:00:04. > :00:08.The latest headlines: Members of the Shia minority in Pakistan have
:00:08. > :00:18.taken to the streets in protest after increasing attacks from Sunni
:00:18. > :00:18.
:00:18. > :00:24.Muslims. The government has sacked an official who was there on
:00:24. > :00:29.Thursday when 90 people were killed and bombings. France has wind this
:00:29. > :00:36.campaign against Islamist militants in Mali. On -- widened its campaign.
:00:36. > :00:43.A good night for Les Miserables in Hollywood. It won best film in the
:00:43. > :00:48.music and comedy category in the Golden Globes. Other winners
:00:49. > :00:58.included Ben Affleck for best director and Daniel Day Lewis tick
:00:59. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:14.Now it is time for HARDtalk. My guest today is an actor whose
:01:14. > :01:20.life has been flavoured with a twist of melodrama. Rupert
:01:20. > :01:25.Everett's career has been marred by vivid highs and extreme lows. The
:01:25. > :01:29.same could be said of a personal life which at times featured
:01:29. > :01:34.copious amounts of sex, drugs and alcohol. He had Hollywood success
:01:34. > :01:39.but it was fleeting. He says the movie business remains biased
:01:39. > :01:49.against gay actors. He has won a new audience as a writer and is
:01:49. > :02:14.
:02:14. > :02:19.Rupert Everett, welcome to HARDtalk. Thatcher very much. Let's begin
:02:19. > :02:25.with that thought about wildness and use. When you look back today
:02:25. > :02:32.at the young Rupert Everett, do you feel that you are the same person?
:02:32. > :02:38.Are being middle age now, one area of my life I cannot understand is
:02:38. > :02:47.my twenties. I think though wildness was to do with things that
:02:47. > :02:52.happened. AIDS had started when I was about 21, 22. I had had a very
:02:52. > :02:59.faded sex-life from the age of 16 until when it happened. You were
:02:59. > :03:04.very promiscuous. Mike career and the arrival of AIDS happened almost
:03:04. > :03:10.on the same day. When I look back on my twenties, most of it was
:03:10. > :03:14.lived with a real sense of terror. I think one of the things people
:03:14. > :03:20.forget about AIDS now, since it has become treatable, or manageable,
:03:20. > :03:26.let's say, is that when it first happened, there were people with it
:03:26. > :03:31.on the streets and it was a most terrible, ravaging disease.
:03:31. > :03:37.there ever a point when you thought you had contracted it? I was
:03:37. > :03:42.certain that I had. I could not imagine how would not have. I
:03:42. > :03:47.embarked on this career on front of the camera. Every day, I would say
:03:47. > :03:52.not a minute went by when some panic button was not going off.
:03:52. > :03:58.Terrifying. My first film was successful and I was wondering,
:03:58. > :04:05.what would happen now if I came out with it? It is a very visible
:04:05. > :04:11.disease. Looking back, my whole life was collared by sheer terror.
:04:11. > :04:21.Terror in faded every area of my life. They dictated how I behave at
:04:21. > :04:23.
:04:23. > :04:27.work. It becomes a very strange views. -- once Fiore has become
:04:28. > :04:33.very strange. It was a very successful part of your career,
:04:33. > :04:37.your twenties. I wonder whether part of you were seeking self
:04:37. > :04:44.destruction in a way. It is a marvellous idea that people seek
:04:44. > :04:51.self destruction. I never know, before Sigmund Freud, and no one
:04:51. > :04:55.understood that. You do not have to be Freud to understand that. The
:04:55. > :05:01.nature of your sexual activity, forgive me, at least for a while,
:05:01. > :05:06.you would a male prostitutes. That is the most risky off behaviour.
:05:06. > :05:11.You spoke about the drugs, the alcohol, going on stage, as you put
:05:11. > :05:18.it, plastered. This behaviour suggests that you knew things would
:05:18. > :05:22.go wrong. I am not sure. I came from a tradition of actors.
