Once Down on Same Sex Marriage, a Busy Rupert Everett Weds in Quiet London Ceremony This Summer

British veteran actor Rupert Everett, who once called same-sex marriage "tragic," succumbed to the idea when he married his longtime partner, a Brazilian accountant named Henrique, in a modest ceremony in London earlier this summer, The Tatler reports in an extensive interview with the 65-year-old actor.

"I have always hated weddings, although I do love funerals. But when you get older ... I have seen so many problems that gay couples face, so it's really more about forward-thinking, as we have been together for a long time now," the "My Best Friend's Wedding" star told the outlet.

This has been a 180-degree turn for Everett, who is seeing what the Tattler calls "a Rupert renaissance" this year with a new book of short stories set for publication, a number of film roles, and roles in two popular cable series.

But the always opinionated and quixotic Everett has seen himself in trouble over the years with his comments on same-sex marriage.

In a 2012 interview with The Telegraph, Everett questioned why gay couples would want to emulate heterosexual wedding arrangements. "I loathe heterosexual weddings; I would never go to a wedding in my life. I loathe the flowers, I loathe the fucking wedding dress, the little bridal tiara. It's grotesque. It's just hideous. The wedding cake, the party, the champagne, the inevitable divorce two years later. It's just a waste of time in the heterosexual world, and in the homosexual world I find it personally beyond tragic that we want to ape this institution that is so clearly a disaster."

Not surprisingly, his comments about same-sex marriage got him in hot water with many in the queer community, and he he pushed back on criticism of his position to the London Times in 2020, saying it wasn't gays getting married he'd objected to, but marriage itself. "Legislating human relationships? Hopeless. I'd rather go to a funeral any day than a wedding. Wedding cakes are boring."

Moments later, in an abrupt turn, he added: "Actually, I wouldn't mind getting married now," which brought surprise from the reporter "Yes. I'd marry my boyfriend," Everett continued. "Although I would only have two or three people to my wedding." He added that this change wasn't something that was prompted by Henrique, but rather his own evolving attitude.

Everett married Henrique at Camden Town Hall followed by lunch at his favorite neighborhood restaurant, Ciao Bella, reported the Tatler. The couple have been together for 15 years.

There was a certain irony in his getting married at Camden Town Hall because in one of his earliest comments on same-sex marriage – back when they were civil partnerships – he told the Guardian: "If you want to have a marriage with some bad-tempered cow from Camden Council officiating, then you must have that, and I think it's nice that you can have it. But I liked being a poof when it was illegal, frankly; it gave me a sense of being outside." He did not reveal whether or not his Camden Council officiate was a "bad-tempered cow."

It has been 40 years since Everett had his breakout role in "Another Country," both on the London stage and the 1984 film version. His striking good looks made him the Jacob Elordi of the decade, especially amongst gay men who flocked to this thinly-veiled historical drama based on the college days of British spy Guy Burgess. (He co-starred with Colin Firth in the film.)

"It was a great film – and one of those lucky moments in life," he tells The Tatler. But a Hollywood career wasn't going to be for him. "Actually, in the 1980s, LA wasn't the place for me. It was more for the Brat Pack. It wasn't until Hugh Grant did 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' that the foppish posh English thing caught on," he says.

He was, writes the Times, "the devastating beauty of Eighties and Nineties cinema, the Matt Dillon of the English posh-boy brat pack." There was talk of him becoming the next superstar – but Everett had a liability, at least in Hollywood: he was openly gay. He famously told The Guardian in 2010, "The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn't work and you're going to hit a brick wall at some point. You're going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they'll cut you right off. And I'm sick of saying, 'Yes, it's probably my own fault.' Because I've always tried to make it work and when it stops working somewhere, I try to make it work somewhere else. But the fact of the matter is, and I don't care who disagrees, it doesn't work if you're gay."

He concluded: "It's not that advisable to be honest. It's not very easy. And, honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out."

But he added that he wasn't bitter. "I think, all in all, I'm probably much happier than they [closeted Hollywood actors] are. I may not be as rich or successful, but at least I'm vaguely free to be myself."

But along with marriage, the mercurial Everett is having yet another comeback. He has a new book of short stories, "The American No," to add to his already-published works, which include two volumes of memoirs: one from 2006, "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins" and the other from 2012, "Vanished Years," both of which have upset some of the celebrities he has worked with. According to The Guardian, Madonna still isn't speaking to him about what he wrote about the film they made together in 2000, "The Next Best Thing." Only, it wasn't. "I have never read such bad reviews in my life," he later wrote. "It blew my new career out of the water and turned my pubic hair white overnight."

But Everett found solace in failure. "We now live in a world where the only thing to have is success, but failure is marvelous. It's fertilizer, it's like living fertilizer, because you're forced on yourself. Mind you, having said that, I don't know if aged 60 I'm going to be able to come up with some fabulous new reinvention," he told The Guardian.

Also part of his renaissance is co-starring in "Madfabulous," currently filming. Everett plays the butler to the eccentric 5th Marquess of Anglesey, Henry Cyril Paget (played by "It's a Sin" star Callum Scott Howells). Paget – recalled by the Tatler as "a colorful late Victorian aristo who had a pink-ribboned poodle and whose car billowed out perfume" – outraged many during his short life. "He was a mad fairy who just loved jewelery and dressing up," says Everett.

It is one of five films Everett has in post-production, which include the fantasy film "Legend Has It"; "The Liar," Stephen Fry's adaptation of the best-selling book that echoes the plot of "Another Country"; "Judas' Gospel," an Italian religious drama that retells Jesus' story through the eyes of his famous betrayer; and as Lord Capulet in a new musical version of Shakespeare's most famous romance, "Verona's Romeo & Juliet."

He also has ongoing roles in two series. On Starz' "The Serpent Queen," he plays the aging Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, plotting with and against Catherine de Medici (the impressive Samantha Morton). And on the popular Netflix series "Emily in Paris," where he joined the cast of the Darren Star hit in Season Four, he plays Giorgio Barbieri, a gay Italian interior designer. "I know the things I can do well, I knew I could bring something to the table," he said about the role. "Darren Star is brilliant: whether it's 'Beverly Hills, 90210' or 'Sex and the City,' everything he has done has been the right thing for the right time." Of his character, he says. 'Well, he's not a very good interior designer – and he's very nasty to everyone he works with. Interior designers have to have such a strong sense of self-belief, rather similar to actors, I must say. Anyway, there is one designer, who will remain nameless, who stabbed an assistant with a pencil. They can be quite aggressive..."

And he cited one reason why he has chosen to marry in a 2009 Guardian interview. "I think, 'Oh God, I should probably have a fatal heart attack from an overdose of poppers on stage at the National Theatre aged 78. My amethyst rings will be being prised off me by some pretty dresser, and that's about as much attention as I'll get."