Out Rupert Everett says,Beyonce is Dull and Sharon Stone Unhinged but it's not an Insult
His brilliant autobiography was a famously irreverent dissection of his self-obsessed trade. Now back on the London stage, we're delighted to report very little has changed...
'What I am is a survivor. There have been many times in my life when people probably expected me to crash and burn. I never did,' said Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett is trying to behave himself.
‘I am going to be very sensible today,’ he says as we meet on the doorstep outside rehearsal rooms deep in the heart of smoke-choked, traffic-clogged south London.
Minutes later we enter the hushed confines of Borough Market’s flagship restaurant, Roast. The uniformed maĂ®tre d’ asks to take his bag; Everett flashes his Hollywood smile and says, ‘Do you mind if I keep it with me? I have my bomb in my bag.’
So much for Mr Sensible.
He scans the menu for something ‘plain and uncomplicated’, adding, ‘I hate this new obsession with food and this terrible way of it being presented on the plate covered in smears that look like mucky stains.
'I was watching a guy murdering some perfectly good prawns on MasterChef the other night, mixing them up with a dozen ingredients they didn’t need, and dumping them all round the plate. Revolting.’
He orders steamed halibut and salad with a pained look that, it transpires later, is caused by a painful back.
Everett is a man with a reputation for being shocking. Blessed with perfect-ten good looks, a public-school education, a talent for acting, an appetite for utter destruction and a circle of friends that has encompassed Andy Warhol, David Bowie, Madonna and Sharon Stone, he has become better known for what he does off-screen than on.
His background gave him every cause for rebellion. Hailing from an Army family stuffed with majors (his father) and vice admirals (his grandfather), he was sent off to Catholic boarding school at the age of seven. He ran away to London aged 16 to become an actor and be as dissolute as possible, hanging out with artists, models and pop stars and getting chucked out of the Central School of Speech and Drama for insubordination.
He did, however, get noticed. After a slew of awards for his West End debut alongside Kenneth Branagh in Another Country, Everett appeared with Colin Firth in the 1984 film version, and ended up being asked to go to Hollywood by Orson Welles, who wanted him as his protégé.
‘It was a disaster,’ he says bluntly. ‘I’ve realised since that I have two different sides to my personality.
'One is shy, whiny, whingy and not terribly interesting, and the other is show-offy, wild and slightly unhinged. There’s nothing in between. Nothing. It all depends on the people around me.
'In the company of Orson I was terrified to the point of hardly being able to speak. I tried to invoke my other side but couldn’t. I was completely in awe of him. But he was in the last stages of his career – nothing he said he was going to do ever took off, and he got very bored of me and nothing happened. I was just dropped.
'I've realised since that I have two different sides to my personality. One is shy, whiny, whingy and not terribly interesting, and the other is show-offy, wild and slightly unhinged. There's nothing in between. Nothing'
‘That’s what happens in this business. One minute everyone loves you and everything you say is amazing, funny, brilliant, and the next minute they’re looking through you with glazed eyes, desperate to get away from you. It can happen in a matter of moments.’
Everett has experienced many such reversals – some beyond his control (he says he was refused at least one major role because of his homosexuality), but many caused by Everett himself.
He frowns. Everett is no fool, and he knows I’m about to bring up some of his many acerbic, hilarious comments, which have alienated him from such figures as Madonna. In his book Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, he described her as smelling ‘vaguely of sweat’ and being an ‘old, whiny barmaid’. Sharon Stone, he wrote, was definitely ‘unhinged’.
He looks put out.
‘When I say “unhinged” I mean it in the sweetest way. I love people who are unhinged, and Sharon is very definitely unhinged – it really isn’t an insult. I’m unhinged in a way. The greatest actors usually are. BĂ©atrice Dalle was a great example (she’s one of his former lovers, along with Paula Yates and Susan Sarandon; his sexual past is complicated to say the least) – totally mad, devastatingly beautiful and at the height of her fame caught shoplifting. Wonderful.
'Listening to Beyonce Knowles (left) talking about her life, her career, is like listening to an Army general talking about a military operation. Beyond dull... Sharon Stone (right) is definitely unhinged - it really isn't an insult'
‘When you see her on screen, she can appear in a not-very-good movie and still she’s brilliant, because she has that mesmerising quality that comes from being unhinged. It’s what makes her truly fascinating.
