Latest news with #Vortex
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
My wild days of sex and drugs and being mates with Madonna are over
He's up before six in the morning and in bed with the light off before 10 at night. 'I feel a totally different animal certainly, now,' he tells me as we sit together in a plush room in Ayrshire. He looks well on it. But then he always did. When he first started appearing on our screens in the early 1980s - in films like Another Country and Dance With a Stranger - he was clearly pin-up material for girls and guys who liked the floppy-fringed posh boy archetype. Actually, he thinks otherwise. 'I wasn't that handsome,' he says when I suggest as much. 'I was 6ft 5in, a beanpole. I was odd looking as well. Read more 'I took a very good picture,' he concedes, 'I was photogenic. But if you saw me in the street I was weird looking. 'I was pretty in a way, but I didn't feel very pretty and my vanity was not the vanity of thinking I was good looking. It was an inverted vanity of trying always to look more like a normal man.' I've read that he tries not to look in the mirror now. 'Never if I can help it,' he admits. 'It's like sex. I looked in the mirror for so long it got boring.' It's early May, a Friday, and Everett and I are at Dumfries House, near Cumnock. He's here to appear at the Boswell Book Festival later this evening. (If you've never been, do go. It's a great festival.) Everett has come to talk about his latest book, The American No, a fine collection of short stories that is an enjoyable reminder that he's always been at least as good a writer as he is an actor. Not that he thinks so. 'I'm not particularly proud of being either at the moment,' he tells me. 'They're both a work in progress, really. But I find being an actor much more enjoyable. Let's put it that way. Being a writer is a headf***, don't you find?' Acting is communal, he adds, and that's some consolation. You can at least share your misery. In writing that misery is yours alone. 'Don't get me wrong; to be a writer and to have a second thing to do - particularly as you get older and the jobs don't come along with the same regularity - it's an amazing gift.' But, he says, it can seem like hard work at times. 'I would love to be able to come up with something less laboriously.' Rupert Everett in Vortex at the Citizens Theatre in 1988 (Image: unknown) He's trying to work out how. 'I'd just like to have something like hypnotism to break through some kind of threshold. I think I could break through some kind of threshold. 'Writing my latest book I've stopped drinking and taking marijuana oil, which has been my staple for years, just to see if it's not the up and down of being jolly in the evening and feeling grumpy in the morning that is stopping me from being able to do it. When you say 'stopped, Rupert …? 'Stopped,' he says with some finality. And how are you finding it? 'Fine, actually. I'm sleeping better than I used to, which is good, and I feel that my brain mist is to a certain extent lifting.' But older is older, he says. He's now in his mid-sixties (he'll say he's both 65 and 67 in our time together I think he's 66. His birthday is at the end of May). 'Obviously I suppose one gets a bit slower. And it's weird with words and names and things like that. They're locked in little bubbles underground and sometimes they take a while to come up.' Life today is mostly rural. He spends his time in the English countryside with his labrador and his spaniel, a rescue dog, and his mother. 'She is mute. She has dementia. She just sits. I look after her, which I quite enjoy, and that's it.' At the weekends his husband Henrique will come down from London - or sometimes he'll go up to the city. He still has a place there but doesn't visit it often. 'I've become a country blob,' he says. He's content with this development. 'I've become much more, I suppose, conservative as I've got older. Alan Bennett said everyone did. Well, I did, definitely.' In many ways he has now conformed to the world he grew up in. His father was a Major in the British Army. His grandfather, on his mother's side, was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy. 'I think I came from a very particular collapse-of-empire family. It was very military, very frosty, very unemotional - all the things I really admire now by the way - and I felt that life was meant to be something completely different. Rupert Everett at the Citizen's Theatre before its renovation (Image: Mark F Gibson) 'Like everyone in our generation I felt that life was meant to be more emotional, more straightforward, more confrontational. I rejected everything that they stood for. 'I felt that sexuality was liberation. I felt that f****** everyone was somehow my way out of the background I was in, out of the prison I felt I was in. Actually, it was just another kind of prison in a way. 'And now that we've become what I wanted us to be all those years ago I really hate it because I think we're way too emotional. I really respect people who don't show too much feeling all the time. I'm so sick of people bursting into tears on television. 'I think we've completely lost the way; both sides of the border by the way. We've got what I dreamt was going to happen and it looks to me like a mess.' Has he turned into his father, I wonder? 