He confesses: "A very beautiful journey, not only for the character but also for who plays him".

In Rome for the premiere of the movie Goodbye Bafana, inspired in the life of James Gregory, who for over 20 years was Nelson Mandela's prison warder, we met Joseph Fiennes, the protagonist in this film which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in competition for the Golden Berlin Bear this year. The movie opens in Italy next week. The English actor says he wanted the role from the beginning and prepared for it with energy and determination. For a successful performance, it was essential also the study of the Xhosa language, Mandela's native language, and meeting local teachers who have helped Joseph Fiennes - as well as the female protagonist, Diane Kruger (as his wife Gloria) and Dennis Haysbert (as Nelson Mandela) - to learn the typical South African accent.

Mr. Fiennes, what made you want to play Mandela's prison warder?
I wanted it for several reasons: the director, the script, the subject. It was a very important story and a great opportunity for an actor. My character, James Gregory, goes through his own inner journey of over 20 years, during which he could evaluate his position, bravely abandon the social safety of his environment and embrace new ideas. It's a very beautiful journey not only for the character but also for the actor who plays him.

James Gregory: guarding an 'exceptional' prisoner like Mandela but also man, husband, father. You play a character who is shown in all three dimensions...
Exactly. At first Gregory is a simple man who's happy as a father and husband. He has a new job in a prison and is assigned to Robben Island. He decides to take his family to that island, far from the riots in Cape City. It is the simple story of a man who works in a prison, who brings up his children and who doesn't realise that, since he learned the Xhosa language when he was a boy, that makes him the ideal person to spy on that political activist. Gregory will find himself as chief of the surveillance of such a prisoner. He cannot imagine what is going to happen or how his life is going to change. The film confronts his public life and his private life, his curiosity and his ignorance.

In your opinion, what made James Gregory change? What touched his conscience?
I generally think that it's the right way to relate to other cultures, by looking at them through their eyes and not our own. That's what Gregory does: at a certain point, he starts to see the prisoners he used to consider terrorists from a different perspective, and he will do the same thing with their culture. Gregory ends up looking at them through their eyes and this, in my opinion, is a brave and important behaviour.

How was the relationship between prisoners and guardians in Robben Island?
For the most part they were brutal and violent, based on racial hatred. However, sometimes the prisoners, who were often cultivated men, would help their guardians in legal matters. There is a very beautiful sentence by Mandela in answer to how he had managed to survive his long emprisonment, and it says: 'I had to stay for as long as was needed in order to set free my jailers'. I think that his words are an example in this sense.

On the 11th of February 1990, when Mandela was set free, we got to one of the most important pages in History, not just in South Africa but for all human kind. What do you remember from that day?
I was at home in London with my mother. We were at the couch watching together the images of his liberation. I was very moved by what I was seeing. When Mandela was a prisoner in the 70s, I was about seven, eight years old, and I often passed by the South African embassy, where people were continually signing petitions for that man's freedom. At the time I was a little boy, of course I didn't know anything about what was happening to him and yet I did sign a petition: I felt like a revolutionary for the simple fact that I had signed a petition. While I was growing up I asked my parents about it, gathered information, and I wanted to understand more about the life of that man who had to spend so many years in prison for facing the racial politics of his country. The day of his liberation was really very moving.

Today South Africa is a free country. You were filming for two months: you must have met people who had lived directly under this now distant memory. What can you tell us about this experience?
The African National Congress has been in power for over ten years, and it seems almost like a fairy tale. If you wrote a book about these events it wouldn't be credible. It would seem absurd to tell about a man who was in prison for 27 years and who, once he was set free, became the president of his country. During the shooting, every day there were people around us who had lived under the Apartheid and they observed us very carefully. There is nothing more important and precise than a direct experience. Their input was really precious.

What would you say this story means today?
It's a story that shows the complexity of the human nature. The example of Nelson Mandela can make us think about life, his fight can be an inspiration to us. In Gregory's case, Mandela changes him by waking him from his ignorance. It's an extraordinary lesson. Whether we like it or not, we are all driven by our conditioning, and often, what for us is a democracy, for someone else is prison and segregation.

And what is the message of the movie in your opinion?
The result which was achieved, the liberation from Apartheid, is the sign of a great progress. However, after a generation of fighting and abuse, I believe you need another generation to heal the wounds and to forget the pain which was inflicted. This film shows all the potential around us and how we can overcome our conditioning. I think the fight will continue, I don't believe it's over and it should not be over. We should always ask questions about the politics of other countries, so we can understand them better. It is a complex situation and there is still a lot to be done.

Like Goodbye Bafana, other films like The Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamond tackle important subjects from the point of view of white men. What do you think about that?
In my opinion the West has a huge responsibility on its shoulders. And I believe it's extremely important to look at certain events through your own eyes: that's the only way we have to understand what has changed... The West has taken so much from Africa that maybe now it's time to return. It is laudable that the mayor of Rome is such a commited person in this sense. And [he smiles] I noticed that the streets are a lot cleaner. They have increased taxes but it looks like it was worth it.