Rupert Everett: Hugh Grant Envy

Rupert Everett, who gay audiences discovered long ago in "Another Country" and the rest of the world took notice of in "My Best Friends Wedding," says in an interview with the UK's Daily Mail newspaper that it would have been "too exhausting" for him to be a closeted actor. But being out has had its drawbacks especially if you compare the kind of offers he gets compared to that other debonair Brit, Hugh Grant.

"The difference is, one of us is straight and one is gay. The straight one gets to walk down a red carpet with a beautiful girl and everything works out and the gay one has to back-pedal and do independent movies," Everett says. 'To be a movie star you have got to have a good-looking girlfriend and for Hugh, Elizabeth Hurley helped. It is a trophy job."

Everett says his decision to be openly-gay continues to limit his options professionally.

"'Without doubt, gays are discriminated against in show business," he says. "For example, Eric Fellner [the producer at Working Title responsible for Love Actually, among other films] was talking to my agent the other day and my agent said: "Why don't you ever give Rupert a job?" and Eric said: "Oh God, I'd love to, it's just I can't think of anything to put him in."
'Yet everything Hugh Grant does, I could be in. I am not saying I am better than Hugh Grant or Colin Firth but I am the same.'

Look for more dish like that in Everett's just published a tell-all memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography, which includes the skinny about his relationships with Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone, and Madonna, among others.