Ralph Fiennes: So Good At Being Bad

(CBS)  Ralph Fiennes is considered one of the best actors of his generation and CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips recently caught up with him.

In his latest role, Fiennes does what he seems to do best -- play the bad guy.

Playing opposite Keira Knightley in "The Duchess," he's a philandering, cold and cruel 18th century English aristocrat whose wife does not deliver him a son.

"As a husband I have fulfilled my obligation. You ... have not," Fiennes' character, the Duke of Devonshire, says to his wife in the film.

There's a reason Fiennes is so good a being bad. He's had plenty of practice.

His big breakthrough role in the U.S. was as a Nazi in "Schindler's List."

Fiennes is back in London, returning to the theater, as he says he has to do from time to time.

"All I know is that I don't want to be away from the theater for too long," Fiennes said.

But it's the movie work that pays the bills and gives him international stardom -- even if he remains uncomfortable with that sort of pressure.

"When you think about the big stars, your name now figures on that list. Do you think of yourself in those terms now? In the big league?" Phillips asked.

"No. I don't. To me there are about a handful of really big, big stars that can open up a movie," Fiennes said. "I don't think I am in that league."

His ambitions, though, now go beyond acting. He's working on a movie project which would have him morph into a director.

Enigmatic to the end, though, this is all he'll say about that (Fiennes crosses his fingers and laughs).

[lily1972]

i like him great actor.