Playboy's 20Q: Rupert Everett

In the early Eighties, Rupert Everett made his reputation playing handsome brooders in films such as Another Country and Dance With a Stranger. If the script called for a chiseled profile and a sullen disposition, Everett topped the list. But a sharp left turn into comedy changed all that. After roles in the The Madness of King George and the madcap Dunston Checks In, Everett nearly stole the show as a gay editor and Julia Roberts' fake fiancé in MI Best Friend's Wedding. Since then the 40-year-old actor has made the most of his second go-round, co-writing screenplays (one reteams him with Roberts; in another he plays a gay secret agent) and publishing two novels, Hello Darling, Are You Working? and The Hairdressers of San Tropez. He's working on a third, Guilt Without Sex: A Jewish Bestseller. He's also featured in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Inspector Gadget (with Matthew Broderick) and The Next Best Thing (which he rewrote) opposite Madonna. Contributing Editor David Rensin met with Everett over lunch in Beverly Hills. Says Rensin: "Rupert is quick, opinionated, articulate and doesn't hesitate to tell an interviewer when a question bothers him. Even more unusual, particularly in Hollywood, is that he wasn't afraid to admit that he didn't know the first thing about programming his new cellular phone."

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[Q] Playboy: You have just ordered free-range chicken. What do you suppose free-range really means? Does the bird get to experience unfettered chicken-hood before it ends up on your plate?

[A] Everett: No. Free-range means living in a two-foot box rather than a one-foot box, and not having its legs tied down. A friend of mine who used to work in a turkey-killing factory told me that most chickens are held down by their legs the whole time. The idea of a chicken clucking around a Heidi-esque farm in New England while some old bag throws corn and goes, "Chickie, chick-ie" is an utter fantasy.

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[Q] Playboy: Speaking of fantasies, after My Best Friend's Wedding, your co-star Julia Roberts expressed an interest in working with you again, so you wrote a script called Martha and. Arthur. From a screenwriter's perspective, how do you write specifically for Julia? What is the film about?

[A] Everett: What I like about Julia in My Best Friend's Wedding is that she can get away with being subversive. Julia can play someone quite malicious and be nastier than other actresses could in that role and still be likable. Look at her face: From her forehead and eyes she looks high-strung like a racehorse, like a filly that could bolt. Go lower and she's more easygoing. That mixture makes her fascinating, and when I write for her I think about employing both qualities. In Martha and, Arthur I want Julia's character to run the gamut. I want her to be a bitch, I want to see the fur fly. I also want to see that heart-dissolving smile, her vulnerability, that beauty. Martha and Arthur is about two Hollywood movie stars who are always on the cover of People magazine. They're America's favorite couple. He's an action star; she's a little Miss America beauty. He's also gay and they're living a lie, though not in the sense that they don't have a real relationship. It's just not sexual. It's a story about people who get locked into their image and end up with a marriage that becomes bigger than they are. It's what quite often happens in Hollywood. And ten years down the line, they've kind of lost touch with the reality of who they are because the publicists' version is in its place.

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[Q] Playboy: How have the movies steered us wrong about love?

[A] Everett: Relationships have become a weird thing since cinema began. "I need you" and "I want you" are now classic expressions of love. But neither is actually about love. They are both about possession. Love is a bigger thing. It's about accepting. It's unconditional. It's not about what you can get out of it. Our 20th century obsession with "me" has taken us away from what relationships are meant to be about, or can be about. That's why in Martha and Arthur the characters can have a perfectly delightful relationship despite their sexual differences. A modern homosexual man can have an affair with a heterosexual woman. Maybe it's a blossom that lasts only one night, like one of those exotic flowers in the Caribbean, but it reveals that humankind is much more malleable than society wants to own up to. We're not as defined as we think. That's the great thing about the film Greystoke. You can be an English duke one day and the next day you're number three in a monkey family. There are interesting possibilities in life that we resist because of our endless obsession with pigeonholing. As such, we too are like free-range chickens. We live in a slightly larger box, but it's still a box.

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[Q] Playboy: You once said that in Hollywood it's a bonus to be stupid and good-looking because you can plow on without questioning yourself. Do you think self-consciousness is overrated? Are our brains too big?

