Actor Joseph Fiennes has spoken publicly for the first time about a traumatic experience during a holiday in Costa Rica, when he comforted a newlywed woman as she lay dying after a horse riding accident.
Fiennes, best known for his roles in Shakespeare in Love and The Handmaid's Tale, described the incident on the Travel Secrets podcast. He said he had been staying at a hacienda at the foot of an old volcano and had gone for a morning ride with a fellow guest.
‘It was getting quite hot, going into the shade, looking back, seeing this lovely woman kiss her husband goodbye, and then the horse reared up,’ he said. ‘She sadly pulled on the reins and the weight of the horse came over and the whole horse landed on her and she fell back and really broke her head on the gravel and died.’
The actor said the accident was ‘the most unexpected, horrific accident’ and that he held the woman as she slipped away, with her husband in a state of shock. He added that he could not sleep for a month afterwards, but did get back on a horse during the same holiday.
In a separate incident, The Cosby Show actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner died while on a family holiday in Costa Rica earlier this week. The 54-year-old drowned while swimming at a beach in Limon. An autopsy concluded his death was accidental asphyxiation by submersion. He is survived by his wife and daughter.
