Suffolk-born Actor Ralph Fiennes calls for trigger warnings to be scrapped
The Tony Award winner says audiences should be "shocked and disturbed"
Ralph Fiennes has called for trigger warnings, which let audiences know if there is upsetting content, to be scrapped saying people should be "shocked and disturbed" by theatre.
The 61-year-old British actor, known for period drama The English Patient, holocaust film Schindler's List and comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel, is starring in an immersive touring production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Suffolk-born Fiennes told BBC One's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "I think we didn't used to have trigger warnings. I mean, there are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth, terrible murders and things.
"But I think the impact of theatre should be that you're shocked and you should be disturbed. I don't think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young, (we) never had trigger warnings for shows."
The two-time Oscar nominated actor, who won a Tony award for best actor in a US production of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1995, agreed that it should be "got rid" of and said that physical warnings for issues such as strobe effects should still be flagged.
"Shakespeare's plays are full of murderers, full of horror ... It's the shock, the unexpected, that's what makes an actor (in) theatre so exciting," Fiennes also said.
British actor Simon Callow has previously called for getting rid of trigger warnings in a letter to The Times newspaper after it emerged a theatre had told audiences that The Sound Of Music touched on "the threat of Nazi Germany and the annexation of Austria".
Known for romantic films A Room With A View and Four Weddings And A Funeral, the 74-year-old said that theatre is "a safe space" and "not a pulpit, but a gymnasium of the imagination".