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To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde
'Quivers with honesty, A-list gossip and sardonic prose' The Times
' Everett is a deliciously gifted writer. Nothing and no one escapes his attention' Observer
Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days, and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him. (And everyone else.)
Travelling across Europe for the film, he weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends. There are celebrities, of course. But we also meet glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta, who introduces Rupert (aged three) to the joys of make-up. In '90s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. While in '70s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Unflinchingly honest and hugely entertaining, To the End of the World offers a unique insight into the 'snakes and ladders' of filmmaking. It is also a soulful and thought-provoking autobiography from one of our best-loved and most talented actors and writers.
' Everett is a deliciously gifted writer. Nothing and no one escapes his attention' Observer
Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days, and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him. (And everyone else.)
Travelling across Europe for the film, he weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends. There are celebrities, of course. But we also meet glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta, who introduces Rupert (aged three) to the joys of make-up. In '90s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. While in '70s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Unflinchingly honest and hugely entertaining, To the End of the World offers a unique insight into the 'snakes and ladders' of filmmaking. It is also a soulful and thought-provoking autobiography from one of our best-loved and most talented actors and writers.
352 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2020
39 people are currently reading
523 people want to read
About the author
Rupert Everett
16 books86 followersRupert James Hector Everett is a two-time Golden Globe-nominated English film actor, author and former singer.
He first came into public attention in the early 1980s when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country for playing an openly homosexual student at an English public school, set in the 1930s. Since then he has appeared in many other films with mostly major roles, including My Best Friend's Wedding, The Next Best Thing and the Shrek sequels.
He first came into public attention in the early 1980s when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country for playing an openly homosexual student at an English public school, set in the 1930s. Since then he has appeared in many other films with mostly major roles, including My Best Friend's Wedding, The Next Best Thing and the Shrek sequels.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
December 25, 2020
About three years ago I was contacted by the young actor, Edwin Thomas, who was playing the character of Robbie Ross in Rupert Everett’s imaginative biopic of Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince. He was holed up in a hotel on location somewhere on the Continent and had just read my biography of Robbie. Could I give him any advice? Unfortunately some of the film was already in the can so it was too late to take on board my point that Robbie spoke with a marked Canadian accent all his life. But I hope some of my other remarks were of use. Everett, while naming the film from one of Wilde’s best-loved children’s stories actually tilted the movie in the direction of arguing that Robbie was Oscar’s true love, not Bosie — as my own book suggests. I loved The Happy Prince when it came out, mainly because Everett (as Wilde) really externalised the playwright’s inner turmoil, one might even say putrefaction. But the film was a bit of a damp squib commercially, not receiving the critical attention it deserved and failing to pull in the crowds before quickly entering that purgatory of non-hits. However, it was a joy to read the whole story of the film’s creation — from initial idea through numerous setbacks and budgetary problems before its final realisation. This is in Rupert Everett’s new book, the third of Everett’s autobiographical tomes and, to my mind, by far the most successful and engaging. Earlier volumes rather grated with their endless trumpeting of the author’s low-level criminality and sluttishness; there is much less of that here and the highs and lows of the creative process give the book an engrossing narrative arc. For anyone interested in film-making this book is worth reading, and for fans of Oscar Wilde, it is a must-have. At one point, Everett as director is encouraged to make some cuts because someone comments that Oscar comes across as rather disagreeable. But of course a crucial point about Wilde is that one loves and admires him, despite his glaring faults.
January 18, 2021
I saw Rupert Everett play Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss at the Hampstead Theatre and bought his book Vanished Years in the lobby. I am not prone to adulation but he was excellent in the role and besides he had once given me a dirty look when we both reached for the triceps bar at the same time in the gym at Jubilee Hall in the early 90s. I hated his bratty rants in Hello Darling, Are Working? I wondered if he had changed. And he had. His book was a touching as well as funny account of humility earned and family cherished in the most tactile and unexpected ways.
I tried not to buy this book because it is in hardcover but after reading two sentences I had to have it. Oscar Wilde, making a film, dissing first and second rate film and theatre types, and a line like Rural Rides becoming his country Grindr ID were all just too much fun to pass over at Christmas time during Tier 4.