:05:23. > :05:29.Character actors on the 1950s and 1960s, Richard Burton, Elizabeth
:05:29. > :05:34.Taylor, everyone was plastered non- stop. Going on stage drunk at that
:05:34. > :05:40.time was not that weird. It seems weird now because I but not do it
:05:40. > :05:47.any more. Sex is sex, whether it is for money or not. Self- destruction,
:05:47. > :05:52.I think it is too easy. I think I came from a very very solid and
:05:52. > :05:58.straight and conservative background. Also, religious. I was
:05:58. > :06:04.brought up in a monastery. I was indoctrinated with Catholicism. The
:06:04. > :06:10.escape from it, escaping from that, it almost seemed intolerable. --
:06:10. > :06:15.impossible. The only way to deal that was to break it down. It was
:06:15. > :06:19.extreme. At 16, how could you say you wanted to destroy yourself and
:06:19. > :06:25.have lots of sex? I just wanted to be as different as I could from
:06:25. > :06:30.Greg came from. I wanted to burn the bridges. Their stuff down. It
:06:30. > :06:34.brings me to an interesting thought at the other end of your life. This
:06:34. > :06:38.end of your life. In the last couple of years, you have had to
:06:38. > :06:42.deal with the death of your father. You talk about your conservative
:06:42. > :06:48.upbringing, your mother and father were very much Conservatives with a
:06:49. > :06:54.small C. Your father went into the world of finance and you had a very
:06:54. > :07:00.comfortable, conservative upbringing. It intrigues me that at
:07:00. > :07:06.the end of his life... luxurious. That was about rationing.
:07:06. > :07:10.It was a comfort that was built out of Peter Jones rather than Harrods.
:07:10. > :07:15.What I am getting at is that you spent issued amount of time of your
:07:15. > :07:18.father as he came to the end of his life. -- a huge amount. You have
:07:18. > :07:23.reached a new stage in your relationship with him, before he
:07:23. > :07:27.died. It surprises me because in some ways I would have thought your
:07:27. > :07:34.values and those of your parents would have been so diametrically
:07:34. > :07:41.opposed that that would have been difficult. The idea that I had for
:07:41. > :07:47.my second book, the second chapter, it was me going to my grandmother's
:07:47. > :07:51.house in Norfolk and comparing life which is spring tides. This notion,
:07:51. > :07:58.I can't believe that the genes sometimes draw you back to the
:07:58. > :08:02.beach are foolish. -- of your youth. Not that I would become a
:08:02. > :08:07.Conservative led by Father, but, when someone dies, you'd realise
:08:07. > :08:11.you have given them a hard time through their life for their values.
:08:11. > :08:16.What you would think is desperately conventional. You must have shocked
:08:16. > :08:23.them to their core. To their core but my father was very good about
:08:23. > :08:28.it. I mentioned in the book, my father put my brother into business
:08:28. > :08:34.with some colleague of his and he wrote to this colleague seeing "I
:08:34. > :08:42.don't think Simon, my brother, is working hard enough. Closed was
:08:42. > :08:47.This Kohli, who is a bit gay, said you're younger son is a drug addict,
:08:47. > :08:53.a prostitute and a, sexual. None of my parents said anything about it.
:08:53. > :08:58.When I think about that, it was very clever not to have mentioned
:08:58. > :09:03.it. They must a project will vomited over the letter. Let's talk
:09:03. > :09:09.about your career. Your first huge success was in another country. You
:09:09. > :09:15.played a young gay man. You got huge acclaim for it. You were then
:09:15. > :09:20.tipped to be one of Britain's great male stars. For quite a number of
:09:20. > :09:26.years after that, it did not go that way. I start in another film
:09:26. > :09:33.which was also very successful called Dans with a Stranger about a
:09:33. > :09:39.woman who was hanged. In your twenties, you appeared to have
:09:39. > :09:43.everything within your grasp. only that, I nearly got even more
:09:43. > :09:47.everything because, of the back of that, added a phone call from Orson
:09:47. > :09:52.Welles saying he wanted me to come to Hollywood to star in his new
:09:52. > :09:57.film and I thought, at that point, I had taken the ladder to the top.
:09:57. > :10:02.He was faultless. He did not need to be commercial. He was Orson
:10:02. > :10:09.Welles. My agent rang the up and said" Rupert, the money is not
:10:09. > :10:14.enough. "I went and it never happened. Talk about going from the
:10:14. > :10:19.top to the bottom. Then, everything fell apart. We cannot go through
:10:19. > :10:23.every bit of that fall apart but what strikes me is that when people
:10:23. > :10:29.look at you now, many will associate you with another country,
:10:29. > :10:38.which people don't forget, and also with Mike Catt by best Friend's
:10:38. > :10:45.Wedding. You played a huge role as a gay man. You Korea may be defined
:10:45. > :10:49.by playing gay men. You are a gay man. -- your career. How does that
:10:49. > :10:55.connect? You might be seen as a successful gay actor playing gay
:10:56. > :11:00.roles. I think no but a lot of people think yes. I don't know what
:11:00. > :11:04.the answer is. One of the frustrating things about a career
:11:04. > :11:09.in cinema at the moment, in the current climate, straight men did
:11:09. > :11:17.every opportunity to play departs when they want and when done
:11:17. > :11:27.towards doing so but it doesn't work the other way. -- when they
:11:27. > :11:28.