'Umm … I understand him so much more. I definitely do. He was so careful about money and turning lights off and freezing cold rooms - all the things that we just gave up on after that generation. I now think freezing cold houses are nice. I like freezing cold houses with one warm room.' I think central heating is a good thing on the whole, I tell him. 'But central heating is like being a lettuce. You feel yourself wilting.' Born in 1959, Everett had the typical childhood of the British upper classes; packed off to prep school at an early age. It was to shape who he would become. Read more 'The reason I became an actor is because I became a terrible show-off as soon as I got to school. My way of dealing with the terror you have of other boys en masse, all together, running around screaming, hitting you if you were too wimpy. 'My way - without understanding quite what I was doing - was to become a kind of class pest and show-off, whereas before I'd been an incredibly quiet, reclusive child. I used to like hiding in cupboards, for example, and doing fun things like watching dust particles.' Hmm, I say, weren't you already cross-dressing even before you went to public school? 'I was cross-dressing. I really thought I was a girl. School changed all that, so I think it had a huge effect on me. It made me into just a show-off really. A show-off on the one hand. And I broke down like a little girl on the other. I found those two qualities have kind of gelled into the person I am in a way. They're both not quite who I feel I really am. So It's taken me years to work through them.' He paints a portrait of the British prep school as a form of continuous conflict. 'The fallout from the war was so funny in the British prep school. All the teachers were basically people who had been in Burma or in India or in the war and had wooden legs from being blown up. They weren't really teachers in the ordinary sense of the world. They used to get into terrible tempers which I think was what we now call PTSD. 'I don't regret any of it because I think the only resilience I did have came from that Spartan type of education. Because those schools in those days were much more rigorous than they are now. They were tough places. They weren't comfortable.' He left to go to London at the age of 15. 'I was allowed to go and rent a room from a family and that's when I really discovered myself and became a kind of sex maniac.' Everett now seems very distant from the young man he once was. 'I don't recognise myself,' he admits. Rupert Everett with Julia Robert's in My Best Friend's Wedding (Image: unknown) His younger self certainly embraced the hedonistic lifestyle - 'showbusiness was my cruising ground,' he suggests - but he also worked too. He won a part in Julian Mitchell's stage play Another Country and then turned up in the film version too, alongside Colin Firth. He also spent formative years in Glasgow working at the Citizens Theatre. For a while he even tried to be a pop star, but that didn't work out. Still, he has often said, sex was the driving force for him in his twenties. He was a gay man, but he had affairs with women such as Paula Yates and Beatrice Dalle, the star of Betty Blue. What were you getting from those relationships, Rupert? 'Attention. And you know being turned on by people and turning people on. That was all I really cared about. I think the tragedy of my career - if it has been one - is that it was really all about that. I should have been more serious about it.' Plus, he points out, 'my gayness was very self-loathing too. It was very wrapped up in my Catholicism and my non-acceptance of myself. So, it took me years to be in relationships with men. It was easier for me to be in a relationship with women.' Did the women you went out with know you were gay? 'Yeah, no one really cared in those days. Anyway, you're only gay when you're gay. I don't think it's that big of a deal. I always loved girls liking me because they were so attentive. Much more attentive than men. 'If you went out with a guy they'd go off to the loo and meet someone else. When you went out with a girl they were so lovely. They'd roll you little joints and make breakfast and dinner. I loved going out with girls. You got a full experience.' He mentions Dalle. 'She was an amazing girlfriend. She would have killed for her guy. And in my gay world that was unknown really. 'All the girls I went out with were so committed. Guys, all of us, we were always looking over our shoulders at something else coming along.' Careerwise, Everett was ambitious enough to go to America and try to make it in Hollywood in the 1980s. It was, he says, the most depressing period of his life, 'because I could never get on. And that was because, even though you very kindly said I was good looking, they just thought I looked like a freak. And the aesthetic in those days was much more Brut aftershave. Men with moustaches, hairy chests; big, proper men. So I was way out of the zeitgeist. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so I don't think I ever got a job in those days. I was there for years. I was so ambitious to become something I couldn't be.' What did you want to be, Rupert? 