He is an exceptional writer. He can make you feel the place, the tension the humour and humanity of any situation in which he seems to almost always hopelessly find himself. Like his dog Pluto he is viciously playful and loves to seem hapless. Underneath (after sitting through a few Youtube vids of his interviews) is a much more steely personality.
The story of making The Happy Prince is replete with magnificent, creative, impossible, generous, hateful and loving people, in situations unique to the European locations of this film. Frankly, I have never read any account of making a film or show that takes the reader on such an intimate and honest voyage through the process. This process is owned entirely by Rupert Everett and once you start, you really can't get enough.
Possibly because his film did not meet with the acclaim he expected, he ends on a bitter note describing how his time has passed and aligning himself with his rural roots to come to gripes with not quite reaching the top (a mention that he is still in rep had me baffled ... where? FFS, I'd go see that whatever-he-is-in production in a minute). I managed to watch clips of the film (again, thanks Youtube) and I was stunned at how well produced, well-acted and moving it was. That says a lot about how important backing and marketing is to a film's success, a bitter fact that is basically the whole point of his book. An unfortunate point, but the journey he takes the reader is pretty damned wonderful. Finally, the enthusiastic reception he got in Russia where the LGBTQ film festival was cancelled by the mayor and held in a gym with the film shown against a sheet pinned to the wall brings the reason we need The Happy Prince to succeed and to shine a new light on the story of Oscar Wilde. "It may be getting harder being gay in the West today but it's nothing compared to the cross carried by the Russian queen. "
Yup, you did good Rupert. May your star shine as bright as your dream. You're not dead yet.
I tried not to buy this book because it is in hardcover but after reading two sentences I had to have it. Oscar Wilde, making a film, dissing first and second rate film and theatre types, and a line like Rural Rides becoming his country Grindr ID were all just too much fun to pass over at Christmas time during Tier 4.
He is an exceptional writer. He can make you feel the place, the tension the humour and humanity of any situation in which he seems to almost always hopelessly find himself. Like his dog Pluto he is viciously playful and loves to seem hapless. Underneath (after sitting through a few Youtube vids of his interviews) is a much more steely personality.
The story of making The Happy Prince is replete with magnificent, creative, impossible, generous, hateful and loving people, in situations unique to the European locations of this film. Frankly, I have never read any account of making a film or show that takes the reader on such an intimate and honest voyage through the process. This process is owned entirely by Rupert Everett and once you start, you really can't get enough.
Possibly because his film did not meet with the acclaim he expected, he ends on a bitter note describing how his time has passed and aligning himself with his rural roots to come to gripes with not quite reaching the top (a mention that he is still in rep had me baffled ... where? FFS, I'd go see that whatever-he-is-in production in a minute). I managed to watch clips of the film (again, thanks Youtube) and I was stunned at how well produced, well-acted and moving it was. That says a lot about how important backing and marketing is to a film's success, a bitter fact that is basically the whole point of his book. An unfortunate point, but the journey he takes the reader is pretty damned wonderful. Finally, the enthusiastic reception he got in Russia where the LGBTQ film festival was cancelled by the mayor and held in a gym with the film shown against a sheet pinned to the wall brings the reason we need The Happy Prince to succeed and to shine a new light on the story of Oscar Wilde. "It may be getting harder being gay in the West today but it's nothing compared to the cross carried by the Russian queen. "
Yup, you did good Rupert. May your star shine as bright as your dream. You're not dead yet.
November 9, 2020
So, what is this memoir about? Well, for the first half I wasn’t sure. A rambling Russian doll of tangential in-the-know anecdotes but then it slowly focussed on the attempt of the author, as producer, director, and actor, at completing a bio-movie about the final years of Oscar Wilde’s sad life in exile. But somewhere along the way it struck me that this book is not really about the story, it is about the writing. Rupert Everett is a very accomplished writer with a flair for flamboyance and spot-on descriptions. He uses perfect phrasing and an inspired style, overlaid with a pall of sadness about regret, lost opportunities, and the cruelty of ageing - highlighted by both the experiences of the author and those of Oscar Wilde. In the end, this book is about a beauty, melancholy, contemplative, and disappointment. Like life, it is not about the destination but all about indulgence and how we deal with the barriers of our journey.