:11:28. > :11:32.want to do so. You would advise someone to come out if they are
:11:32. > :11:37.being Hollywood. Is that still your advice? I am talking about
:11:37. > :11:42.Hollywood and theatre. That comes into play a lot. The theatre
:11:43. > :11:52.community is a fairly right wing organisation. -- theatre awning
:11:53. > :11:55.
:11:55. > :11:59.community. Since actors began to look at themselves, there are more
:11:59. > :12:02.commercial things involved, perfumes and the like. The
:12:02. > :12:12.mainstream actor has had to become straighter and straighter and
:12:12. > :12:20.straighter. I look at a young American actor playing such parts,
:12:20. > :12:24.and some are openly gay. You had this lifestyle which she discussed.
:12:24. > :12:30.Other gay actors may not have had the same opportunities. Maybe it is
:12:30. > :12:37.not being did it is the problem Bucher wild past. Who is to know? I
:12:37. > :12:41.don't think so. It in the recent past, have you experienced this
:12:41. > :12:47.discrimination against homosexuals in your industry? Is it changing?
:12:47. > :12:55.Is it changing today? Judy in Hollywood, for example, I have not
:12:55. > :13:00.been in Los Angeles for three, four, five years. Hollywood has changed
:13:00. > :13:04.in every sense in the last few years. It i years. It ig. It
:13:04. > :13:11.is not easy. Summoned a breakthrough, maybe many people
:13:11. > :13:14.will break through. -- someone will break through. One of the things
:13:14. > :13:21.you need to have a successful career as an actor is wives,
:13:21. > :13:26.girlfriends, arm candy for the red carpet. It is now as important a
:13:26. > :13:31.part of an actor's career as the product. The perception of a
:13:31. > :13:37.person's success is as important. can tell thinking when you talk
:13:37. > :13:41.about arm candy, you had that. You had a very open public relationship
:13:42. > :13:46.with Madonna for a while. You walked out with horror and squired
:13:47. > :13:52.her to a number of high-profile events. What was the nature of that
:13:52. > :13:58.relationship? I suppose it was a mutual
:13:58. > :14:05.masturbation in the way. I think it was fun for boaster was in a way.
:14:05. > :14:09.We had known each other for a long time, a release in starting. I
:14:10. > :14:16.adored Madonna. I still do. She definitely does not adore you any
:14:16. > :14:22.more. You have written about her in somewhat challenging terms. Very
:14:22. > :14:27.challenging. What I wrote about were was very loving and in defence
:14:27. > :14:32.of four. You describe tier of putting herself to bed with
:14:32. > :14:37.clingfilm wrapped around her, plotting her next move. When you
:14:37. > :14:41.talk about the grand parties, the moments that you had, particularly
:14:41. > :14:47.in the late 1990s come up and you were a big star, you were self-
:14:47. > :14:52.aware enough to say that behind the veneer, everyone was desperately
:14:52. > :15:02.vulnerable and you lodge itself and the toilet and snorted cocaine to
:15:02. > :15:03.
:15:03. > :15:10.put your face on. It was all fake, I think that the years before her
:15:10. > :15:15.11th September are extraordinary to think about. It would not have been
:15:15. > :15:19.there if it had not happened. It would have been more of the same.
:15:19. > :15:27.Again, in your own words, you're powerful words, you talk about the
:15:27. > :15:36.vulnerability that lay behind the party scene. What had happened to
:15:36. > :15:41.show business since the 80s, when Reagan started to deregulate
:15:42. > :15:48.everything, it happened in showbusiness as well. This meant
:15:48. > :15:55.that actors who never ever promoted perfumes and skincare lines and
:15:55. > :16:03.underwear were not allowed to. They started acid stripping themselves.
