Ralph Fiennes reveals he gets stage fright... when he’s off stage

The veteran Shakespeare performer was left struggling to remember his lines during a daylight monologue outside his beloved theatre ‘cocoon’

Millions of actors get struck with crippling stage fright while waiting in the wings.

Veteran board-treader Ralph Fiennes, on the other hand, has revealed he was hit with the thespians’ curse when he had to perform outside the comforting darkness of a theatre.

The 60-year-old told the latest episode of the Ruthie’s Table 4 podcast he struggled while putting on a one-man show in daylight for around 100 fans as part of a series of intimate monologue performances hosted at the home of London’s River Café founder Ruth Rogers.

He said about nearly forgetting his lines during the chef’s gathering: “I remember getting very nervous because it was out of a theatrical context.

“This was daylight, early summer.

“And I remember one moment, probably ill-advisedly running the lines before going on stage.

“When you’re slightly nervous, you can start to go through the first lines and go blank. ‘I know that word!’“And it can build, and then you have to go rushing back to the script. It’s all nerves.

Ralph Fiennes with Ruth Rogers (Ruthie’s Table 4)

“I had a moment like that here, because it felt quite exposing, because there were no lights.”

Rogers, 74, who co-founded the Michelin-starred Italian restaurant The River Café with the late Rose Gray in 1987, added on the podcast that she remembered Dame Judi Dench having a similar case of cold feet when she was asked to perform at one of her home theatre events.

“We did about four of them, we did it with you and with Ian McKellen, and then I remember we did one with Judi Dench,” she recalled.

“We almost couldn’t get her to come down! She sat in my bedroom, and she said the same thing as you: she did not suffer from stage fright, but there’s something about [performing in this context].”

Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo in the National Theatre's 'Antony & Cleopatra' (Johan Persson)

Double-Oscar nominee Fiennes, who has spent decades performing Shakespeare, then admitted he needed the dark cocoon of a theatre to give his best on stage.

The Schindler’s List star, who recently played the murderously unhinged Chef Slowik in fine-dining satire The Menu, added: “When you’re on stage in a theatre, you have lights, and the lights are on the performer, and therefore most of the audience are in darkness; you can feel yourself cocooned.

“If you perform in the daylight, and you see the faces, you can, in your neuroses, you can read into their faces. ‘They’re bored.’ If they have a furrowed brow, you immediately think that person must be confused or irritated.“Often, they’re just concentrating.”

Fiennes is currently starring in a touring production of Macbeth, which also stars Indira Varma as Lady Macbeth.

The performances all take place in warehouses across the UK and US, with the final production in Washington DC in May.