Ralph Nathaniel Fiennes, (IPA: [ˈreɪf ˈfaɪnz], born 22 December 1962) is a Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated and Genie Award-nominated English actor.Fiennes was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, the son of Mark Fiennes, a farmer and photographer, and Jennifer Lash, a writer.He is a third cousin of the adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The eldest of six children, he was raised a Roman Catholic. His siblings are actor Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love, Luther), Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film Onegin, he acted the title role), Magnus Fiennes, a composer, Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker, and Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist. His foster brother, Michael Emery, is an archaeologist.
The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in West Cork and County Kilkenny for some years, where Fiennes and his siblings were home schooled. They moved to Salisbury in England where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School before attending Chelsea College of Art.
Fiennes is a UNICEF ambassador.
He married actress Alex Kingston (Dr. Corday from ER) in 1993, but they divorced in 1997.[citation needed] In 1995, Fiennes started dating Francesca Annis, who had played his mother in Hamlet. In February 2006, the couple separated. This came after tabloid reports that said Fiennes had had an affair with Romanian singer Cornelia Crisan. In late 2006, sources reported that Fiennes is dating American actress Ellen Barkin.
On February 11, 2007, Lisa Robertson, a Qantas flight attendant, was suspended and subsequently fired from Qantas for having sex with Fiennes in a business class toilet during a flight from Darwin to Mumbai on January 24, 2007 while on duty. Robertson admitted to the encounter in an interview with the Daily Mail along with her work as an undercover policewoman.Fiennes has not denied the incident took place but his spokesperson said on his behalf he claimed he was not the "aggressor" in the relationship. Because the story was not widely reported, and he wasn't married at the time, the controversy was only minor.