[A] Everett: I just think it's best not to be able to analyze rejection too much. The best attitude toward rejection-and actors face rejection all the time-is just to blank it out. If you look too deep you're opening a huge can of worms because your feelings of security are related to so many other things. In Hollywood, insecurity is as smelly as the smelliest fart. You have to retain a belief in yourself as a product. Thinking too much (continued on page 258)Rupert Everett(continued from page 221) about the product, analyzing why people do and don't want you, is counterproductive because most of the time you're not wanted. The best way to get through those times is to believe that everyone who doesn't want you is stupid and if they don't get you yet, they will.

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[Q] Playboy: You're writing a movie about a gay secret agent. What kind of special gizmos might James Bond's Q equip your character with?

[A] Everett: Poison condoms [laughs]. But this isn't meant to be a campy movie. It's more like John Woo's version. The character I'm going to play, Tarquin Thynne, is ruthless and cold and he enjoys the violence to a certain extent--like Bond does in the books. When he knew he had to kill somebody, he wanted to do it well.

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[Q] Playboy: Bond was no slave to fashion. Are you?

[A] Everett: Never. Fashion is a nice thing for women, but I think it's rather undignified for men. It's a very dodgy thing. There's nothing more queeny than this Joan Rivers-inspired obsession with male fashion. I'm embarrassed for everyone when a man attends an awards show and is forced to talk about who made his suit. I can't stand men who are too fashion-conscious. A man needs a suit if he needs a suit; otherwise, a track-suit or a pair of jeans will do. Bond had a pristine appearance, but I don't think that has to do with following fashion. I don't get the impression that in the late Sixties he was suddenly wearing bell-bottom trousers, and in the Seventies he switched to corduroy suits. Bond wore a Saville Row suit with a white shirt and sensible tie through the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

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[Q] Playboy: You went to an English public school run by Benedictine monks. What was the discipline like?

[A] Everett: They all smelled a bit musty, the monks, but they're actually a nice crowd. Sweet. They were pretty liberal in Catholic terms. Of course, I hated them at the time. Being in an English public school was boring because the English upper class is boring. They're bluff, tweedy bores. From an early age, I dreamed of a life on the boards, or at least a life somewhere away from where I was. The toughest discipline consisted of having to run to this town about eight miles away and then run back. I had to do it a few times before I learned I could just sit by the wayside and smoke cigarettes behind a bush. The nastiest thing about that school was the hierarchy among the kids. The monks were distracted, and they left the running of the place to the elder boys. Sort of Lord of the Flies, everyone vying for supremacy in a way I didn't particularly like.

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[Q] Playboy: Prince Edward has finally married. Will this be the one union among the Queen's brood that will stand the test of time? What challenges might he face after walking down the aisle?

[A] Everett: I'm not a Royal botanicalist, but I believe the Queen has been disappointed with her other sons because she's been a stubborn cow. And her husband is a little upstart. Things have shifted quite a bit in England since it gave up its empire, and since the war, but there are many of my parents' generation who refuse to let go of the empire ruler mentality. Many of their kids were brought up utterly unprepared to face a modern world, and no one's done it more so than the Queen and Prince Philip. You have to look at the pictures of Prince Charles, when he was five, meeting the Queen when she came back from a long state tour. He was only allowed to shake hands with her. His are totally dysfunctional parents. They're extremely proud and arrogant, and are determined not to move into the 20th century. Their publicists are these groping brigadiers and colonels who haven't got a clue about how to work the media. From my limited royal watching, I feel that the kids are much nicer than the parents and they and their wives have had a really hard time of it, especially Prince Charles, because of the Queen's and Philip's inflexibility and their personal grandeur. Prince Philip is this stickler for tradition. I think he's a thoroughly unpleasant man. I feel sorry for those kids. Prince Edward looks like a nice guy and I hope his marriage works out well. But if I were a woman you couldn't pay me any amount to enter that family.

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[Q] Playboy: What's the difference between the English and American usage of the word cunt?

[A] Everett: Simple. In England, it's a word you can use. That's all. Here it's another very good word lost to political correctness. I don't mind bad words--for instance, fuck. I think it's amazing that it's a swearword. After all, it's something most everyone likes doing. It's sweet and harmless. We've overanalyzed things to make something pejorative out of an experience that's so nice. That's a weird madness.

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[Q] Playboy: Because you're what's called an "openly gay actor," you've been deemed the ambassador to straight America. Did that please you or did the subtext of being "acceptable" ruffle your feathers?