December 13, 2020
I was utterly swept away by Mr Everett’s story and at a certain point began reading a bit slower so it wouldn’t end. That’s the sure indication of a wonderful writer taking you a fascinating journey. This one takes us through Europe, around the world and back again on an exploration of independent feature filmmaking. It’s funny, well observed, and poetic with extraordinarily gorgeous prose. Mr Everett, more please!
July 12, 2022
As a total Oscar Wilde geek, I will read anything on the subject. I thought that Everett's film 'The Happy Prince' was an exquisite, artistic and humane portrait of a flawed individual - both brilliant and daft - falling down a rabbit-hole of self-destruction at the hands of an abusive partner and a homophobic world. I was sad that it barely made a blip on the radar when it was released. Beyond just being a Wilde fan, I thought that it was objectively excellent cinema.
I tore through this from start to finish, instantly engaged by Everett's incredible sense of humor and way with words. It was hilarious, heart-breaking, touching and both light and dark. It speaks so much to the queer experience of aging, memory and the loss of the spaces and people you hold dear.
While reading it, I was reminded of 'Lost In La Mancha' - the documentary film about Terry Gilliam's first disastrous attempt to make 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' (though there was no flooding involved). I couldn't tell if that's just the way making movies is (which makes me very grateful to not have a career in the film industry because that sounds like a big old bottle of No, Thanks), or if this attempt was particularly hellish. I'm going with the latter, but I still stick to my convictions about the cinema industry. Yikes.
Overall, I'm so grateful this beautiful film was made, this wonderful book was written and that we live in a world with Rupert Everett in it.
I tore through this from start to finish, instantly engaged by Everett's incredible sense of humor and way with words. It was hilarious, heart-breaking, touching and both light and dark. It speaks so much to the queer experience of aging, memory and the loss of the spaces and people you hold dear.
While reading it, I was reminded of 'Lost In La Mancha' - the documentary film about Terry Gilliam's first disastrous attempt to make 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' (though there was no flooding involved). I couldn't tell if that's just the way making movies is (which makes me very grateful to not have a career in the film industry because that sounds like a big old bottle of No, Thanks), or if this attempt was particularly hellish. I'm going with the latter, but I still stick to my convictions about the cinema industry. Yikes.
Overall, I'm so grateful this beautiful film was made, this wonderful book was written and that we live in a world with Rupert Everett in it.
November 21, 2020
Originally published on the AU review and available HERE
To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde is the latest memoir from actor, author, and now director Rupert Everett. In the book Everett, recounts the story of how he set out to make the film of Oscar Wilde’s last days, 2018’s The Happy Prince. The book, then, is part memoir, part travelogue, and part film diary.
The Happy Prince’s journey to screen was not an easy one. For context, To The End of the World clocks in at around 340 pages. Filming doesn’t begin until the two hundred page mark and the book’s third act. And, even then, it’s not documented in substantial or minute detail. So any film students may not learn a huge amount about the technicalities of filmmaking. The lessons it imparts, are instead, ones of determination and perhaps artistic stubbornness. As, Everett remarks early in the book, the film might’ve been made much earlier had he not been so adamant to be its star.
The chronology of To The End of the World is not exacting or firm. The almost picaresque nature of the book, with its ever moving central protagonist, allows for narrative diversions. Certain locations, or certain encounters trigger connections to moments or people from Everett’s past. Sometimes there’s an Oscar Wilde connection, sometimes not. The most profound and affecting of these stories don’t come from celebrity encounters. Rather they’re populated by Everett’s friends and relatives, who certainly in the case of Aunt Peta, and Lychee, are often larger than life and evocatively captured by Everett’s prose.
As someone not overly familiar with Everett and his body of work, beyond a few notables, I found To the End of the World to be a surprisingly enjoyable read. Everett makes for a charming narrator; quick witted, and able to capture a scene wonderfully in prose. There’s a section early in the book, a description of a long since closed Cosmo Restaurant, and Everett’s prose is so evocative, that it really brings that scene to life. There are many other moments like this in the book too; they’re maybe not integral to the larger narrative, but they’re all the more memorable for their skill and delivery.
To The End of the World is also unflinchingly honest, or at least that’s how it appears. Everett is not shy about voicing his opinion or his observations. Whilst friends and colleagues find themselves scrutinised in print, no-one bares the brunt of Everett’s unflinching “honesty” quite as much as himself. He describes his career, for example, as being in the “where are they now” category. He also often plays up the decline of his career for dramatic effect. Everett clearly lays out the fleeting nature of fame, and does his best to dispel a lot of the romanticism that surrounds filmmaking in this book. And yet, Everett’s disarming and charming writing style, makes even the most disastrous days seem enjoyable.