'I wanted to be Tom Cruise. I wanted to be something I couldn't possibly have been, just from my physique. I looked like a wine bottle, one of those characters in Cluedo. So I was bashing myself against a brick wall every day in auditions and never getting anything. If I'd arrived in the late nineties I would probably have done very well. When the standards had changed for men. They were interested in gawkier, geekier, weirder types of people.' Rupert Everett starred with Madonna (Image: free) If you had become Tom Cruise, I begin… 'I wouldn't have joined scientology.' He did finally see some Hollywood success in the 1990s when he appeared in films like My Best Friend's Wedding, opposite Julia Roberts, and The Next Big Thing, alongside Madonna. But now he is in his sixties roles are sparser. He made his directorial debut with The Happy Prince in 2018, a biographical film about Oscar Wilde which he also wrote and starred in. He has other projects he would love to make but he is not confident he will ever be allowed to. 'Films aren't happening. They're just not happening. 'People aren't going to the cinema. The pandemic knocked everything on the head. You've got to hope it's going to come back, but it's probably not going to come back to the kind of things I like.' Still, he is not unhappy. 'In general I feel incredibly lucky. I've got a bit of money, I've got a nice home. I'm married. I have a husband.' As for the world, though, well, let's just say he's not optimistic. 'I feel very concerned about our country and the world, so I don't feel that good, no. And also I feel impotent in the sense that it's too late. I don't know what you can really do, aged 65? No one really listens to anyone. What would you say? But I never imagined I could care much about how things are going but I find now that as I get older …' You're ranting at the radio? 'I'm not ranting. I decided at the last election never to vote again.' Did you vote in that one? 'No. I decided if no one ever mentioned Brexit on either side I wasn't going to vote for any of them and now I'm never voting for anything ever again. 'They're all useless. Useless people. Useless ideas and everything going so badly I don't see who is going to pull us out of the hole we've dug for ourselves' He thinks for a moment. 'I guess when you're younger you're busy doing things more, so you don't notice.' Maybe this is a good time to talk about death. He has often spoken about it in the past. Now I wonder as it comes closer (for both of us) as a consequence of time passing is he nervous, afraid? 'I think death is easy. It's being ill that's not easy. Death itself … I don't want to drown very much and I don't want to die from not being able to breathe and, God, I have so many friends now who are going through chemotherapy … I don't know what I would do if I develop cancer.' But the idea of not being here doesn't bother you? We live in a world where billionaires want to move to Mars and live forever, after all. 'I don't want to go to Mars. I think Elon Musk can go to Mars and Harry and Meghan can be the king and queen of the crown Nebula. And everyone can pay 10 million dollars a shot for a pod up there. 'That's not for me. I think one of the great things is disappearing. And showbusiness, funnily enough, prepares you for death. Because you die so often in showbusiness and you have many different ways of dealing with your career deaths. 'I'm not afraid of not being here. I love the idea of not being here. And anyway our consciousness is something - it doesn't stay around as you or me - but it's part of some whole. An intelligence.' Of course Everett will live on in his films and books. Does he ever watch any of his own movies? He is horrified by the very idea. It also reminds him of a story. 'One of my agents once lived in a flat opposite Bette Davis and one day he said, 'You've got to come over.' Now Voyager was on television, on Turner Classics. We could see her watching it in her flat and that was kind of amazing.' These days Rupert Everett is not drinking. These days Rupert Everett is not a sex maniac. These days Rupert Everett is staying at home and reading a book. If we're lucky he might even write one or two more of his own. The American No by Rupert Everett is published by Abacus Books
The Herald Scotland
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'The witch Sturgeon ruined Scottish arts,' says actor Rupert Everett
Now 66, Everett came to Glasgow at the end of the 1970s to work at the Citz. He loved the experience. 'Glasgow was very stimulating. A different city to what it is now. When I got there the Gorbals had just come down and those horrible towers had just gone up. They were kind of magnificent in a weird way. Read more "In the wintertime that bus used to go down Gorbals Street lit at night and you just saw these towers and for me it was the best period of my life probably, being at the Citizens. It's when my education started and I found creatively it was a magnificent place to be.' He talks about the theatre and the city with huge affection. 'I lived in a series of fun places. I used to live with a professor from the university in his house off the Byres Road and then with my aunt and uncle in Helensburgh. Then they moved into Kirklee Circus. 