Rupert Everett

“Being gay and being a woman has one big thing in common, which is that we both become invisible after the age of 42. Who wants a gay 50-year-old? No one, let me tell you.”

“Actors make bad lovers. Their most important kiss is for the camera. Not in a superficial way, in a really deep way. They can only give everything if they know someone is going to shout cut!”

“I loved looking at myself when I was very photogenic, at the very beginning of my career.”

“I was basically adventurous, I think I wanted to try everything.”

“I don't think I've ever tried to change anyone. I don't have the energy.”

“I've never been any good with authority.”

“We now live in a world where the only thing to have is success, but failure is marvelous. It's fertiliser, it's like living fertiliser, because you're forced on yourself.”

“If I did have the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt - or foster.”

“I've done a lot of period stuff but that's mostly because, in England, we get off on a lot of period stuff, but it's not any kind of particular choice. That's where a lot of the work is.”

“These awful middle-class queens - which is what the gay movement has become - are so tiresome. It's all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers.”

“Honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out.”

“It's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy.”

“My idea of a holiday was following my family up the hill with my pekinese, who would skip over the heather in front of me.”

“I think marriage is ghastly.”

“The thing about lying is, it is quite exhausting - you have to remember a lot.”

“I am at that age when you panic at the slightest thing.”

“I'm not a great poetry fan.”

“To be a soldier one needs that special gene, that extra something, that enables a person to jump into one on one combat, something, after all, that is unimaginable to most of us, as we are simply not brave enough.”

“I smell of sweat. I don't like people smelling of all these weird things. I think deodorant is disgusting.”

“The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit. I don't think there is any point in having wars if that's how you're going to behave. It's pathetic. All this whining!”