[A] Everett: You're going too far. Perhaps it was in some way naive, but to tell you the truth, I didn't think twice about it. My acting career has nothing to do with my sexuality. I don't want to be a role model. I don't want to be the Shirley Temple of the gay world. If, as a homosexual man, I'm part of some movement and progress, I'm pleased. I'm not an activist, but I'm happy to stand up and be counted. I really just want to be an actor. If that means playing some gay characters, fine. I'm writing movies in which I play gay characters. But whatever I am is because of my career as an actor and nothing else. If I weren't an actor first and foremost, we wouldn't even be here talking.

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[Q] Playboy: True. What's the most pleasant legacy of having done My Best Friend's Wedding?

[A] Everett: Talking endlessly about being gay to the media [pauses]. I'm being sarcastic [sighs]. The most pleasant legacy is the career opportunity it's given me at a point when I didn't really expect one. I had a kind of success early on and then it dispersed, partly through being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and partly because when you're a kid you don't realize that nothing is going to last forever. You put off lots of things; you don't respect events enough. When you're older you think twice before doing things. Having success at this age, I'm more aware that it's a difficult thing to come by and I want to maximize my potential. I realize that with one false move, it could disappear. I know that it's a gamble. But while I'm at the roulette table I want to play with all my might.

As for talking about being gay, if I might come back to that, the thing is that it becomes boring after a while. I was gay last year, I'm gay this year, I'll be gay next year and I just can't be bothered to go on about it all the time. There must be more interesting things than just being gay. Yet most questions come back to being gay. I'm talking about my gay projects and I'm talking about acting gay and being gay at school. You don't talk to a straight actor about their straight projects, or about their being straight in school. But I'm forced to endlessly explain all this. And I find that after a certain point it becomes frustrating. It's not that I want to avoid the fact of what I am, but I don't want my whole fucking existence to be about being gay. I don't see the point. What's also unfair is that when people read this, it looks like that's all I want to talk about. No one gets the fact that it's you asking me endlessly about the subject.

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[Q] Playboy: OK. You've been in two movies with the word monkey in the title--Inside Monkey Zetterland and B. Monkey--and you've acted with a monkey in Dunston Checks In. What are you trying to tell us?

[A] Everett: [Laughs] Not much. However, the monkey I worked with was, quite honestly, one of my most riveting scene partners to date. Actors, onstage or on film, are pretty much thinking all the time, How can I steal this scene? What can I do? When the other actor is making a speech should I set myself on fire, so that I pull the focus? But a monkey is more of a prima donna than any actress you'll ever work with. The monkey is interested in doing three takes at the most. Also, the monkey is the most manipulative monster you'll ever come across. He will watch you until he figures out your weak spots. In Dunston, I wore a hairpiece with a big widow's peak. One day the monkey watched me put it on. During the scene, he bided his time until I had a line and then, poof! He pulled it off my head and stole the moment. When you act with a monkey you have to leave your own ego behind and stop worrying about how to act, because everything revolves around him. Monkeys, by the way, are not dumb animals. My co-star had the intelligence of a four- or five-year-old child.

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[Q] Playboy: In Dunston Checks In you did an homage to the English comic actor Terry-Thomas. Take us through T.T.'s oeuvre, and tell us why we should appreciate this underappreciated guy.

[A] Everett: Terry is famous for films like How to Murder Your Wife, with Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi--I'd love to do a remake of that--but I discovered him in children's movies like Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. He was part of the generation of great eccentrics between the Thirties and the Sixties in England. Terry was the ultimate cad, scared stiff of everyone but putting on a front. In other words, he's a complete fake who pretends to have a moral fiber according to an old-boy code. But he gets everything wrong. And he hasn't even dealt with sex. There are very few films in which you see him make any effort with a woman because he's just too much of a tragic wimp. But he's very funny and he had the great look that included the gap between his front teeth and a mustache with a little bit cut off in the middle, which accentuated the gap. Terry could also go from lunatic, farcical acting to very tender moments in which he pulled down the facade. He had a sad ending--broke and alone with Parkinson's disease.

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[Q] Playboy: Some scholars believe Christopher Marlowe wrote some of Shakespeare's best plays. You played Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love yet went uncredited on screen. Was that a tongue-in-cheek gesture?