'Being in the theatre was incredible because it had a relationship with the audience that I haven't really come across since. It was an audience that sometimes came because it was a cheap place to go and hang out. There was such a variety of people. But it wasn't necessarily highbrow. It was people who came and you entertained them. Or not. And they were quite vocal sometimes if they didn't like what they were seeing. Rupert Everett in Vortex at the Citizen's Theatre in 1988 (Image: unknown) 'I think it was very spoiling. It was very direct. It's how I imagine the relationship with the audience must have been in the Restoration in a way. It was a collaborative thing between the audience. A very vocal audience. It was literally like going into Aladdin's cave, going into the Citizens. 'For me it was a magical time and every time I get up to Glasgow on the train, as soon as I get to Motherwell I get palpitations almost. 'You used to be able to see the Citizens from the train. You can't anymore.' Of all the people he has worked with in his career it is Philip Prowse, who along with Giles Havergil and Robert David MacDonald, ran the Citizens while he was there, that he singles out. 'Philip stands out as the person who has had the biggest influence on my life. Male. The Citizens theatre redevelopment is the first major makeover of the building since it began life as a working theatre in 1878 (Image: Gordon Terris) 'I became great friends with both Philip Prowse and Robert David McDonald. They were amazingly clever people. They were really wonderful teachers to be around. 'To be in plays like David's adaptation of the complete works of Proust, for example … I started learning about everything.' That was the extraordinary thing about the Citz, he says. Its ambition. 'It was a European theatre in the same vein as Peter Stein, Pina Bauch. It was a national European theatre. And unlike those theatres, it never ran at a loss. It presented an uncompromising array of work to people that it never patronised. As soon as the witch Sturgeon came into power everything changed in Scottish arts and everything had to be about being Scottish. 'In the whole United Kingdom there was nothing like that theatre. 'It was one of the most extraordinary cultural events I think in the British scene postwar, frankly.' And will he be heading to Glasgow for the reopening in September? 'If I'm here I will get up. I'd love to get up.'
Daily Mirror
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Billie Piper's role in Wednesday has Doctor Who fans 'giddy' for odd reason
Billie Piper has been cast in Netflix's Wednesday, and fans are convinced her character will be linked to her Doctor Who alter-ego, Rose Tyler Billie Piper has landed a role in the upcoming second season of Netflix's Wednesday, and the news has left Doctor Who fans abuzz with excitement as her character could pay homage to her iconic portrayal of Rose Tyler. The 42-year-old star famously played the Doctor's companion Rose in the BBC sci-fi series between 2005 and 2006 and has made several cameos since. She is remembered fondly by fans for her part in reviving the series alongside Christopher Eccleston and helping to usher in the 10th Doctor, David Tennant. Now, it appears she might be giving a subtle nod to Rose in her new TV gig. Billie has snagged the role of Capri in the forthcoming second season of Wednesday, a TV adaptation of The Addams Family that stars Jenna Ortega as the titular moody teenager. While specifics about her character will remain secret until the show's August release, rumour has it she'll be taking charge of the music department at Nevermore Academy. However, it's the revelation that her character, Capri, is reportedly a werewolf, that has sent Doctor Who fans into a speculative frenzy. A TikTok video by a user named Dhean has highlighted an intriguing connection between werewolves and the era of Doctor Who featuring Rose Tyler, sparking theories among fans that this parallel is more than a mere coincidence. In the video, Dhean points out: "You know the show is set in a world full of mythical creatures? She's playing a werewolf. She could be a villain. A bad wolf. Like Rose in Doctor Who!" Fans of Doctor Who will fondly remember Billie Piper's storyline, particularly the intriguing mystery surrounding the Bad Wolf. This phrase peppered the 2005 series until it was finally unveiled that Rose herself transformed into the Bad Wolf entity after her encounter with the heart of the TARDIS and its Time Vortex. The intense absorption of Vortex energy almost obliterated Rose, but the Doctor, played at the time by Christopher Eccleston, absorbed this near-fatal power himself to rescue her. Such a sacrifice had grave repercussions on his biological makeup, triggering the regeneration into David Tennant's portrayal of the charismatic Time Lord. Viewers of Dhean's video were astounded by the clever connection between Billie's various roles. They expressed their eagerness for her character in the upcoming season of Wednesday to be dubbed "Bad Wolf" as an honourable nod. One follower exclaimed: "If they don't reference it by calling her a 'bad wolf', I'm going to be disappointed." Another chimed in: "My geeky little heart loves this!". Billie is joining a star-studded lineup for the sophomore season of Wednesday. Alongside returning cast members such as Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Emma Myers, the likes of Steve Buscemi, Thandiwe Newton, Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lloyd and Lady Gaga are all set to have their series debuts.
