Fiennes Reprises Southgate Role in BBC's Dear England
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- Joseph Fiennes reprises England manager Gareth Southgate in a four-part BBC adaptation of Dear England, the National Theatre play he previously starred in alongside writer James Graham and director Rupert Goold.
- The series traces Southgate's 'quiet revolution,' from the psychological impact of his missed 1996 penalty through to his introduction of performance psychologists, journaling and commando-style boot camps aimed at tackling mental health, racism and the 'curse of missed penalties.'
- Fiennes built the stage role through 4.30am solitary rehearsals, a prosthetic nose, yellowed teeth, a clipped beard and close study of Southgate's audiobook Anything Is Possible — but did not meet the real manager until a tap on the shoulder at The King's Trust awards in June last year.
- Other recent Fiennes screen roles include Commander Waterford in The Handmaid's Tale and Richard Ratcliffe — husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, held hostage in Iran for six years — in Prisoner 951, plus the father of Young Sherlock in an Amazon series opposite his real-life nephew Hero Fiennes Tiffin.
- Fiennes is one of seven Fiennes siblings raised in itinerant, often financially precarious circumstances by their painter-novelist mother Jennifer Lash, who died of breast cancer aged 55; the clan includes actors Ralph, directors Martha and Sophie, composer Magnus, conservationist twin Jake, with explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes a third cousin.
- Fiennes now lives in Mallorca with his Spanish photographer wife Maria Dolores Diéguez and their two daughters, walking the Tramuntana mountains and Camino de Santiago routes in a deliberate echo of the wild, outdoor childhood he credits with shaping him.
Why it matters: Moving *Dear England* from the National Theatre to BBC television gives Fiennes' portrait of Southgate's 'quiet revolution' a national audience at a moment when England's footballing psychodrama — missed penalties, mental health, identity — is still being processed, while the interview also reframes Fiennes himself as the centre of an unusually large creative dynasty.
