Chosen as one of the 50 sexiest stars by People magazine in 1999.

Turned down a very lucrative five-picture deal with Miramax after the success of Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth.

Replaced Clive Owen in Man to Man.

Very nearly worked with Kate Winslet four times. [that has to happen some day]

Lost 21 pounds in order to play POW Major Gibson in The Great Raid, with a very strict diet and three hours of exercice every day.

His sister, Martha Fiennes, wanted to cast him as Lensky in her first feature, Onegin, which starred his brother Ralph. Joe, however, was filming Shakespeare in Love at the time Onegin was to be produced.

Prefers smaller and/or European films, where the director is more in control. His greatest passion however remains the stage.

Was set to succeed Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago, in a remake of the classic Doctor Zhivago.

Projects and roles that Joe didn't do

The Pianist

Joe was Roman Polanski's first choice for the main role. The director pursued him for several months in 2000/2001, but Joe turned down the role (and 1.5 million GBP) in order to play Edward II on stage - a role he had wanted to play since he was in drama school. Polanski then placed an ad in the London Sunday Times. The ad for an open audition was accompanied by Joe's picture and indicated that the director was seeking "a man aged 23-35, slightly built ... sensitive, vulnerable and charismatic." The Sunday Times said that in fact Polanski wanted Joe for the role but that Joe had turned him down to appear in a play. Edward II was critically acclaimed and commercially very successful, and won Joe the coveted Barclays Theatre Award.

Polanski eventually cast Adrien Brody for the part.

George Mallory Project

Sunday Express March 25, 2001:

New heights for Fiennes in Mallory role
Henry Fitzherbert

Joseph Fiennes is to play the climber George Mallory in a big budget account of the fateful 1924 Mount Everest expedition. The film makers will court controversy by claiming that Mallory and his partner, Sandy Irvine, did reach the summit before they disappeared into the ice and died, a full 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing officially became the first to do so.

"It's a very expensive movie and so you can't go out with a damp squib, it has to have an inspirational ending," says a source close to the project, a co-production between September films and United Productions.

Michelle Buck, one of the producers of the $35 million project, won't be drawn on the contentious climax, but does admit the film "will come down one way or the other".

She adds: "I can't possibly tell you how it ends, that's part of the fun of it. You'll have to pay your GBP 10 to find out." She confirms that Fiennes is set to play Mallory, whose well-preserved body was discovered on the mountainside two years ago. The mystery surrounding the expedition has made it almost more famous than Hillary's. It's a very powerful story and we're really excited."

The script, which is still in draft stage, might also dwell on suggestions that Mallory was homosexual. "I'm very interested in his relationship with Irvine who was very inexperienced when he was chosen," says Buck.

The project will shoot later this year in the Himalayas and Canada.

Fahrenheit 451

Ananova March 29, 2001:

Joseph Fiennes is being tipped to star in a re-make of the François Truffaut classic Fahrenheit 451.

The original film starred German actor Oskar Werner, Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack. It is based on the Ray Bradbury science fiction novel about rebels refusing orders to burn books.

The film was originally being produced by Mel Gibson's company Icon, and Gibson himself was going to star as freedom fighter Fireman Montag.

The Green Mile's director Frank Darabont has now taken charge of the project, and is reported to have targeted Fiennes, 30, for the lead role.

Charlize Theron is favourite to play the beautiful rebel who convinces him to join their cause. A senior source told Ananova: "Gibson gave way in the end because he thought he was too long in the tooth. It needed a younger guy."

Good Omens

According to the Chicago Sun Times in late 2001, was set to play one of the lead roles in Good Omens. One of the roles was said to be an angel, the other a demon. It was reported that Joe was due to star opposite Christopher Lambert. As far as we are aware, it was only a rumour.

The Stars Look Down:

Despite his grumbles about "Four Eyes," Bill Bryden has forged a visionary professional partnership with Lee Hall. After the box-office success of Billy Elliot, Hall is on a roll. His next screenplay for Miramax will be an adaptation of the Dunbartonshire-born AJ Cronin's novel, The Stars Look Down, the story of an idealistic miner's son, who goes to university to study medicine, but temporarily forgets his political resolve when he marries. Bryden will direct. Carol Reed's 1939 movie version - there have been several television adaptations - ends with a rousing call for nationalisation of the mining industry, "to purge the old greeds". Bryden says he and Hall are determined to film the book, the rights of which are now being negotiated. It was Hall's seemingly effortless ability to mix humour and pathos, to tell sad and funny stories of personal struggle with unflinching honesty and a pervasive tenderness, that won Bryden over. Joseph Fiennes (who Bryden will also be directing later this year in the West End), will play the young doctor.

The Duchess of Malfi

Ananova.com reports that Joseph Fiennes could re-unite with Gwyneth Paltrow in a new British-backed production of The Duchess of Malfi. The drama is based on John Webster's 17th-century classic. It is being made by the London-based Artists Independent Network. The story focuses on a plot forged between the evil Duke of Calabria and his corrupt Cardinal brother to prevent their beautiful young widowed sister from re-marrying. A senior source told Ananova: "Gwyneth loved working in Britain on Shakespeare In Love and Sliding Doors. "She thinks of the place as her second home. She only has fond memories of Joe and would love to work with him again." The film, which will be made on location in England and Spain, is not due to go into production until spring 2003.

