Interview With Rupert Everett by Tony Peregrin, February 26, 2007
"At several times in life one comes to a point of no return." So begins Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, the new memoir by Rupert Everett, in which the stage and screen star charts the various "points of no return" that led him from the stifling confines of the British upper class to the glitter and — at times — debauchery of the West End and Hollywood.
There are love affairs with men and women (gasp!), encounters with the rich and famous, friendships with bold-faced names including Julia Roberts and Madonna, and — all along the way — an unflinchingly honest self-appraisal that is as funny as it is refreshing. AfterElton.com recently spoke with Everett, over the phone from a beachside residence in Miami, about his new book.
AfterElton.com: Reviewers of Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins have commented on how well-written the book is. Talk a little about your writing process.
Rupert Everett: The frustrating thing for critics and journalists is that they get all these books to read and review, and much of it is trash or written by someone else, and poor little me, I'm always afraid my books will get buried in the pile! [Laughs.] But as for my writing process, I write every day on a laptop. It took me a year and a half to write this, and I traveled while I wrote. I don't have a very good attention span — I can only write for two to three hours and then I have to do something else, like go to the gym or something.
AE: Do you prefer writing to being in front of the camera?
RE: Being an actor is to be in a group situation, and everyone else tells you what to do. All you have to do is set the alarm clock. But writing is a challenge for me because you are on your own as a writer. That was the first doorway of pain I had to get through. Fortunately, this book practically wrote itself, to be honest. Not that it was easy, but after it was over, it sort of found its own direction.
AE: What prompted you to write an autobiography at this particular time in your life?
RE: I didn't start out with the intention of writing this book. Actually, Donatella Versace was supposed to sit for an interview and she didn't want to, and so I did part of it for her. The journalist, now a friend of mine, suggested that I write a book. We went to agents and publishers and eventually I got a book deal.
AE: You've mentioned that you find the passage of time, in particular, fascinating. Why?
RE: Things change so quickly now; things move very fast. It's not that I think they move too fast or that there is something wrong with that. I think it's remarkable. I'm working on another autobiography, one that has a very different shape than this one. It will be a comparison between all sorts of things, a comparison of "then" and "now" of all sorts of things, travel, places, people.
