Rupert Everett has had one of the most unpredictable acting careers out there but perhaps it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he shines as Oscar Wilde in David Hare’s play about the writer, The Judas Kiss, that has just opened at BAM.
After all, star and subject both have a wicked sense of humor and, as well as act, Everett can also write – as demonstrated by his two memoirs Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins and Vanished Lands.
MORE: Winston Churchill Would Have Been For Brexit
Heat Street caught up with the star of My Best Friend’s Wedding and Another Country on the opening night of the play which recounts the scandal that brought down Wilde through his association with Lord Alfred Douglas, known as ‘Bosie’.
Everett, 56, previously performed the role of Wilde in two stints in London in 2012 and 2013, so why the attraction to the character?
“It’s quite a thing doing something a lot but being here is great. Oscar Wilde is a typical star because he’s got such a big head the moment he takes a court case against Lord Queensberry, he doesn’t consider whether he’s right or wrong. He’s just living on a cloud so I love the whole celebrity side of him and I love the crash.
MORE: House Of Cards Writer Michael Dobbs On Brexit
“It’s so romantic and I love David’s play. It’s kind of a gift in a way. It’s the tragedy of his life that I like most as much as the wit and the plays. I like the story of his demise and the grandeur and the fall from grace.”
Everett, who has been openly gay since 1989, says it was special performing the role on the night gay marriage was legalized in the UK.
He was previously thought of as being rather sceptical about same-sex marriage and gay adoption but now says he was misinterpreted: “My scepticism was something invented by the press, really…I don’t want to get married. Well actually, I’m not against getting married, but hopefully anyone can do what they want.
“We’re in a very weird situation now because the activists and the youth have become incredibly intransigent and you’ve got to have a lot of views and a lot of different people. Progress is progress and it’s fantastic.
“If it’s possible for everyone to have kids, why wouldn’t you do it? It doesn’t mean to say that everyone wants to have them… I think gay parenting is great. I think some gay parents are much better than straight ones who just spew children out without thinking!
“If you’re gay you have to think very hard about it and that’s what everybody should do about having a kid- think really hard and the struggle is great. Gay people, if they want to have a child, really have to think carefully and I think everybody should be thinking carefully. I’m for it completely.”
Everett added that after finishing his stint in The Judas Kiss run in mid-June, he will begin pre-production on The Happy Prince, a film recounting Wilde’s final days which he has written and will direct and star in.
“It starts shooting on 6 September and I go straight to work on it after this. It’s my directorial debut and probably finale! I don’t know how I’m going to do it but creativity is coming from nothing. Not that I feel confident but I’m very excited.”
He’s also feeling confident about the forthcoming Brexit vote, firmly planting himself in the Remain camp with unconventional logic: “I want to stay in Europe. I think England has improved enormously since we’ve been in Europe. We didn’t even have avocado pears when I was a kid. We were a sooty, banana- custard-walled freakery.
“It’s an argument only in the press because all the English people are so used to taking from, and being in, Europe by now there’s no question to me Brexit will ever happen.
“But we need to change. Brussels is a fucking disaster. My film is a European film, centered out of Brussels. You can’t go to a single restaurant in Brussels because they are all booked by lobbyists having incredibly expensive dinners. Something has to happen that changes but I regret we weren’t much involved earlier.”
Like Wilde, Everett has always marched to his own beat. “I’ve tried but nobody will have me in my their band.”
Political correctness is “boring” to him.
He reflects: “I’ve had an up and down existence. Some people manage to hold onto things and some people don’t manage to hold onto things. I don’t know what happened to me. But I had to chart my own course.”