Edgardo Mortara

Joseph Fiennes is being tipped to play a father in search of his young son in the new period thriller Edgardo Mortara. Set in the 19th century, the drama focuses on a young Jewish boy who is kidnapped by the Catholic church. The film follows his father's desperate attempts to snatch him back from the Vatican. Writer Jeremy Brock, who originally created the TV series Casualty, has written the screenplay. Fiennes was top of our shopping list, a source close to the production told Ananova.

Heaven and Hell

The Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci wants to make a film based on the life of 16th-century artist Gesualdo da Venosa later this year, and he wants Joseph Fiennes to play the lead role of da Venosa. Emily Watson and Joely Richardson are hoped to play the rivals for the charismatic artist's love. Jim Broadbent and Ian Richardson are also being pencilled in for support parts in the biopic. Production of the 20 million feature is being plotted for the autumn. The director's regular collaborator Mark Peploe is putting the finishing touches to the script from a biography by Giovanni Iudica.

Quills

Joe was considered to play the role of The Abbe du Coulmier in Quills, alongside twice co-star and friend Geoffrey Rush. While this was not published, when Joe was playing Edward II in 2001, one of his fellow cast members (who had a small part in the movie) mentioned that Joe very nearly did it. We do not know the reason he didn't. The role eventually went to Joaquin Phoenix.

Blind Flight

A film based on Brian Keenan's book An Evil Cradling has been delayed. Joseph Fiennes is to star as Keenan in Blind Flight. But the British production has been postponed in the wake of the US terror attacks. The movie industry has been shying away from sensitive subjects since the attacks. Producer Sally Hibbin told The Observer: "We had hoped to start shooting at the beginning of next year. Then September 11 came along and the world didn't want to talk about this film. So we're not going into production in January as originally planned." Keenan wrote An Evil Cradling about the four years he spent in captivity in Beirut with John McCarthy. Blind Flight is scheduled to be filmed in Ireland and the Middle East.

Othello

A doubly Fiennes deal (Variety, October 29, 2001)

London -- So nice they cast him twice: That's the thinking behind a project currently being hatched for the West End in the spring that would find Joseph Fiennes starring in repertory as Iago in Othello and in the title role of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

The director of both plays looks likely to be the ever-ascendant Michael Grandage (Passion Play, Merrily We Roll Along), who directed Fiennes to considerable acclaim last season in the Marlowe classic at Sheffield's Crucible Theater, where Grandage is a.d. Lead producer Duncan Weldon would be partnered on the venture with Paul Elliott and others and is in Los Angeles for several weeks firming up an Othello to play opposite Fiennes. (Think someone starry, in the best Weldon tradition.) While on the West Coast, Weldon hopes to secure Calista Flockhart to come to London next summer in The Philadelphia Story, a venture that, you will recall, was first mooted for last summer.

If Flockhart won't commit, says Weldon, speaking from California, director Arvin Brown's revival of the 1939 Phillip Barry comedy will happen anyway: an alternative Tracy Lord, adds the producer, is already being wooed.

Lord Byron

Joe was due to star as Lord Byron on film, after having played the poet with great success for the BBC radio series Byron's Women. [2002]

UK Telegraph online (dated May 16 2002):

Plans for a biopic of Lord Byron - starring swarthy Shakespeare in Love heart-throb Joseph Fiennes in the title role - have fallen on stony ground. Gosford Park beauty Camilla Rutherford, who was due to play Byron's one-time muse Mary Anne Chaworth, tells me that the project has collapsed owing to a lack of finance. "I was all signed up to come on board, but then the whole thing fell through," she says. "They couldn't find anyone prepared to put up the money. It's a real shame, because that was to be my next big project after Gosford Park."

A Good Woman

Joe was the first choice for the role of Lord Darlington in Mike Barker's A Good Woman, starring Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson. Turned it down to play Bassanio in Michael Radford's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The role went to Stephen Campbell Moore.

Chromophobia

July 21, 2004 - IGN FilmForce has learned of a new project, Chromophobia, written and directed by Martha Fiennes and starring sibling thesps Ralph and Joseph Fiennes. Sources reveal that Penelope Cruz and Kristin Scott Thomas will also star in the project. Filming will take place later this year on the Isle of Man.

Thérèse Raquin

Joe was cast as Laurent in the adaptation of the classic by Émile Zola, opposite Franka Potente and Glenn Close. Filming was postponed several times due to problems with funding, and Joe eventually dropped out.

Civic Duty

January 2005:

Mira Sorvino and Joseph Fiennes are in negotiations to star in the thriller Civic Duty for Canadian filmmaker Vic Sarin. The story revolves around an accountant named Terry Allen who after getting fired from his job, becomes obsessed with Headline News and CNN. However, when a young Islamic student moves in next to him, he shifts his news obsession to his new neighbor.

Youth Without Youth

Joe was offered the main role in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth. The director flew to the island of Ischia [summer 2005] specifically to meet Joe about it. They spent a lot of time discussing it over a couple of days and when Coppola left, Joe had the script and the book in his hands. As far as we can guess, he couldn't take the role because he had been cast in Epitaph for George Dillon for over a year. The role eventually went to Tim Roth.

Brokeback Mountain

Joe loved the project so much that he met with three different directors attached at various times to discuss starring in the film. The role went to Heath Ledger.

The Stone Merchant (Il mercante di pietre)

According to director Renzo Martinelli, who said he wanted either John Malkovich or Joe for the lead, both Malkovich and Joe liked the script but thought the subject matter was too dangerous (it deals with terrorism and the film has been accused of being anti-Islam). The movie was made and the role went to Harvey Keitel.