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Warning: main(/usr/local/www/apache22/data/baf00/includes/top.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /homez.313/bananamo/www/www.goodbyebafana.com/interviews/joseph_fiennes.php on line 28 Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/local/www/apache22/data/baf00/includes/top.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /homez.313/bananamo/www/www.goodbyebafana.com/interviews/joseph_fiennes.php on line 28 What made you want to play this part? There were a number of reasons; the director, the script, the subject matter and the character. When I read the script, I fell in love with it immediately. It was clearly a really important story and an incredibly exciting chance for an actor. Essentially, the character goes through an enormous series of changes, and an extraordinary journey that spans 20 years. During that journey he has to confront his conditioning and step outside the secure social boundaries of the time. He's really being stalked by his conscience, and it catches up with him. I thought it was a beautiful journey for both the character and the actor.   What do you think the story can tell us today? I think the story demonstrates the complexities of humanity. If we look at the journey of Nelson Mandela, not only in the film, but also in real life, I think we're presented with undoubtedly one of the greatest humanitarians of our time and age. His example and journey alone can give us pause for thought in terms of whatever daily predicament we're in, that the struggle a man gave his life to can be truly inspiring. It certainly inspired and changed the ignorant mindset of my character during that time, and woke him up. I think that's a great lesson. Whether we like it or not, we are slaves to our conditioning, and sometimes what we deem to be liberal and democratic, can mean imprisonment from another man's point of view. And so, the lesson is really to look at other cultures through their eyes, not through our own. I think that's what James Gregory does; he ends up looking at their culture and their ideals through their eyes. I think that's a brave step to take, but a very important one.   How much did you know beforehand about South Africa's history? I knew very little about South Africa, other than what I'd read. Certainly growing up in the 70's in London, I remember many a time walking past South Africa house in Trafalgar Square, and putting my name down on a petition. Every time I passed it I put my name down, and the more I asked questions about who this imprisoned man was, and what he stood for, the more I woke up to this appalling situation, this word Apartheid, and discovering what it meant. But certainly doing the film, reading material, and looking into James Gregory's life through the book, 'Goodbye Bafana', also Mandela's Biography 'Long Walk to Freedom' and another wonderful book called, 'The Pale Native' by Max du Preez, I've gained a greater insight into a really complex situation that you have to look back at over two or three hundred years to understand what Africa and South Africa has been subjected to by outside forces.   How far do you think South Africa has progressed since the end of Apartheid? It's been a little over a decade since the ANC came to power, and it's almost like a fairytale. Extraordinary. You couldn't write a book, or at least a fictitious book about these events, it wouldn't be believed. It would be too much in one lifetime to grasp that a President who was locked up for 27 years, and then released to go to his people, ended up running the country. It's a huge step that's taken place, after a generation of struggle, and abuses on both sides. I imagine that kind of hurt takes as much time to heal as the pain that's been inflicted upon it. I think it's an amazing start, and I'd imagine there's still a long way to go. I think this film will demonstrate in its own way, what potential opportunities we have around us, and how to overcome our own conditioning. I think the struggle will continue. I don't think its over, and it shouldn't be over. We should always question our political surroundings, in order to further our potential. Its complex, very complex, and the road is open it seems, but there's a long way to go.   Goodbye Bafana is also a story about a couple, James and Gloria. Can you tell us a little bit about their relationship, and how it develops? I think the key to James Gregory is his private life, notably the friendship he had when he was seven or eight years old with a young Xhosa speaking boy in the farmlands where he grew up. That friendship with a young black boy at the time was very rare, but for James Gregory it was a freedom and a level of friendship that he would never experience again. It was extremely important for his life, and certainly informs him in his adult years. In his private life, his family is what's really important to him, and he would protect them over anything. At times, however, he puts his job and his family on the line. He has an insatiable curiosity, which I think stems from his friendship with Bafana, and it's this curiosity that asks, 'Why is there minority rule?' 'Why is it that I'm being fed information?' 'Why is it that I can't read the Freedom Charter?' All these questions bubble up over the course of many years. And so, whilst his family is deeply important to him, he does occasionally put them on the line. I think because his conscience gets the better of him, at times he ends up sacrificing those people to the end of extending his own knowledge. Looking at the film, and figuring out how to begin this journey, was really looking at a family, and a man who wants to support his children. He wants to make them happy, he wants to bring them onto this island, where although there are lots of criminals, he can take them away from the struggles going on in Cape Town. It's simply the story of a man working at a prison, bringing up his children, not at all aware that, because he speaks Xhosa, (Mandela's mother tongue), he will be placed in charge of him. Little does he know of the confrontations he will have to face. It's a wonderful juxtaposition between his public and private life, between his curiosity and his ignorance.   And how did you prepare for the part? There were a number of ways. For me, the key points were that I had to learn a bit of Xhosa. There were a lot of scenes in Xhosa, especially when James and Mandela are speaking privately. James was brought into the prison because he had a firm grasp of the language, so I had to have an understanding in order for it to be believable. I spent a month or so preparing. Also a month or more preparing for an Afrikaner accent. So I think accents and language were key. A little bit of stick fighting was also involved, to highlight how James' childhood was a crucial phase in forming an understanding of a culture outside his own.