Ralph Fiennes is enjoying quite a cinematic year, first thanks to Conclave and now courtesy of The Return, an intense adaptation of The Odyssey in which he plays Homer’s mythic hero, who washes ashore on his native Ithaca a broken and traumatized lost soul.
For the 61-year-old star, it’s a role that both plays to his strengths as a classically trained actor and challenges him to be something of an action icon, his body as taut and muscular, and his fighting skills as formidable and lethal, as his heart is heavy. As the sorrowful and shattered Odysseus, Fiennes is a compelling force of nature, at once withdrawn and determined, composed and volatile—a man who knows his power but, in the wake of so much misery and suffering, is unsure how to use it or, for that matter, who to be.
A passion project for writer/director Uberto Pasolini, The Return is another Fiennes triumph. Moreover, it’s a superb reunion between him and Juliette Binoche, whom he previously collaborated with on 1992’s Wuthering Heights and 1996’s The English Patient, the latter of which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
Paired opposite Fiennes as Odysseus’ wife Penelope, who’s been left to lead her kingdom in the wake of her husband’s lengthy absence, and whose hand is coveted by the many treacherous suitors that surround her castle and mock her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer), Binoche delivers a portrait of pained resolve and staunch loyalty. Like Fiennes’ protagonist, her queen is quiet and forceful, patient and cunning, and tormented and committed—to herself, her people, and the spouse for whom she still pines.
A stripped-down saga of disconnection, doubt, duplicity, and the many internal and external dangers born from separation and guilt, The Return is a uniquely riveting adventure, one in which most of the drama—and suspense—takes place on the faces of its acclaimed leads.
With regards to its narrative as well as its stars, it’s proof that, no matter how long you’ve been apart, sometimes you can go home again. Consequently, we were thrilled to speak with Fiennes and Binoche about working together for the first time in three decades, the physical and emotional hurdles posed by The Return, and the literal and figurative nakedness of their performances.
This is your third collaboration following Wuthering Heights and The English Patient. Is The Return further confirmation that you’re only compelled to work together on big, epic literary adaptations?
JB: I didn’t think of it, actually! This is the first time I’m thinking of it, but yeah.
RF: I don’t think of it like that. I can understand your question, but I think it’s about the spirit at the heart of the stories.
JB: Now it must be intellectual for me to work with Ralph! [laughs].
It’s been 30 years since The English Patient. Why did it take so long to reunite, and what was it about this project that brought you together again?
JB: They asked me to be in the movie, so I read the script, liked it very much, and I wanted to do it and work with Ralph again. I didn’t know Uberto, so I watched his films. But because we’re so busy—our lives are like a roller coaster of different projects and theater...
RF: My sense is we’ve just loved to see each other, and see each other’s work, particularly in the theater, but we’ve never got together saying, oh, what shall we do? This felt very organic. I had been aware of it, we invited Juliette, and it all felt organic.
What attracted you to Odysseus?
RF: I love Odysseus. I love the man—“the man of twists and turns” is how one of the translations goes. A man of ups and downs, insides and outs. He’s courageous, he’s a schemer, he’s a beguiling figure, he’s a doubter. He’s all kinds of things. He’s a bit of a shapeshifter, and the story of the shapeshifting man that comes home and has to confront what’s happening to his homeland—all those things. It’s a story of owning your home and reuniting with the woman you love.
Specifically, I was aware of this project even before Uberto spoke to me, because it was doing the rounds when Uberto was producing it with another director and actor situation that never happened. He came to me, and I might possibly have directed it myself but I realized he had a very strong vision for the film. We stayed in touch about the possibility of me playing it. But then it just seemed to come to the point of, Ralph, do you want to do this? I think I must have gone, yes, I do. I didn’t want to let it go. I had that idea: no one else is going to play this! [laughs]
Juliette teases me because she says I didn’t ask her; Uberto did. But he’s the director, and I looked to him to go, this is who I think. He said, we have to talk about Penelope. I said, yes, yes, yes. What about Juliette? And I went, yes, yes, fantastic. As soon as Uberto said Juliette, I just went, yes, of course! The question was, is she going to like it? I was much more concerned that you wouldn’t like it.
JB: The script was beautiful.
RF: Look, how do films come into being? They are often accidents, and there are people who dream and it never happens. We hear endless stories about people being cast in famous roles—Albert Finney auditioned for Lawrence of Arabia, and he didn’t want to do it. How does fate bring a film together? It’s people’s dreams, efforts, desires, the finances. In this case, we were both filming in Georgia; I was in Savannah and Juliette was filming television in Atlanta. She came to visit me to say hi. I think we’d already spoken on the phone, but that was when the conversation was, do you like the script?
When she said she did, we went to a bookshop and I bought her Emily Wilson’s latest, fantastic translation of The Odyssey. I could feel your connection with it. I know your polite “it’s interesting but I’m not sure.” But it was that complete, I like the script. It was…
JB: Obvious.
RF: When I think about it now, it was easy. It just went like that—boom!—and then we called Uberto to say we’re in, we’re doing it. Now go get the money [laughs].
Given Uberto’s close and long-standing connection to the project, what was preparation like for the film,?
JB: We had a week in Corfu before starting the movie. I came, even though I didn’t shoot there, to prepare. I remember we had lots of conversations about the relationships between the father, the mother, and the son, with Charlie Plummer playing Telemachus. I remember there were a lot of question marks, and as actors, you want to leave the question marks; you don’t want to have answers. You want to have the right path in order to go on an adventure that leads you where you don’t know yet.
Uberto has been working on the script for such a long time that he had lots of specific ideas he was going to fight for. As actors, we have to say, hey—leave us a space where you don’t know what’s going to happen! When I’m acting, I don’t know what’s going to happen. The joy of acting is that it comes to you, and you’re the first to be surprised.
Being in that momentum of acting, and in the rhythm of the takes, it becomes this trust link between the director and the actor. As far as Ralph and myself, there was trust. There were no worries about it. But with Uberto, it was like, how far is he going to let me go? I had to deal with Uberto.
How did that work itself out?
JB: I said, okay, you’re a control freak, which is fine. I’ve known some like that. And thank God you have the will to do this huge epic. But there’s a moment in the creation of it where you cannot be controlling, because the emotions are not to be controlled. They are to be alive and truthful and special and astonishing.
I asked him to have three free takes where he says nothing to me. Not a word in my head that is going to block my being. After the third one, you can say whatever you want. We’ll go straight where you want to go, and then in the editing room, you’ll find out. He agreed to that, so it was fun. I remember there was one scene at the end when we’re in the bedroom before we go up…
RF: I know that scene. It was a difficult day.
JB: We did the first take, and Uberto jumped on me and said, no, I don’t want you to play like that! I was so taken aback, because I was like, where are my three free takes? But because he had dreamed of it for such a long time, I had to let go. I had to go with what he wanted, which was not the warmth I wanted to give it. In the bath, there’s compassion. Their love is coming back, and I try to find a way to forgive Odysseus. I thought it was better to have it a little [more emotional], and he didn’t want it to be that way, and he was surprised that I didn’t fight for it. At the end, he said to me, you’re fucking generous. You gave it to me and you didn’t fight for yours.
RF: He said that?
JB: Yes, and it was very moving.
RF: I remember you got a little cross on that day.
JB: Really? Why?
RF: I remember you saying, oh, you want me to play it in this sort of cold English way? A cold English performance? Okay, I’ll do it!
JB: [laughs] Well, yeah, I did it.
From the beginning, was the idea to strip the film of any mythological elements?
RF: Yes. I liked his stripped-down approach. It felt stripped to something naked and pure. It made sense. Just take away the gods and Athena. I think in The Odyssey, the goddess Athena is there in disguise, guiding and protecting him. She even makes him look young and gives him a full head of hair and all this stuff. I think [eliminating that] made complete sense. It distilled it right down to the human beings.
Ralph, you physically transformed for the role, and moreover, you wear very little during the film. Was that difficult, since it literally strips you bare?
RF: He’s a beggar, and it’s a southern Mediterranean world, so it’s a given that people don’t wear a lot. For Odysseus, I thought there’s going to be something around the hip/groin/loin area, and then what else is it? It was just a big blanket. It was coarse and heavy, and there was a slit cut in it so it could go over one shoulder and it could hang over you. It’s very simple.
Most of the time I’m covered. There’s one scene where I get out of the hut and I’m naked for a second. It felt like a very beautiful idea, to just have the naked man looking. It felt very poetic, as an idea. That’s what he is. He’s naked at the beginning when he’s on the beach. He’s got nothing. That’s what we all are. We are in under all this stuff. Like Shakespeare said, bare, forked animals.
Then because I was so determined to have a plausible physique—if it’s hot and I’m running…
JB: You enjoyed it as well.
RF: Yes. It’s sort of freeing, not having a lot of clothes on. But I’ve literally got a blanket over me until the end when I take it off for the final battle.
JB: For once a man is naked and not a woman! [laughs]
