Actor Rupert Everett has talked about his personal life and acting career while appearing on the BBC’s iconic show Desert Island Discs.
The radio show invites a celebrity to imagine their stuck on a desert island and nominated seven pieces of music they would take with them, a book and a single luxury item. The show has been played on the BBC since 1942.
For his music selection Everett picked a classic disco tune from Odyssey, Julie Andrews singing Feed the Birds from the musical My Fair Lady, a tune from Billie Holiday, Pet Shop Boys Being Boring, and Ghost Town by The Specials.
He added something classical from Wagner, Stan Getz & João Gilberto’s Desafinado and brought this to a close with Stormzy’s Shut Up.
Everett’s career began in 1981 when he was cast as a gay schoolboy in Another Country, Julian Mitchell’s play and subsequent film. He later starred in Dance with a Stranger before gaining attention in Hollywood playing Julia Roberts’s gay confidante in My Best Friend’s Wedding.
He teamed up with Madonna for The Next Best Thing, a romantic comedy about a woman who has a baby with her gay best friend. The movie was a complete flop.
Over the years though he’s slowly built up his career again gaining acclaim in films like A Royal Night Out, the Shrek films and playing Oscar Wilde in The Happy Prince, which was also his directorial debut.
On the show Everett talked about how when he was younger he wanted to be a girl, something he attributes to be surrounded by strong women.
“I didn’t trust men,’ Rupert told host Lauren Laverne. ‘All the men in my family went sailing or they played golf – two things I found unutterably grim. I loved necklaces and bras and nestling up to my mum.”
The actor said as he got older he realised he was gay and became comfortable with his sexuality and gender.
Everett also said he was lucky to have survived the 1980’s without becoming HIV positive, describing that time when he felt “under a lot of strain” as a gay man, adding: “I was very lucky not ever contract the HIV virus.”
The actor recalled the gay scene in London in the 1980’s saying it was a stressful time for the whole community.
“I am not saying that, of course, the drama for me was anything like the drama for someone who did contract it, but for everyone involved it was a terrifying time.”
“When you’re losing friends… I think I did go a bit crazy with all that as well.” Everett shared.
The song from Pet Shop Boys that Everett selected makes reference to the AIDS epidemic. Released in 1990 the tune Being Boring contains a reference to missing friends, which many listeners have attributed as a reference to the loss of friends to HIV.
Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms and foreign places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here and some are missing
In the nineteen-nineties
OIP Staff