CairoScene
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Monochrome Monday: The Caribbean Blue Edition
This shade of blue is a story of chromatic contradiction. Saturated but soft, languorous but vivid, it captures that convergence of feelings that occur at the border between sea and land. May 19, 2025 Pantone's Caribbean Blue doesn't quite know who she is, and that's ok. With its dulled undertone and saturated surface, Caribbean Blue is a story in contradiction. It's not quite turquoise, not quite teal. This is a shade which speaks in long, yawning sentences rather than monosyllabic statements. It's sun-drunk afternoons, surf-slicked skin, and that electric clam when sea meets the sky and everything else melts away. It's deep lagoons, and the gleam of rooftop pool tiles at golden hour. What is clear, however, is that this is the shade of summer by the sea - and all the emotions that unravel in those long, hot days. Think flowing gowns, mini dresses, jacquard lounge sets, and lots of glitter. This Monochrome Monday we're reimagining this hue across textures, silhouettes, and accessories that shimmer like seafoam and enter with a crash. Oceanus The Label | Athena Cut-out Beaded Mini Dress Equal parts sultry and sculptural, this embellished mini dress hugs the body like a second skin and glistens like sunlight hitting water. An instant showstopper for sunset parties or moonlit escapades. Be-Indie | Pomme D'Amour Cardigan and Shorts Knitted in a wave-soft jacquard, this lounge set floats between cozy and coastal. Cool as a sea breeze, it's leisurewear for landlocked mermaids. Rebel Cairo | Milky Way Knot Bag Artfully slouched and beach-found in spirit, this sculptural knot bag blends utility with otherworldly cool. A glinting gem-stone chain adds that little splash of extra. Mozari | Swirl Ring Inspired by the nautilus shell, this swirling statement ring is adorned with 35 deep sapphire stones. A wearable tidepool, crafted to mesmerise. Dima Ayad | Sleeveless Fitted Ruffle Dress Cut in luxurious satin with a fitted bodice and a flirty ruffle hem, this piece captures Caribbean Blue's duality - sharp yet soft, romantic yet structured. Pair with metallic heels and a moment of drama. Kat Von D | Dazzle Gel Eyeshadow in Cobalt Vortex This eyeshadow brings all the shimmer and none of the subtlety. Swipe on and ride the wave of the night. A Better Feeling | Arctus Glasses Architectural eyewear with a matte finish and a sea-glass tint. This is the fashion equivalent of an ice cube in a very strong cocktail, it's Curaçao on the rocks. Maison Saedi | Marie Louis A pleated tulle dream with puffed sleeves and sheer softness. Maison Saedi's gown is Caribbean Blue in couture form - ethereal, floaty, and grounded in structure. Manolo Blahnik | Maysale 50 Buckled Velvet Mules Mules are having their moment in the sun right now. First launched in '91, these iconic velvet mules are as relevant as ever. Delicate kitten heels meet bold buckles, Blahnik does contradiction in all the right ways, just like the shade they wear.
West Australian
15-05-2025
- Climate
- West Australian
Central Wheatbelt grain farmers start season on strong footing, seeding early in the wake of light rainfall
It's a tale of two seasons in the Wheatbelt amid a mixed start in the State's top growing regions. Central Wheatbelt grain farmers began seeding unseasonably early in the wake of light rain in mid-March, starting the season on strong footing. Crops are also up and away in Esperance and the Great Southern, with canola and early-sown barley crops doing well. However, it is a different story for grain growers in the Mid West, which is mostly dry and has little subsoil moisture available to risk sowing. The Grain Industry Association of WA predicted in May more than 8.6 million hectares had been put to grain crops in WA this year, including wheat, barley, canola, oats, lupins and pulses. That is down from the April estimate of between 8.5 million and 9 million due to persistent dry conditions in the top third of the State's grain-growing region. GIWA said a majority of growers were sticking to their plans for now. York farmer Alex Davies, pictured, is optimistic about the year ahead after putting in 1000ha each of wheat, barley and oats on their 4000ha property, leaving the non-arable land for roughly 2000 sheep. Mr Davies rolled his air seeder out of the shed on April 1 — three weeks ahead of previous years ahead of predicted light rainfall in mid-April and following the 19.1mm that fell on his property in mid-March. With two new crop varieties and a solid start to the year, the third-generation farmer said he had done his best to set up the farm for positive results to come from the 2025 season. 'We've got some new varieties in that are a bit of a change — Vortex wheat and Goldie oats,' he said. 'Our focus has also shifted to oats and canola this year as they were forecast to be our best earners.'
