Rupert Everett delights audience at Chiswick Cinema

Image: Michael Billington and Rupert Everett on stage at Chiswick Cinema, discussing The Comfort of Strangers; photograph Roger Green

Michael Billington and Rupert Everett discuss The Comfort of Strangers, as part of the Pinter On Screen season

Rupert Everett told a great story at Chiswick Cinema on Sunday (8 September). He was doing a question and answer session with Michael Billington before a screening of The Comfort of Strangers as part of the Pinter on Screen season, and was recounting how he got into acting.

He did whatever jobs he could in theatres in between leaving school and starting at drama school, including tearing tickets at the Donmar Warehouse and working as a dresser. He was Alan Howard’s dresser for a while. Alan was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983 and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.

That job did not last long however. Alan had a “very macho black leather costume” which he wore in the second act of  the play, which Rupert decided to borrow to wear to a gay club.

“I forgot to bring it back, so there we were, Act II just about to start, I go to the wardrobe to get out this costume and it wasn’t there, so I got the sack.”

He acted with Alan Howard later, when they were on a more equal footing, and it appeared he had been forgiven.

Image: Michael Billington and Rupert Everett on stage at Chiswick Cinema, for the Pinter On Screen season; photograph Roger Green

The Pinter On Screen season was created as the result of a chance remark by Lady Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter’s widow, at the Chiswick Book Festival some years ago. She told Chiswick Book Festival Director Torin Douglas that although he was celebrated for his theatre plays, she thought her husband’s screen plays were undervalued.

With the help of Harold Pinter’s biographer Michael Billington as curator, Torin and Chris Parker from Chiswick Cinema have put together the programme, which includes The Comfort of Strangers and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, that has run throughout the year.

READ ALSO: Two great British actors appearing at Chiswick Cinema to talk about their films as part of the Pinter On Screen season

Among the speakers have been Lady Antonia Fraser’s daughter Natasha Fraser, who as a teenager was a good friend of Rupert’s.

“Natasha and I used to use Harold’s taxi account without him knowing, and we would go all over London.”

READ ALSO: Harold Pinter season at Chiswick Cinema – Natasha A. Fraser on the cinematic life of her stepfather

Image: Christopher Walken as Robert in The Comfort of Strangers, havng lured Colin and Mary to his bar in Venice; image IMDb

Michael asked him when he had last seen The Comfort of Strangers. He said he had watched it recently and “nearly gave myself shingles”, but described it as a “wonderfully made film.”

The story revolves around two couples: Colin and Mary, a young English couple on holiday in Venice (Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson) and Robert and Caroline, (Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren), who can only be described as ‘weird’.

Though the audience picks up on all the obvious signs that they should run a mile from this older couple, who live in a palatial and very beautiful apartment on one of the canals, out of curiosity, or maybe just a misplaced English sense of politeness, the young couple become entangled with them.

Rupert told Michael the film had three weeks rehearsal in Rome before the unit moved to Venice for shooting. Harold Pinter was present for those three weeks and answered any questions about the script.

Image: Helen Mirren and Natasha Richardson as Caroline and Mary in The Comfort of Strangers, in the luxuriously Oriental style apartment; image IMDb

They discussed the Oriental nature of Venice brought out in the film by director Paul Schrader – Robert and Caroline’s apartment is full of Eastern furniture and the music has a distinctly Oriental feel – and they agreed that films tend to bring out the dark and mysterious side of Venice. There are obvious parallels with Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Visconti’s Death In Venice.

“Rupert was very modest about his performance in The Comfort of Strangers,” Michael Billington told The Chiswick Calendar.

“He said that Harold after seeing the film said that he didn’t always finish the end of sentences. Tony Richardson, Natasha’s father, also said there was a kind of vacancy about his performance.

“I countered that the whole point of Colin’s character is that he goes along with other’s wishes: he accepts what he thinks is Mary’s desire for some kind of permanence just as he submits to Robert’s brutality.”

Image: Rupert Everett; photograph Roger Green

In the question and answer session they also talked about the dinner-party scene which is not in the Ian McEwan novel on which the film is based, but which raised questions of great concern to Pinter in 1990: the threats to liberty imposed by the Thatcher government and the legislation circumscribing gay rights.

Rupert talked about his own lifelong obsession with Oscar Wilde and his belief that Wilde was not only a gay icon but a Christ-like figure who suffered in order that others may benefit.

Michael Billington pointed out that Wilde seemed to accept martyrdom by not taking the chance which was offered to escape to France. Rupert remembered when he played Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss that David Hare’s argument was that Wilde chose not to flee to France in order to have supper with ‘Bosie’, his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.

Images: Rupert Everett on the cover of the October Tatler

They also talked about Rupert’s current career, which is flourishing. He has a new book out – The American No, which takes its title from the numerous meetings he has had with American producers about potential screen projects, and describes how the producers always talk with great enthusiasm and encouragement before turning down your suggestions.

He has had a recent cameo role in the smash hit Netflix TV series Emily in Paris, and is now filming in Wales playing a butler. He is also the cover star of Tatler’s October issue.

“I have to say that I found Rupert very witty, charismatic and engaging,” Michael Billington told us. Judging from the audience reaction, they did too.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar