From One Lawrence to Another : Britain’s Fiennes Takes Characters Made Famous by O’Toole and Olivier a Step Further

It’s asking a lot of an actor to cast him in Peter O’Toole’s greatest role, Lawrence of Arabia. But it’s cruel and unusual to demand that he also beg comparison with Laurence Olivier in one of the late actor’s most memorable parts, Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights.”

Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines) is the dashing young newcomer trying on O’Toole’s flowing Arab robes and Olivier’s tight Victorian suit in back-to-back performances, one for television, one for film. Properly awed by his predecessors, he still makes clear that he’s playing the characters his way. In each case, he says, “The scripts are very different and touch on different areas of the characters’ lives.”

As T.E. Lawrence in “A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia” on PBS’ “Great Performances,” Fiennes plays the desert warrior the year after the ending of World War I, when he tried and failed to negotiate Arab independence from British and French domination.

It’s not a wide-screen action epic like David Lean’s 1962 classic “Lawrence of Arabia.” The film’s few scenes on horseback and camelback were shot in tight close-up in London. “Instead of sweeping desert vistas, this is a small, interior film about an idealist, a purist trying to maneuver in a pragmatic and cynical world,” Fiennes says.

As for Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” Fiennes says the upcoming Paramount film is just that--the full version of the novel, complete with Bronte’s original ending. “I knew the 1939 Goldwyn film was a hit, but for me it smacks too much of melodrama,” he says. “Olivier gives a powerful, vigorous, gutsy performance, but you want to know what happens after the violins play when Cathy dies. Our version follows the book in showing that Heathcliff becomes a repellent, violent man because of his pain due to losing Cathy.”

In contrast to his icon-like predecessors, Fiennes himself is no larger-than-life presence. His smooth-faced good looks and average stature go along with a self-effacing manner and careful speech. His blue eyes pierce, but he usually averts them.

Fiennes’ Lawrence seems less in love with his image than amused by it. In “A Dangerous Man,” he is depicted sneaking to watch newsreels of himself in action in Arabia, giggling at his own effrontery. To this Lawrence, fame was a flame to which he flitted deliberately to singe his wings. “The trick is not to mind the pain,” as O’Toole said in the 1962 film, having charred his palm over a candle.

“Part of Lawrence was intrigued by the effect he had as a public figure, part was repelled,” Fiennes says. “He felt the pleasure publicity can give you, but he was too intelligent to gloat.

“Lawrence’s achievements were quite limited. In coordinating the Arabs’ aspirations for a time, he took the first step to greatness, but afterward he denied himself the possibility of great achievement.”

After his failure at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Lawrence had a breakdown, then joined the Royal Air Force as an enlisted man. He died in 1936 at age 46 in a motorcycle crash.

Lawrence’s withdrawal from public life at the peak of his fame has intrigued armchair historians and psychiatrists ever since. “A Dangerous Man” shows him slipping into the frame of mind of a man seeking anonymity, talking about the “scourging purity” of the desert air to a group of soldiers he meets in a station.

Of Lawrence, Fiennes said, “In the RAF he found the same astringency he had felt in the desert. Being yelled at by the sergeants, cleaning latrines, denying himself any sexual life--this suited him, strangely. He was a masochist. He went in for self-flagellation, like the saints he’d studied as a medieval scholar. Why he was that way, no one knows.”

Fiennes came to Lawrence direct from a swift rise through the British theatrical ranks. The son of a farmer-turned-photographer and housewife-turned-novelist, Fiennes is the eldest of six and grew up on farms in Ireland and western England.

At 29, he was playing leading Shakespearean roles such as Romeo. He has starred at Britain’s National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company as Henry VI in “Henry VI” and Troilus in “Troilus and Cressida.” While he was filming “A Dangerous Man,” he was also playing the title role in Shakespeare’s “Richard II’ on the London stage.

Fiennes’ sole appearance acting for the camera before “A Dangerous Man” was about 60 seconds as a witness in “Prime Suspect” on PBS’ “Mystery!” earlier this year. Some in Britain are now touting him as the new Daniel Day-Lewis or Gary Oldman, but he has so far declined to strike while the iron is hot. In fact, he has completely hibernated since finishing his Lawrence-Heathcliff double.

In the classical theater, actors are accustomed to taking on roles others have played, which may account for Fiennes’ sangfroid in playing Lawrence and Heathcliff. “I suppose there will be comparisons,” he acknowledges dryly. “Olivier in ‘Wuthering Heights’ was powerful, vigorous, gutsy, devastatingly handsome. O’Toole gave a remarkable performance in a wonderful film.

“Playing Lawrence, I was more concerned with doing Lawrence justice than with measuring up to O’Toole. If Lawrence rattles his bones after ‘A Dangerous Man,’ I hope we arranged them in the right order.”

“A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia” airs on “Great Performances” Wednesday at 8 p.m. on KVCR, 9 p.m. on KPBS; Friday at 9 p.m. on KCET.