Ralph Fiennes: 'I was drawn to lack of hope in Coriolanus'

Ralph Fiennes has said that Coriolanus was a personal project for him.

The Harry Potter star revealed that he was drawn to the lack of hope in the Shakespearean play.

"It's mostly very personal," Fiennes told Movieline. "There are two strands, I suppose. One is the actor - I played it on stage, and I felt very drawn to the confrontational nature of him and the piece."

He continued: "And maybe there's a sort of anger involved about the continual dysfunction of society, and its continual patterns of political turnaround and endless, endless conflict.

"And the play and Coriolanus himself punch through that. I mean, I think the play is a tragedy, properly. But the sort of evisceration it leads to is… I feel like we're always on track to these repeated eviscerations in how we are as a people - as humankind.

"I'm afraid the lack of hope in it was appealing to me," he concluded.

Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox and James Nesbitt also star in the drama.

Fiennes will appear in the upcoming James Bond movie, titled Skyfall.

Watch the Coriolanus trailer below: