Ralph Fiennes heard his first Shakespeare as a child, initially on phonograph records, then in films.

“I saw (Sir Laurence) Olivier’s ‘Henry V’ in a small movie house. It was built up for me by my parents,” the 48-year-old actor says, sitting in the conference room of a Manhattan hotel. “My mother would put on a record of Olivier doing the speeches of ‘Hamlet.’ That voice led me into my theatrical world – the voice and the music take me back there.”

It instilled a life-long love of the Bard’s work, which ultimately led Fiennes to make his film-directing debut with “Coriolanus,” which opened Dec. 2 in limited release. (More…)