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Ralph Fiennes Is an Extremely Fancy Boy

Fancy. Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

A new profile in GQ describes a day in the life of Ralph Fiennes, England’s No. 1 fancy boy. As if having a name with an unpronounced “L†wasn’t tony enough, Fiennes reads Shakespearian sonnets for fun (he once taught his Grand Budapest Hotel co-star Tony Revolori how to read them “the right wayâ€). He flies with Beethoven’s piano sonatas as a security blanket, and he has an Italian villa where he goes “to read.†The refinements read like an ad against Brexit, how much a human can develop when borders are essentially meaningless. Fiennes recently spoke out about what he sees as a crisis in all of European politics, and how it especially could affect filmmaking. I wanted to say how much, how important I felt the community of filmmakers are, and given what this was, I would really be meaning European filmmakers, at the time when my own country is divided about what it means to be linked to Europe,†he told GQ. “The pleasure is that I see a French film and meditate on what it, being an Englishman, what it says to me … it offers up new provocations, and also confirms common identity of being a human being.†Even his politics are fancy.

Ralph Fiennes Is an Extremely Fancy Boy