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AE: You write about your friendship with Madonna, who you co-starred with in the film The Next Best Thing. Describe what it's like to be in her orbit.
RE: Well, it's all in the book. I write about how she has this kind of energy field around her and how she oozed sex and demanded a sexual response from those around her. She was — and is — mesmerizing.

AE: You describe her as "in no way conventionally beautiful."
RE: Yes. In the book I say she is a bit like a Picasso.

AE: When you write about Julia Roberts, who you shared the screen with in My Best Friend's Wedding, you make the following observation: "There is a male quality to the female superstar. There has to be." What do you mean by that?
RE: It's only an opinion — my opinion. But I think that female superstars all have this kind of baffling ambition and leadership and power. It's only been in the last 100 years that we've seen women as belonging somewhere other than in front of the kitchen sink washing dishes. These very powerful women in Hollywood still have to fight to be heard and seen in this man's world, and I think they become slightly male because of it.

AE: You write about the time you were a ticket-taker for a production of Macbeth starring Ian McKellen, who you proceed to stalk like a modern day Eve Harrington. Have you had your own Eve Harringtons waiting in the wings and watching your every move?
RE: There have been a few. It's quite irritating actually. You don't want to be stalked. It's part of celebrity; it happens occasionally. It's not my favorite subject to talk about … I find it all very dodgy.

AE: In the press you've done in support of your new book, one of the questions I found the most annoying is when a reporter comments on your affairs with women, specifically the late Paula Yates, who was married to singer Bob Geldof and had a daughter with Michael Hutchence of INXS. Those comments are sometimes followed by the question: Aren't you supposed to be gay? I imagine you find this question annoying?
RE: Look, I'm not trying to write a book about being a heterosexual. I'm gay.

AE: What is the biggest misconception people have of you?
RE: I have no idea.

AE: Name three things you cannot live without.
RE: Arms and legs and eyes.

AE: What do you do in your downtime?
RE: Sit around, really. I'm not someone with hobbies. I like to exercise and read. Right now I'm in Miami, and I'm sitting on the couch and looking out at the ocean.

AE: What projects are you working on now, when you're not exercising or looking out the ocean?
RE: I'm writing two more books: One is autobiographical — the one mentioned earlier — and the other will be a novel. I'd also like to write a screenplay. I'm doing a movie, Saint Trinians, that is remake of a group of films from the '50s that centers around an unruly girls' school. I play the headmistress and the brother!

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