:16:03. > :16:12.They became very red carpet for re- entered. -- asset stripping. -- a
:16:12. > :16:19.re-entered. Everyone has his schedule. Everything is just a
:16:19. > :16:24.piece of work. What one feels, although I was not there in the
:16:24. > :16:29.last golden age of Hollywood, the 70s. Is that people were much more
:16:29. > :16:35.real. People were what they were. They were not just on promotional
:16:35. > :16:44.schedules. Here is what I find really intriguing about you. Even
:16:44. > :16:50.when you can see through the corporate career, you have part of
:16:50. > :17:00.it. You said it was orgasmic. I find we look as though I am in with
:17:00. > :17:08.Richard Curtis. We knew that it was a deeply flawed business. Yes, of
:17:08. > :17:18.course. We not get out of that? is a well-lit game that I enjoy. I
:17:18. > :17:18.
:17:18. > :17:28.actually enjoy it. It thinks you a deeply conflicted person. you admit
:17:28. > :17:33.that a lot of it is, well you know the word I am thinking of. A does
:17:33. > :17:37.one have to be so fussy about everything? You can take an
:17:37. > :17:44.attitude about so many things. It has never been a clean business,
:17:45. > :17:49.showbusiness. I still think now, for example, I want to be part of
:17:49. > :17:56.it. It seems, from reading a lot of things you have written, you feel
:17:56. > :18:01.that you could have made a great James Bond. You could have played
:18:01. > :18:07.one of the contemporary statue Grant played. I could have done.
:18:07. > :18:12.Are you bitter that you did not? Not really. I have been through
:18:12. > :18:20.periods of bitterness about things. It must be the same in your
:18:21. > :18:25.business. It is so up and down. It is up and down for everyone. You're
:18:26. > :18:35.in, you're out. You clearly want to go on it. You are having great
:18:36. > :18:36.
:18:36. > :18:42.success at the moment. You are having a great moment with Oscar
:18:42. > :18:50.Wilde. It is interesting you have become so involved in this. You
:18:50. > :18:58.have long described Oscar Wilde as a hero. Is that because of the link
:18:58. > :19:04.with sexuality and him being a gay man in a climate when it is
:19:04. > :19:10.extraordinarily difficult. Is that why you connect with him? He is a
:19:10. > :19:14.kind of Christ figure for me. anti-union? I think he saw himself
:19:14. > :19:22.as a crass figure. -- How do you mean. He saw himself as a mixture
:19:22. > :19:32.of man and God, God been his genius. He was this kind of extraordinary
:19:32. > :19:41.macho. -- marjoram. He is one of the great! Between the 19th century
:19:41. > :19:47.and 20th century. He is funny and pathetic and moving. There is a
:19:47. > :19:51.senior that sort of suggests that your sexuality has been an
:19:51. > :19:58.incredibly important part of your world view. And the way in which
:19:58. > :20:08.you interpret the world. You have spoken out on some issues are
:20:08. > :20:14.
:20:14. > :20:21.relevant to gay campaigns. On these issues you have upset the gay
:20:21. > :20:27.community. That is just dealing with the press and the media. It is
:20:27. > :20:31.quite difficult, sometimes. If we take them one at the time, I didn't
:20:31. > :20:35.interview for the Sunday Times called relative values. -- did an
:20:35. > :20:41.interview. It is meant to celebrate, in some shape and form, the
:20:41. > :20:45.relationship between family members. I said that this is only me, but I
:20:45. > :20:51.would not like to have two gay fathers. I could not think of
:20:51. > :20:56.anything worse. Within the context of an interview that is talking
:20:56. > :21:06.about, presumably, a relationship between a mother and a son. The
:21:06. > :21:10.
:21:10. > :21:18.same day, the Times, the media loved the same something like that.
:21:18. > :21:23.They said I was very judgmental. I am not against or for anything. I
:21:23. > :21:28.like being in England because it is a liberal country. I do not want to
:21:28. > :21:33.get married. I do not like marriage and they do not want to have
:21:33. > :21:38.children. I am not against anyone else doing it. What he seemed to
:21:38. > :21:45.suggest is the way in which the gay community was aping the behaviours
:21:45. > :21:49.and the institutions. I did not say that. I said I could not think of
:21:49. > :21:54.anything worse than two gay fathers. But taking the broader issue about
:21:54. > :22:00.which a mindset is in the state of being gay today. A will tell you
:22:00. > :22:07.exactly what it is. You cannot say what the ideal parentis. Just
:22:07. > :22:13.because there are a couple of University Teachers who have a job
:22:13. > :22:18.you child. There is no such thing as the ideal parent. It is
:22:18. > :22:22.perfectly fine to be a gay parent. But the words used in one interview,
:22:22. > :22:27.you said that for me being gay was about wanting to do the opposite of
:22:27. > :22:35.the straight world. That is the problem with some of the issues
:22:35. > :22:40.today. Do you still feel that? loved being gay when I was young.
