B U L L EVA R D
Joseph, were you apprehensive about the Nile expedition? j: I had some concerns. Would I cut it in this role? Would I choke at a snake or scorpion? Putting those dangers aside, it was really more that, not really knowing Ran, would we be compatible? It’s a month on the road together – if that chemistry doesn’t work, it’s a problem. 20
“WE’RE MORE OR LESS THE SAME PERSON”
Take one world-famous explorer and his soft-living actor cousin, and throw them into a deadly adventure together. Meet the Fiennes boys… Ranulph, did you ever wonder whether Joe, as a pampered actor, would shape up to the challenge? r: I don’t know any actors, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I believe that our shared DNA meant it would never be a disaster. We’re more or less the same person, because of the amount of DNA we share. j: And now you have to prove that by doing a Shakespeare play. It works both ways.
“I HAD SOME CONCERNS: SNAKES AND SCORPIONS” Joseph Fiennes
What was the heat like? r: Contrary to what people think, more of my expeditions were actually in the extreme heat than in extreme cold. The British media are much keener on the colder stuff for some reason – I’ve never really worked out why. So I’m quite used to the heat. j: I was thinking more of the cobras and scorpions at first, then you forget to drink water. It’s the small things that can catch you unawares. Staying hydrated is so important. Would you do it again? r: Not this expedition. There is something I’d like to do with Joe, but I don’t know that he’d like that type of danger. j: I’m not going to stand on an ice floe, fighting polar bears, if that’s what you’re thinking. Fiennes: Return to the Nile is on National Geographic, Wednesdays, 9pm. Watch the rest of the series on catch-up now; nationalgeographic.co.uk THE RED BULLETIN
LOU BOYD
the red bulletin: How are you related to each other? ranulph: I think – and Joe might correct me on this – that our grandfathers were brothers [Ranulph and Joseph are third cousins]. joseph: That’s right. There are lots of us and we’re fairly distantly related. Ran is always travelling, so we’ve only met a couple of times.
Ranulph & Joseph Fiennes
Tell us about the newly discovered tombs in Minya, Egypt, which contained one of Thoth’s high priests… r: The man we were following through the tunnels had only discovered them eight weeks before. By the time we got there, it was safe, but he went in not knowing whether the whole thing was going to fall in on him. Extraordinary. j: It was wildly exciting to know we were among the first few people to go into the tombs, and certainly the first crew to film them. It’s one thing to be claustrophobic, but the feeling that something could fall on you… I felt vulnerable. It’s indescribable getting close to the sarcophagi, these mummified bodies, and seeing the skull of somebody who died 2,000 years ago. They were brilliantly intact. It felt like you were encroaching on their privacy. r: For some reason, their mouths were all open and they all had their teeth. Imagine being 2,000 years old and still having a full set of teeth!
JACK BARNES/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
A
t 75 years old, Sir Ranulph Fiennes is often hailed as the world’s greatest living adventurer. From summiting Everest at the age of 65 – the oldest Briton to do so – to discovering a lost desert city in Oman known as the Atlantis of the Sands, he has accomplished more in his life than most. His 48-yearold cousin, Joseph Fiennes, has been on a rather different journey as an actor of stage and screen, most famous for 1998’s Shakespeare In Love and, more recently, The Handmaid’s Tale. Incredibly, the famous relatives had barely met before this year, when they embarked on a mission to retread Ranulph’s 1969 White Nile expedition, on which the explorer traversed the world’s longest river in two hovercraft. The two men talked to The Red Bulletin about what it was like adventuring together, including the time they entered an ancient Egyptian tomb that contained the mummified remains of a high priest of the god Thoth...