6 Actors Quietly Enjoying A Career Renaissance While Everybody's Been Watching McConaughey
4. Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes is one of those actors who are rarely less than brilliant. The notion of a career renaissance for him is more to do with taking centre stage once more. Over the last ten years or so, Fiennes has been content with small supporting roles, doing the usual respected British actor thing of being the Hollywood villain thanks to his recurring role as Harry Potter's nemesis Voldemort and Clash/Wrath of the Titans' Hades, while parts in The Hurt Locker, Cemetery Junction and In Bruges amounted to little more than entertaining cameos. Only his superb performance in 2005's The Constant Gardener served to show what a good leading man he is. The last couple of years, however, have seen Fiennes re-establish himself as a lead actor and have further shown him as a director of some skill. With his 2011 directorial debut, Coriolanus, Fiennes took one of Shakespeare's more challenging plays and turned it into a vibrant and relevant feeling modern adaptation that felt properly cinematic and featured a strong lead performance from the director himself as the stubborn tragic hero. Having mastered Shakespeare, Fiennes' career renaissance has also seen him turn his hand to Dickens, following up a performance as Magwitch in Great Expectations with his own film about the man himself. The Invisible Woman, the story of Dickens' affair with actress Nelly Ternan, was a handsomely made sophomore film for director Fiennes and another impressive leading performance as the famous writer. All of these prestige literary works could be seen as representing Fiennes' comfort zone, though. The climax of his recent renaissance is in a different style entirely, the whimsical comedic drama of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson's best film in years is made by the quality of Fiennes as pompous, preposterous, but thoroughly engaging and likable hotel concierge Gustave H. Fiennes demonstrated a knack for perfect comic timing and gave Anderson's film its heart. Both as actor and director it will be interesting to see where he goes next.
