March

Climbing Mt. Everett

by Michelle Tomko

Coming off of successful performances in both An Ideal Husband and My Best Friend's Wedding, Rupert Everett is once again on the big screen opposite Madonna, with a cameo of his dog Mo, in The Next Best Thing.

This writer spoke with the actor in one of his favorite places, the Delano Hotel in Miami's South Beach.

Everett is definitely a maverick among Hollywood types with lots of James Bond appeal. However, this morning he was rather casual with that "I've just been to the gym" outfit.

Michelle Tomko: Who was attached to the project first?

Rupert Everett: About six years ago, I went up for the role before I was kind of famous so I didn't get it. Then after My Best Friend's Wedding, it was brought to me again. I just got very lucky. Audiences in Middle America got really turned on to my character. When they found out I was gay as well, it was a very successful thing for me.

So I was looking for material that would still attract mainstream audiences, which was basically about being charming and not being too controversial. So I took it to Madonna. The year that it took us to write was one of the most nightmarish years ever.

M.T.: Would you be okay if you were gay in every single film?

R.E.: If you get a success in Hollywood, normally you're re-employed to play the same role until you bore people stupid. I don't think because you play gay you're playing the same role. I do actively seek out gay roles and other ones as well.

M.T.: What do you think the film might say to gay men?

R.E.: Well my personal attitude is that I don't want to have a family. I come from an older generation of homosexual men; also, I'm not American. I think part of the great things about being gay is not having to have a family. I very much liked being gay when being gay was kind of outside of society. I wouldn't go so far as to say I liked being gay when it was illegal. I don't want to clone heterosexual behavior.

M.T.: Is it important to you to be a part of something that is bringing issues to the mainstream audiences?

R.E.: All actors want to be successful just to be successful. It's part of our instincts. What makes a parent? What makes a family? Yeah these are all exciting issues to be part of.

M.T.: Do you think this film will have large mainstream appeal?

R.E.: I hope.

M.T.: What was your coming out process like? R.E.: It was never an issue. As soon as the last possibility that I might have any sort of serious straight thing going for me fizzled out, then it was a natural thing. No one was very

Rupert Everett

interested in me. So it wasn't like I kind of opened the curtain one day to the world and said "I'm out."

M.T.: How old were you when that last little fizzle happened? R.E.: The last girlfriend I had I was twenty-six.

M.T.: So you weren't hesitant about doing the Advocate cover in 1998? R.E.: Not at all. The only reason I'm hesitant about a magazine like the Advocate is that I feel that they need you in those big gay newspapers and magazines to have a political angle, which I don't really have. If you don't share the view of the modern day prophets, they tend to come down rather harder than they necessarily need to.

M.T.: Your character in the movie is exhausted with the club scene and body objectification. Did that come from you?

R.E.: One of the things gay men and women has in common is you do become kind of invisible at the age of forty on the gay scene. I like body obsession to a certain extent.

M.T.: What are your favorite movies this year?

R.E.: I liked The Talented Mr. Ripley very much. I liked Angela's Ashes very much. I Liked American Beauty. I didn't like Flawless. I though it was stupid. The whole drag queen thing was so synthetic. I liked Topsy-Turvy.

M.T.: Should Hollywood use only gay actors to play gay characters? R.E.: No. I think the conception of [Flawless] it was too obvious, the whole thing. I didn't like As Good As It Gets, at all. This was just another version. M.T.: What do you hope people will get out of the film?

R.E.: Hopefully they'll think it's funny and they'll think it's sad. And they'll think that a homosexual man can be just as good a father as any one else. I think it's a very interesting story about love, and family and blood.

Story of accidental gay father is murky, clichéd

The Next Best Thing

Directed by John Schlesinger Paramount

Reviewed by Michelle Tomko

The new salmon swimming up the Hollywood mainstream that all of queerdom is expected to flock to opens today. But be advised that the water is unbelievably murky and there are plenty of cliché undertows.

The movie stars queer icon Madonna as yoga instructor Abbie, opposite Rupert Everett as the landscaper Robert. The two play best friends who would have made the perfect couple if poor Robert were not gay. But one fateful pity party mixed with one too many martinis turns them into the parents of Sam. Things heat up when Abbie falls in love with Ben (Benjamin Bratt) and Robert gets jealous. They end up in a court custody battle.

To Madonna: If Bette Midler and Cher both jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?

Okay, she's talented. She deserves respect for rising to success from her humble beginnings, her music career, toying with the media, the Sex book, her devotion to motherhood, and her friendship with Rosie O'Donnell. But let's face it boys, diva or not, she can't act. She makes Keanu Reeves seem believable.

Why does this superstar continue to risk her icon status by taking on movie roles? She should heed the actions of Eddie Murphy, who stopped after making only one pop album, or Michael Jordan, who wisely gave up the baseball diversion.

The "material girl" isn't the only problem. The actual material is lacking guts and believability. The only thing that would keep this screenplay by Thomas Ropelewski from being picked up by the Lifetime channel is that the scene where Patty Duke or Valerie Bertinelli usually runs into the courtroom screaming, "Give me back my baby!" is played by a 41year-old English gay man.

The biggest problem in the story is a plot twist at the end that allows the film to skirt the issues of homophobia in the legal system and a gay father's rights. The turn leaves Robert in a no-win situation over the film's central issue, and left this reviewer unsatisfied.

One big scene-stealer is Lynn Redgrave, who plays Robert's mother Helen. Everett and Redgrave share the only chemistry in the movie and enjoy exquisite moments of jolly ol' comic timing, along with Josef Sommer who plays Robert's father. Score two points for the little sister in the rather public sibling rivalry between Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.

Neil Patrick Harris is a believable David. But the role is just the recycled “gay boy next door who lost his boyfriend to AIDS" that always appears in mainstream queer films.

Benjamin Bratt must have thought he was in one of those Homicide/Law & Order crossover movie specials, because he simply played Detective Curtis again.

Rupert Everett's performance is rather lackluster. It is ironic that in a role written for him, by him, he could appear to be miscast. But that's what happened.

Everett is an old-school European player who lacks the gumption to be believable in a daddy role. He's nice to look at, and his accent is so charming we even hear Madonna falling in and out of it from time to time. Ugh!

He is a great performer. But he had to work a little too hard

in this one. ✔

Madonna and

Rupert Everett with their martinis.