ripper everett has started well he starred in so many movies shakespeare in love the importance of being earnest my best friend's wedding cracking films and in his new memoir to the end of the world rupert sharing the story behind the making of his movie the happy prince which of course was all about oscar wilde and he joins me now and it's so lovely to see you how are you doing i'm doing fine how are you lorraine i'm very very well all the better for reading this this is great i mean i love your writing anyway you know that i do um but honestly i was barely laughing it's hilarious

absolutely hilarious and the thing is with you you never spare yourself to well i think it's fun to you know try and and and pull back the the veil so to speak about life and things and the movie business is a funny thing to read about i always love it there's a book called adventures in the screen trade by william goldman which i always adored and i i used that as my kind of template in a way well it works beautifully now this film this is a passion project for you because as a wee boy your mum used to read you like the happy prince and stories

like that by oscar wilde and it's always resonated with you and he's a big hero of yours that's right my first introduction to wilde was was through my mom and i remembered it so well you know that that period in your childhood when you really don't have any problems and your mum comes to read you it to you at night in bed um and i remember her vividly uh saying swallow swallow little swallow um and um so that did resonate with me after that i forgot about oscar wilde really uh even through drama school we did a term

doing oscar wilde and none of us really wanted to do it we were much keener to do more raunchy kinds of things but later on uh i started doing uh wild in the theater and and it was just a great match for me and everything i did uh every wild play i did worked very well for me and the audience enjoyed it and little by little i kind of developed this relationship with him and so when it came to a moment of thinking of some film to try and write i thought well the best character for me to play would be to try and uh conquer oscar wilde in exile and the

thing is about a movie this is what this is what's great about the book because you go into how hard it is to get some i'm amazed that movies get made in the first place because it really is a battle sometimes isn't it beautiful yes and by the way my 10 year experience isn't isn't at all unusual it takes people a long long time to get a movie made and sometimes it just doesn't work out and i think in one sense that's a terrible thing in another sense from my point of view i think if i'd managed to make my film straight away i probably wouldn't have

been able to do it the fact that it took me so long meant that i had to question it again and again and again every scene every moment in it was was uh kind of questioned by somebody and i had to fight for its survival and i think that was a good thing in a way yeah and also colin firth lovely colin firth said when it was getting to the wire and money is always a problem and you're trying to make a movie and he said look i'll do it for nothing that's amazing what a good pal well he didn't say that originally i i i we had a rather kind of generous contract initially but

uh little by little um you get actors to sign uh letters of agreement when uh when you start doing a movie and you wave them at finances around the world and colin starr rose significantly from the moment he'd signed the letter and by the time the film was about to get made all the financials the only thing they really cared about was whether colin was going to show up and you never know really if anyone is going to show up if they can and the remarkable thing was that he really did stand by me all the way through to the point that uh halfway through the movie we ran out of money again and the producers

instructed me to go to him and ask him to give back his fee which he he did so he did the movie for nothing oh good man and it's a cracking film you can tell you know you can tell that you've put your absolute heart and soul into this movie and yet that comes through in the book as well of course it does but it's also this book stuffed with brilliant anecdotes i mean the one right at the front about you're you're there having a meeting with two hollywood bigwigs meanwhile john collins and biggins are waiting for you in the ivy and they are not happy

because you've double booked yourself well yes and that was the day i got a diary and um joan is is at the beginning and at the end of the book and she really is someone i admire enormously she's a great survivor she's incredibly inventive and she's she's just kept on going i think tenacity really in our business is the most important thing and she's tenacious and you've made up with her now so that's all she's fine and it's all good and your pals again i don't think though that you ever made up with madonna because i remember in your boot you called her a whiny old

barmaid which i thought was quite an interesting description and that was that was an experience working with her wasn't it you get taken into the you get taken into the bubble of madonna but then when you're out you're out well no we are friends and um you know i'm a great admirer of hers as a person i think she as well is an amazing woman and where tenacity has taken her is uh unbelievable and so i have a great respect for her i'm really glad that you're able to still be pals with all of these people that you have worked with

you know because it's it's important it's important to be able to do that and also with you i think that you're really ahead of your time rupert because you you know you a time when it was very very difficult to be gay and to get roles and you were out there and now because of you and because of actors like you it's an awful lot easier for everybody coming up behind i think it's very exciting time really now if you are um gay and embarking on a career in show business and also if you're if you're transgender and uh and going

into show business so things are really on the move have they completely changed no they haven't but you know everything's everything's uh definitely moving in a great direction and that's exciting to be a part of no very much so they've got to make a film of your life surely it's got to be it's got to be in the pipeline well i don't think my life's very interesting but i would like to make a film of jan morris's life who uh died a few a few weeks ago she was another remarkable person and her book conundrum is one of my uh all-time favorite books

and i would love to make a version of that film so why would that be so why would you be so passionate about that because she for me well rather like barbara windsor she's part of a world that you know literally has died in the last few weeks and is going to die even more as we hurl ourselves into a no deal brexit uh that it's the world that i adore um jan morris or james morris at first wrote these amazing books about the british empire he he did the most incredible things going

up everest and and then his his need to change his gender was the most extraordinary journey and when he changed into jan morris i think it's just one of the most fascinating wonderful eccentric uh english stories and and i met her uh once at the end of her life and uh she was just a remarkable person oh that's well that's the next project that's the next project that's got to happen the books are amazing absolutely incredible you know an

amazing historian and travel and so passionate about all of that which which is the same with you you know you're passionate about what you do yes yes no i am uh but i don't think there's there's much of a story in me yet maybe something will happen that will make this you know you need to have a good ending and um i think jan is the story of jan morris and james morris in her book conundrum which charts from her childhood all the way through to uh the clinic in um um casablanca in in um in morocco is

is just it's epic right that's your next thing that's the next thing you've got to do okay i will you have to and christmas this year christmas quiet like all of us trying to be just scaled back yeah it's miss quiet and on christmas day i'm doing the thing that i've always been dying to do which is travel i'm uh flying to brazil to my in-laws and i'm staying at two months in brazil and uh so i'm i've always been curious to see what happens in an airplane on christmas eve and christmas day if there's a christmas tree if you get little presents and it sounds quite exciting to me it

does it does it's a joy to talk to you it really is i hope to see you in person you're into the studio one day and we meet i hope so i really do and rupert's latest memoir to the end of the world travels with oscar wilde out right now thank you don't forget you can watch full episodes of lorraine on the itv hub and all the best clips compilations and playlists right here on our channel just subscribe now and you'll never miss an upload click here to watch another video similar to this one

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