‘When I got to Hollywood I had this fantasy that all these huge stars would be these amazing, fabulous creatures. I grew up devouring books on Montgomery Clift, and so much of his appeal to me lay in the gutter side.
'But you get to Hollywood and everybody’s so boring. Being an actor in Hollywood is like joining the Army or something.When you see them in a restaurant raising an arm, it’s more likely to be to make a call to their banker than swig back a glass of champagne.
Rupert described Madonna as smelling 'vaguely of sweat' and being an 'old, whiny barmaid'
‘So many of these stars today are just boring, boring, boring. Listening to BeyoncĂ© Knowles talking about her life, her career, is like listening to an Army general talking about a military operation. Beyond dull.’
Two years ago Everett was sacked from Vanity Fair, reportedly for telling another VF writer that the editor was ‘fat’. He shakes his head.
‘Not true. I never said that. In fact, I was quite complimentary. I said I’d been in a hotel room below him and remarked on his prowess as a sexual performer. I did also say, “Who do I need to f*** to get my name off the masthead?” But that was because I hated the magazine. It’s boring.
‘Again, all these self-congratulatory celebrity interviews where some star gets to thank everyone they’ve worked with and talk about the great project they’re in. No one wants to read that – you want to know the dark side, the real truth. The problem is no one ever tells the truth any more. None of the things I wrote were ever published – they got put on the Vanity Fair website before websites were cool.’
At 51, Everett is still very handsome, with a slight faded grandeur about his face that lends an edge of vulnerability. He has never stopped working; he writes, he acts and he works out to keep in shape.
Right now he’s about to star in the West End as Professor Higgins in a revival of Pygmalion. He is less spiky, more able to keep himself in check. Bring up the subject of Elton John’s recent adoption and Everett (who’s very much against gay marriage and gay parenting) smiles and says, ‘Let’s not go there.’
He nods.
‘What I am is a survivor. There have been many times in my life when people probably expected me to crash and burn. I never did. I’ve actually never got that carried away. I did drugs, but I was never really falling off the edge. I’m too much of a realist, too self-aware.
‘I knew when I was being lauded and I knew when I was bombing. Some people don’t – they’re the real wrecks: the career is finished and yet they still think they’re huge stars. When it finished in Hollywood for me I decided to move to France, become a European actor. I did very well and I kept on working.’
Rupert with his Pygmalion co-star Kara Tointon
He later returned to Hollywood, making a comeback alongside Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, before starring in Shakespeare in Love, An Ideal Husband and Inspector Gadget.
Ironically, he puts his survival down to the very things he hated in his childhood.
‘Going to boarding school, public school, has made me a survivor. At the age of seven you’re hurled into this atmosphere of violence and aggression and you have to deal with it, live with it, get through it. It’s what prepared me for this business.
‘I also believe I have a very strong work ethic that came from being part of a military family. Up to the age of five, whenever we had family gatherings the only talk around the room would be of war, various campaigns, various aspects of war. At that age I had no idea there was actually no war going on. The idea of rationing, saving, scrimping, working, was infused into me. I see it as a very good thing. In fact, I see it as something hugely lacking in Britain today – we have lost a lot of that spirit, forgotten a lot of those lessons.’
Everett is an ardent Englishman.
‘I love this country. I want to live here forever. I’m just hoping things won’t become so expensive I’m not able to. This country is in a complete state and we’re very definitely in terrifying times.
'I didn’t vote at the last election because I despised all of them. Cameron is odious. The first thing he did was to disband the Film Council. Does he not realise this is one thing we excel at? Put all that money from Trident missiles into this industry and we’d make a fortune – we can make shows like Friends, we can make incredible TV series and films that will rake it in.
‘Cameron is a foul, old-style Tory who’s desperate to be Mrs Thatcher, but he isn’t. His biggest error is he has his head so far up America’s backside he can no longer see. Clegg is just a waste of space. Jemima Khan has done for him finally, because he moaned and whined in his interview with her, and how dare he whine? People in public positions should never complain.’
