukraine is “totally stupid”.
Fiennes, who speaks some Russian and made The White Crow about ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, said: “It’s crass to somehow smear the whole of Russia with the antipathy we feel towards Putin’s regime. Russians are an extraordinary people and they are not the protagonists”.
Fiennes said he’d still work with Russian actors who don’t support the war and added: “I love Russian culture and I won’t stop loving it, and I certainly think when you read stories of people cancelling Tchaikovsky operas is just stupid, totally stupid”. A Cardiff orchestra removed a Tchaikovsky piece from a concert programme in March.
Fiennes said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “monstrous”, and “one of the most appalling actions by any regime in this part of the world recently”. He called Putin’s Russia a “terrible, authoritarian, it’s a fascist regime”, which is “highly nationalistic and is extremely brilliant in its propaganda”, and called Russia’s reasoning for the war “bollocks”.
He was speaking last night at a screening of his new thriller The Forgiven, directed by John Michael McDonagh and starring Jessica Chastain, about a couple travelling in Morocco who have an accident involving a local. Fiennes explained that he sees the film about taking responsibility for our actions, saying it asks “what choices do people make when they are faced with bad shit that’s gone down”.
Fiennes, who plays M in the James Bond series, also said that he doesn’t see the character played by a female actor. “James Bond is the James Bond Ian Fleming created, I don’t see it being a woman” he said.
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