:22:40. > :22:46.There was something kind Steyn about it. When you went to a gay
:22:46. > :22:51.bar or club in the 70s, it was a completely different world. It
:22:51. > :22:55.included a gay Duke talking to a milkman. There was a feeling that
:22:55. > :23:00.everybody counted just for being there. There was a certain risk.
:23:00. > :23:05.There was a specialist that maybe is gone. It is different. There was
:23:05. > :23:11.always the risk of a raid. There is something still quite weird about
:23:11. > :23:17.public displays of affection. But what happened to me very quickly
:23:17. > :23:23.was that I really enjoyed that outside a nurse. -- being an
:23:24. > :23:31.outsider. It is a different life I am living than other people who are
:23:31. > :23:36.further down the line. I do not want to have a family. What I love
:23:36. > :23:41.about being gay is not having a family. A final thought, we have
:23:41. > :23:45.talked about acting and writing. You are going to direct next.
:23:45. > :23:52.going to direct myself in a film I have written. Again about Oscar
:23:52. > :23:56.Wilde. It is about the last four weeks of his life. As he is dine
:23:56. > :24:00.with a series of flashbacks. Just a thought about directing, we have
:24:00. > :24:07.talked about the wild reproach and you have talked about the change
:24:07. > :24:13.and mellowing of it. Are you ready to direct other actors, to lead a
:24:13. > :24:19.team in a way that a successful director has to? You can never say
:24:19. > :24:25.that until it actually happens. I hope I am going to be able to do it.
:24:25. > :24:32.I hope it will be a tremendous success for an utter disaster.
:24:32. > :24:38.Times have -- lots of worse films than mine have been made. That is
:24:38. > :24:48.not an issue. I can direct it. I can definitely do reckless one.
:24:48. > :25:10.
:25:10. > :25:14.hope we give you back when you have Temperatures have been taking a dip
:25:14. > :25:18.through the course of the weekend. As we start the new working week,
:25:18. > :25:22.things are looking pretty wintry. There are warnings in force from
:25:22. > :25:28.the Met Office for ice and snow. And amber warning for snow across
:25:28. > :25:33.parts of eastern England. It could be quite disruptive. We have seen
:25:33. > :25:37.snow pushing across central areas overnight. That could leave some
:25:37. > :25:43.icy stretches. The next area of rain and snow heads in from the
:25:43. > :25:52.north-west. In the morning, we will continue to see some rain for
:25:52. > :25:57.Scotland. Further showers to come. As it heads into the north of
:25:57. > :26:01.England, it will be increasingly turning to snow. For Wales, mostly
:26:01. > :26:06.rain on low ground. Largely dry across the Midlands and the south-
:26:06. > :26:15.east. There could be slight accumulations of snow. It is going
:26:15. > :26:23.to be a wet start to the day across Devon and Cornwall. Anywhere north
:26:23. > :26:29.of the Midlands, quite widespread snow. Amber warning sin force. We
:26:29. > :26:33.could see up to five centimetres of snow. To the south of London,
:26:33. > :26:38.mainly falling as rain. For East Anglia, some further snow. A cold
:26:38. > :26:43.feeling day on Monday. It will be drying up from the West. Needless
:26:43. > :26:47.to say, when the icy conditions and the snow fall, we are likely to see
:26:47. > :26:51.some disruption to the travel networks. BBC local radio always
:26:51. > :26:59.the best place to keep in tune to the latest. Heading over Monday
:26:59. > :27:06.evening, the bulk of the rain and the snow pushes off to the east. A
:27:06. > :27:13.few wintry showers for Wales and the south-west of England. Another
:27:13. > :27:21.cold start to the day. Sub-zero temperatures. Through the day on
:27:21. > :27:25.Tuesday, again we have got warnings in force around eastern coasts.
:27:25. > :27:32.Further west and north, many places looking dry, bright and still on