Rupert Everett: Stalking

“You were told [at school] that if you got a hard-on, you should turn over and say a Hail Mary. You somehow make it work for yourself, but it gives you lots of bubbles inside. I wanted to tear everything down, and the way I found to do it was sex.” With whom? “They didn’t necessarily have to be attractive. It depends how the lights are hitting you and how the drinks are hitting you.” Was it, I ask, self-hating? “Guilty, certainly,” he says. “My whole life was about sex, really, in one sense or another.” Aids terrified him: there was death everywhere in the 1980s, and the backlash was vicious. “People were really turning against gays — they had been so popular in the 1970s. Being black was rather popular in the 1970s, too.” This is a typical of Everett; just when you think he is sensitive and clever, he says something so fashion-stupid, I want to thump him.

We then have an absurd conversation about Ian McKellen, which demonstrates his ambivalence about his early life. When he was young, in London, he stalked McKellen, which is fairly normal for teenagers who find their backgrounds uncomfortable or dreary. According to his memoir Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, he told a friend: “I am shagging Ian McKellen, I swear!” Since he is usually so talkative about his promiscuity, I ask him if it’s true. “No,” he says calmly. “I was friends with Ian McKellen.” But it’s in the book, I say, and I repeat the anecdote. “I did sleep with Ian McKellen,” he says eventually, and I feel unkind that I even asked. “I loved stalking people,” he says. “Now it’s illegal, such a shame. Such fun.”

Rupert Everett profiled in The Sunday Times.
Mr Everett has won much praise for his portrayal of Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss.
It transfers to the West End on Wednesday.
As it stars Rupert my chances of seeing it are less than zero.

Update: Rupert The Bore was also on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, sitting next to one David Cameron, who was enthusing about gay marriage.
Rupert said bluntly; "I can't stand marriage..."
Thus making "Dave" look rather silly.