British actor Rupert Everett says being
openly gay cost him “three or four” major Hollywood roles.
Speaking with the Press Association,
Everett, 59, said that Hollywood treats gay actors as “second class
citizens.”
"There’s tons of roles that I
haven’t got for lots of different reasons, some of them probably
for not being a good enough actor or doing a lousy audition. All that
counts,” Everett
said.
“But there were three or four big
films, when I was successful, that the director and the other actors
wanted me to be in and that I was absolutely blocked from by a
studio, just for the fact of being gay. That does absolutely happen.”
"It is a subtle thing, taking part
in a boys’ club – a straight boys’ club – and if you are a
woman in it you have to bend yourself towards that world and if you
are a gay in it, you are a second-class citizen, really, and
subjected, at a certain point, to a brick wall, in terms of getting
on.”
"In other words, the straights can
play all the gay characters they want but the gays don’t get much
of a chance to play any straight characters because, as far as this
status quo is concerned, we are still gay and no matter how macho you
are, they will just still think of you probably as a gay,” he
added.
Everett, who is best known for his
roles in My Best Friend's Wedding and An Ideal Husband,
wrote, directed and stars in the upcoming film The Happy Prince,
which looks at the life of gay Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde.
(Related: Rupert
Everett: Oscar Wilde was the start of the gay liberation movement.)