Ralph Fiennes used Keith Richards and his music producer brother Magnus as inspirations for his quirky new character in A Bigger Splash.
The actor plays Harry Hawkes opposite Tilda Swinton in the movie and admits he really had to dig deep to find his "slightly off the wall" character.
"There is a little bit of Harry in me, and I'm too cautious to let him out," Ralph chuckles, "so I had a great excuse in this film to release my inner Harry. My inspiration was my brother Magnus, who is a music producer based in L.A. He has a kind of slightly off the wall energy that I found very useful for this character."
Fiennes also channelled Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards after immersing himself in the guitar great's autobiography, Life, and Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones.
"Stanley Booth was an American journalist that followed The Stones on their U.S. tour that ended in Altamont," Ralph tells WENN. "It was a very good book because it interweaved their story up until there. One chapter would be about how they started and another about this journalist in L.A. trying to get permission to be on the tour.
"It all ends with the death of Brian Jones just a few months before the Altamont concert. It's very well conceived from a journalist's view; he gets right in there. He's present at their Muscle Shoals recording of Wild Horses. That was fantastic to read about and all that was helpful to me as a background. There was so much in these books about drugs and sex, so that was helpful to envision Harry was part of that craziness.
"When you read about that world and what goes on we can live vicariously through it. The hedonistic world is probably out there somewhere but I'm not. I mean I've had glimpses of it way back when I was first in L.A. suddenly realising the people I was working with were doing substances but I had no idea what was going on. I was quite naive."
A Bigger Splash is available on DVD & Blu-ray in the UK.
