In an interview with The Daily
Telegraph, out actor Rupert Everett repeated the claim that his
sexuality damaged his acting career.
Everett, who is best known to American
audiences for roles in My Best Friend's Wedding, An Ideal Husband
and the Shrek films, came out gay in 1989.
“All through my career it [being gay]
was a huge issue,” Everett
told the paper. “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 [are] happening. … 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. 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.”
Everett, who appears in the upcoming
London staging of the play Amadeus, has previously criticized
marriage for gay couples and gay couples raising families, saying “I
couldn't think of anything worse than being brought up by two dads”
and “I find it personally tragic that we want to ape this
institution [marriage] that is so clearly a disaster.”
(Related: Rupert
Everett doubles down on gays marrying, raising families.)