He is, meanwhile, a fervent royalist.
‘I love the Queen, I love the Royal Family and I truly hope Kate Middleton will take them kicking and screaming into the next century, blending a bit of modern with a bit of traditional.’
He pauses and adds, with a raised eyebrow and cynical curl of his lips, ‘Although I am dying to know how she and William are going to live in Wales with no help. How’s that going to work?’
Everett has embraced modern Britain. Once gliding through VIP doors to the chicest parties round the globe, he now spends his time ‘at home, cooking, watching television’.
‘I had never used a kitchen until this year. I have eaten out at lunches and dinners all my life, but we are in austerity times, so I’m learning to cook. The problem is I’ve done my back in because of it – all that crouching over roasting chickens put it out (he’s 6ft 4in) and I’m spending a lot of time with an osteopath. A sign of disintegrating times.’
He watches a lot of reality TV.
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‘I love it all. The Only Way Is Essex is genius and I think Claire Powell (Peter Andre’s manager) ought to be drafted in to make a reality show with William and Kate.
‘I watch Jordan’s show, but I can’t take too much of poor Kerry Katona’s show. It makes you cry, it’s so sad. And then you get her mother screaming down the phone at her because she’s been moved from one council house to another and she’s not happy. Then you see from the corner of the screen this huge glass of wine being lifted to her mouth. It’s properly Dickensian.
‘But these shows are strangely comforting. All these people are acting like they’ve had a great big metal pan banged over their heads and they’re trying to sort themselves out. That’s like living in Britain today – we’re all going through that sensation.’
Everett wanted Katie Price to play Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion.
‘Ah, I was thinking of the box office. Can you imagine the sales?’
Instead, Kara Tointon is his leading lady.
‘She’s wonderful,’ he says.
Does he ever give her advice?
‘Never. I never give advice or take it. And if you need advice, the party’s over.’
He watched his old friend Colin Firth (he calls him ‘Collywobbles’) win an Oscar for The King’s Speech.
‘There’s part of you that’s riven with jealousy, furious with it. But I did also ring to congratulate him. I think it’s a triumph for anyone of our age to get that chance.’
He sees few of his famous friends.
‘You can’t keep up with everyone, but you always take an interest.’
You get the impression he’s shocked at others’ inability to deal with truthful remarks.
‘We live in an age of handlers – it’s all very fake. There are a few genuine stars. I remember walking into an airport in Buenos Aires and seeing Bob Dylan (he starred with him in the Eighties flop Hearts of Fire). It was a typical Dylan moment. He arrived at the airport and his car hadn’t turned up. So he just walked and stood at the taxi rank – that’s where I saw him. Amazing. Dylan in a taxi rank. Perfect.’
'There's part of you that's riven with jealousy, furious with it. But I did also ring to congratulate him': Rupert on Colin Firth's recent Oscar win. They first appeared together in 1984's Another Country
I put it to Everett that there’s something of the old-fashioned English eccentric about him – shades of Oscar Wilde, with his shocking bon mots and past excesses. He disagrees.
‘Not really – I’m a very different person these days. Quiet, healthy. I work.’
He has written a script about Wilde’s final years, staying at the Cadogan Hotel in London (where Wilde was arrested) as part of his intense research.
‘After his imprisonment he became a pariah,’ he says. ‘He hung out with criminals and all his old friends avoided him. People would come over and spit in his face. He became revolting; his skin turned a horrible purple, which could have been from syphilis.
'He moved from place to place, shunned and infamous, but in his head he still had that arrogance. It’s a brilliant story, but then I’m obsessed myself with the gutter and disintegration, the real seediness of life.’
Maybe it’s a fate that could have awaited him. He shakes his head.
‘I don’t have any Irish in me,’ he says. ‘And ultimately it’s a lot to do with background.’
Fortunate enough to have been born perfectly beautiful, he says he’d rather have been born obscenely rich.
‘I never thought I was that good-looking. I’m far too critical, of everybody else and of myself too. If you’re incredibly rich you never have to worry. Joan Collins once said that if you’re born beautiful you’re born to face the fact that every day you lose a bit of that gift.’
He guffaws. ‘Never believe the hype.’
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