[A] Everett: Oh my God, I wish I'd thought of that. No, it wasn't really. My uncredited performance came about only because I didn't really see the point of being credited for such a tiny part. Also, I remember seeing The Boy Friend by Ken Russell. Glenda Jackson makes an uncredited appearance in the first scene. So you spend the rest of the film going, "Was that Glenda?" It's a good moment, kind of a glamorous thing. It's fun, and better than being listed and pissing off someone who then expects more of you in the film.

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[Q] Playboy: You spent a year and a half in Russia making a miniseries of the classic And Quiet Flows the Don. Care to give us the dos and don'ts for touring the former Evil Empire?

[A] Everett: Of course, Russia has completely changed since I was there. I arrived a week before the Yeltsin coup against Gorbachev. I was working with this 70-year-old director who'd also made the definitive version of War and Peace. I played a folk hero, Grigory Melekhov. There's no equivalent anywhere in the world to this character; everyone has a picture of him in their car, he's so famous. And, speaking of being gay, when the director realized that he'd hired a homosexual actor to play this biggest of folk heroes, his world fell apart [laughs].

Being in Russia was the most fantastic experience. And, luckily, because of my public school upbringing, I was really the only person who could deal with it. You're not just cauterized in public schools, in some ways it's like you're in prison. You live in this huge, freezing cold dormitory with iron beds. You use sink rooms--rooms with a million sinks and toilets. It's a very spartan life. So the first morning I woke up in Russia in my luxury apartment covered in red welts from the bed bugs, I thought nothing of it. For the first few weeks there was no hot water. The first week our next-door neighbor burned to death. His body, as well as all his furniture, was carried out at four in the morning and dumped on the street. The mattress and blankets, a chest of drawers, his bedside lamp. It was summer. When autumn came the leaves fell on the mattress, which had a big hole burned in the middle. In winter, snow fell and you could see the outline of the gutted lampshade. Spring came and thawed it all.

I also had a guy cooking for me, and he served me porridge every morning. If any were left over he'd put it outside for the birds. My neighbors found out and tried to stab him, because their lives were so extreme that feeding the birds was insulting.

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[Q] Playboy: You've played moody, sulking characters. Can you explain Montgomery Clift?

[A] Everett: He came from an era when everyone celebrated suffering in and for art. That was the iconography of the Seventies, as I was growing up. I read about Clift and James Dean crashing their cars. It was all about Baudelaire and Rimbaud. One's aim in life was to suffer; you wanted to be in a relationship that made you miserable. That's how you discovered the contours of life. The Eighties brought Thatcherism and Reagansim, and suffering was completely thrown by the wayside and nobody wanted to hear about anything apart from positive, forward thinking. Get the money and run. There's something interesting about that, too, but it's different from the world Montgomery Clift inhabited. The last actor I saw who had that in him was Eric Roberts. I felt he could shatter at any moment. I don't know if you could sell Montgomery Clift these days, because when you looked at his face you saw a great deal of conflict and an abyss of uncertainty and fear behind his eyes. It was attractive then, but not now.

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[Q] Playboy: When was the last time you were mistaken for that other English Rupert, Rupert Graves?

[A] Everett: We're both constantly mistaken for each other. But it's not a surprise. No one knows who anyone is. I remember my dad coming up to my house once and seeing a picture of Johnny Rotten on the wall. He said, "Hey, when did you have that taken?"

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[Q] Playboy: You take your Labrador, Moise, everywhere. What does a plane ticket for a dog cost these days? Can he earn frequent flier miles?

[A] Everett: If you put him in the hold, it doesn't cost much. But if you want to buy him a seat on the Concorde, you can. Moise can't use frequent flier miles, but he can polish off the foie gras with death-defying professionalism.

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[Q] Playboy: What's the difference between a charmer and a seducer?

[A] Everett: I always think of seduction in a sexual context. Charm is more cocktail-hour stuff. Charm is easier [pauses]. To me, it's the difference between studio executives and agents.

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[Q] Playboy: You once said you hated the term gay. So come up with a new one.

[A] Everett: I don't hate the term gay, it's just I was never bothered by those supposedly rude words like queer--which I find attractive. Gay is so fucking bourgeois. It doesn't bear any resemblance in its true meaning to the state of being homosexual. We're not all this happy little farm of munchkins. By the way, gay was also a horrible word in the Thirties, when it only meant having a good time.