Top 30 Joseph Fiennes Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “You know what? Joy is the only guide. I’m going to have fun regardless.”

— Joseph Fiennes

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2. “I love new writing, new blood, modern works by unknown writers.”

— Joseph Fiennes

3. “I love life. I’m fascinated by human behavior because that feeds back into my work.”

— Joseph Fiennes

4. “Youth is a predominant factor. We are seeing a young King Arthur, and thereby a young-ish – as I’m into my 40s – Merlin. It was about how to tackle it, from that point view.”

— Joseph Fiennes

5. “I like the fact that we’re stripping the icons away. They’re the WikiLeaks for the age that we’re revealing, with the transparency of the characters. We’re unearthing the truth beyond or underneath the myth. I love that aspect.”

— Joseph Fiennes

6. “I’ve got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books.”

— Joseph Fiennes

7. “I think all experience is, in some way, shape or form, filtered down to help you, in your present moment. With Shakespeare, you’re trying to act with a fairly archaic language, although in certain aspects, it’s deeply modern.”

— Joseph Fiennes

8. “There are always going to be times when it doesn’t flow as much as you were hoping. So of course I’m going to fail. And when I do fail I hope I fail better and better, again and again. I am happy to fail.”

— Joseph Fiennes

9. “I don’t know what my limitations are until I reach them. I look for the challenge.”

— Joseph Fiennes

10. “It’s all about human condition, ultimately. That’s what you’re looking at. You’re also looking to have some fun, as well, because that also translates. Maybe wearing tights once in awhile helped. Getting up on a horse a couple of times before might have helped.”

— Joseph Fiennes

Featured in: Fun Quotes

11. “It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don’t like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.”

— Joseph Fiennes

12. “When I was offered the part in Shakespeare In Love a voice in my head said ’not another tights role!”

— Joseph Fiennes

13. “I guess there’s nothing I don’t like about Merlin, in this presentation. I love everything, even the things I find despicable and abhorrent in Merlin. They’re actually a joy to ride on the tailcoats of.”

— Joseph Fiennes

14. “I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.”

— Joseph Fiennes

15. “I wanted to say, “Hey, Pope Francis,” but I cried like a baby. I was reduced to a very humble set of feelings, because it was not about what was said: There’s a presence. That was a blessing for myself and my family and everyone there to be a part of that.”

— Joseph Fiennes

16. “I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.”

— Joseph Fiennes

17. “There are a couple of films that I’ve done, where I’ve had to get on a horse and wear a pair of tights, so that helped. But, nothing could have prepared me for the fun of wielding magic like Merlin does, especially in the perverted mind of Chris Chibnall.”

— Joseph Fiennes

Featured in: Fun Quotes

18. “Maybe we need more dialogue in terms of our faith, in terms of those who are believers, or even nonbelievers, about that aspect, and what that might mean if you were interpreting. You don’t have to believe it; maybe you could draw a metaphor from it.”

— Joseph Fiennes

19. “I’ve always believed that you shouldn’t want to mend a broken heart, because that’s someone you don’t want to forget. Scars can be good.”

— Joseph Fiennes

20. “Merlin is really at the forefront, in that regard. We get a glimpse into the dark, Machiavellian corridors of power. I like the fact that, although he has powers, his powers are almost in his political guile as much as what he relies on, in darker forces.”

— Joseph Fiennes

21. “I can only put myself in the process and try to learn through the process. Sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won’t.”

— Joseph Fiennes

22. “I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can’t really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it’s my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world.”

— Joseph Fiennes

23. “But it’s a strange thing when people judge you because you’re not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in ‘The Dukes of Hazzard?’ I mean, hello?”

— Joseph Fiennes

24. “There is a bit of me if I’m pushed in one way I might bounce back and go the opposite.”

— Joseph Fiennes

25. “Whether you’re a believer or not, I think there’s a huge value in understanding the quality of redemption.”

— Joseph Fiennes

26. “I think everything I do is my early work. I can’t wait to get on to the later stuff.”

— Joseph Fiennes

27. “Pretty much all films I’ve seen that depict the life of Christ end with the Crucifixion, almost like the filmmakers don’t know what to do after.”

— Joseph Fiennes

28. “The great thing about films is that you have access to this whole world of experts who teach you the skills your character’s supposed to have.”

— Joseph Fiennes

29. “I’m a huge admirer of Pope Francis and everything he stands for. I think he’s an incredibly connected spiritual and authentic being.”

— Joseph Fiennes

30. “From the age of about five to twelve I was very bad, a hideous little terror who beat people up. I was a member of the Rough Gang – we went around and terrorized all the pupils in school.”

— Joseph Fiennes

31. “I’ve been such a fool, Vassili. Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there’d be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there’s always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don’t have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love.”

— Joseph Fiennes