Rupert Everett says being gay limited his acting career
By Josh Haggis
Rupert Everett has claimed that being gay has limited his career as an actor.
Everett, 55, known for his roles is My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Next Best Thing, argued that his homosexuality has been “a huge issue” through his three-decade career on stage and screen.
“You can’t ever expect the world to see everything about yourself in the way that you do – certainly in terms of conducting a career as a homosexual in show business,” said Everett during an interview with the Daily Telegraph. “Not so much now, maybe, because I’m older. It’s not such a threatening problem. But all through my career it was a huge issue.”
The actor, who has been seen more recently in the St Trinian’s films, added later in the interview: “There’s only a certain amount of mileage you can make, as a young pretender, as a leading man, as a homosexual. There just isn’t very far you can go.”
He also suggested the entertainment industry is guilty of a certain hypocrisy in the way it treats gay actors.
“Movie stars and directors and studios spend a lot of money promoting human rights and being charitable in Africa but, actually, in their own backyard, they really don’t accept that any of these things as happening,” Everett argued.
“So people mostly said to me: ‘Oh, but you’ve been so difficult and you’ve blown everything for yourself, you’ve sabotaged your own career.’ To a certain extent, it’s true, but to a certain extent, it isn’t.”
Earlier this year, Everett investigated the sex industry in a documentary for Channel 4 – click here to find out more about the documentary.