Age: 63
male
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (born 22 December 1962) is an British-American actor, film producer, and director. He has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Born in Ipswich, Suffolk, Fiennes was trained at and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1985. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before succeeding at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1995, Fiennes made his Broadway debut playing Prince Hamlet in the revival of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He was later Tony-nominated for his role as a travelling faith healer in the Brian Friel play Faith Healer (2006). Fiennes made his film debut playing Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992). He has earned three Academy Award nominations for his performances in the films Schindler's List (1993), The English Patient (1996), and Conclave (2024). He has also acted in Quiz Show (1994), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), The Duchess (2008), The Hurt Locker (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), A Bigger Splash (2015), Hail, Caesar! (2016), and The Menu (2022). Fiennes gained wider recognition for playing Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter film series (2005–2011) and Gareth Mallory / M in the James Bond films (2012–2021); and has voiced roles in the animated films The Prince of Egypt (1998), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). He directed and starred in the films Coriolanus (2011) and The Invisible Woman (2013). Aside from acting, Fiennes has been an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 1999.
An elderly man reads the book "The Princess Bride" to his sick and thus currently bedridden adolescent grandson, the reading of the book which has been passed down within the family for generations. The grandson is sure he won't like the story, with a romance at its core, he preferring something with lots of action and "no kissing". But the grandson is powerless to stop his grandfather, whose feelings he doesn't want to hurt. The story centers on Buttercup, a former farm girl who has been chosen as the princess bride to Prince Humperdinck of Florian. Buttercup does not love him, she who still laments the death of her one true love, Westley, five years ago. Westley was a hired hand on the farm, his stock answer of "as you wish" to any request she made of him which she came to understand was his way of saying that he loved her. But Westley went away to sea, only to be killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. On a horse ride to clear her mind of her upcoming predicament of marriage, Buttercup is kidnapped by a band of bandits: Vizzini who works on his wits, and his two associates, a giant named Fezzik who works on his brawn, and a Spaniard named Inigo Montoya, who has trained himself his entire life to be an expert swordsman. They in turn are chased by the Dread Pirate Roberts himself. But chasing them all is the Prince, and his men led by Count Tyrone Rugen. What happens to these collectives is dependent partly on Buttercup, who does not want to marry the Prince, and may see other options as lesser evils, and partly on the other motives of individuals within the groups. But a larger question is what the grandson will think of the story as it proceeds and at its end, especially as he sees justice as high a priority as action.
