Daily Mail – September 6, 2009

Shakespeare In Love star Joseph Fiennes has announced he is to become a father for the first time.

The 39-year-old actor and his new wife, Swiss model Maria Dolores Dieguez, 27, who he married last month, issued a statement saying they are ‘utterly thrilled’.

A close friend said: ‘She’s three months pregnant. They kept the news quiet until Maria reached the three-month-mark but now they are telling everyone.’

Joseph, who is from Wiltshire, and Maria married in a religious ceremony in Tuscany last month in front of close friends and family.

It was in Italy that they first met four years ago, at a red carpet party.

Maria, a former Miss Switzerland contestant, wore a lace gown by Spanish designer Manuel Mota with a bateau neckline and a tulle veil for the ceremony.

Joseph – whose brother Ralph is also a famous actor – is believed to be taking some time out and clearing his busy schedule for the birth of his first child.

Since the beginning of the year the busy actor has been filming a series of movies back to back.

He just completed a guest role in sci-fi American TV drama Flash Forward and is set to star alongside actress Rosamund Pike in a movie about naturalist Charles Darwin.