I will say, do not read To The End of the World and expect to be overwhelmed with Oscar Wilde trivia. Nor with anything resembling a literary critique of his work really. Nor frankly, do you really need to know a great deal about Wilde to enjoy this book. Certainly, he gets referenced often; much of the book follows Everett’s journey to making a movie of his life after all, often at times retracing elements of his exiled life. But, for me, the spectre of Wilde was often a fleeting visitor. One perhaps best viewed as a prism through which Everett could explore his own apparent fall from grace.
To The End of the World is an enjoyable glimpse into the fleeting nature of fame and filmmaking. Everett's journey to get his passion project to screen may have been arduous. But, its rendering here in print is nothing of the sort. Full of charm To The End of the World is thought-provoking, funny, often poignant and has me queuing up The Happy Prince on Netflix.
To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde is the latest memoir from actor, author, and now director Rupert Everett. In the book Everett, recounts the story of how he set out to make the film of Oscar Wilde’s last days, 2018’s The Happy Prince. The book, then, is part memoir, part travelogue, and part film diary.
The Happy Prince’s journey to screen was not an easy one. For context, To The End of the World clocks in at around 340 pages. Filming doesn’t begin until the two hundred page mark and the book’s third act. And, even then, it’s not documented in substantial or minute detail. So any film students may not learn a huge amount about the technicalities of filmmaking. The lessons it imparts, are instead, ones of determination and perhaps artistic stubbornness. As, Everett remarks early in the book, the film might’ve been made much earlier had he not been so adamant to be its star.
The chronology of To The End of the World is not exacting or firm. The almost picaresque nature of the book, with its ever moving central protagonist, allows for narrative diversions. Certain locations, or certain encounters trigger connections to moments or people from Everett’s past. Sometimes there’s an Oscar Wilde connection, sometimes not. The most profound and affecting of these stories don’t come from celebrity encounters. Rather they’re populated by Everett’s friends and relatives, who certainly in the case of Aunt Peta, and Lychee, are often larger than life and evocatively captured by Everett’s prose.
As someone not overly familiar with Everett and his body of work, beyond a few notables, I found To the End of the World to be a surprisingly enjoyable read. Everett makes for a charming narrator; quick witted, and able to capture a scene wonderfully in prose. There’s a section early in the book, a description of a long since closed Cosmo Restaurant, and Everett’s prose is so evocative, that it really brings that scene to life. There are many other moments like this in the book too; they’re maybe not integral to the larger narrative, but they’re all the more memorable for their skill and delivery.
To The End of the World is also unflinchingly honest, or at least that’s how it appears. Everett is not shy about voicing his opinion or his observations. Whilst friends and colleagues find themselves scrutinised in print, no-one bares the brunt of Everett’s unflinching “honesty” quite as much as himself. He describes his career, for example, as being in the “where are they now” category. He also often plays up the decline of his career for dramatic effect. Everett clearly lays out the fleeting nature of fame, and does his best to dispel a lot of the romanticism that surrounds filmmaking in this book. And yet, Everett’s disarming and charming writing style, makes even the most disastrous days seem enjoyable.
I will say, do not read To The End of the World and expect to be overwhelmed with Oscar Wilde trivia. Nor with anything resembling a literary critique of his work really. Nor frankly, do you really need to know a great deal about Wilde to enjoy this book. Certainly, he gets referenced often; much of the book follows Everett’s journey to making a movie of his life after all, often at times retracing elements of his exiled life. But, for me, the spectre of Wilde was often a fleeting visitor. One perhaps best viewed as a prism through which Everett could explore his own apparent fall from grace.
To The End of the World is an enjoyable glimpse into the fleeting nature of fame and filmmaking. Everett's journey to get his passion project to screen may have been arduous. But, its rendering here in print is nothing of the sort. Full of charm To The End of the World is thought-provoking, funny, often poignant and has me queuing up The Happy Prince on Netflix.
July 25, 2021
A few years ago when I was in Germany I happened to come across an article about an upcoming movie release: A film about the last years of Oscar Wilde, whom I adore, starring, written and directed by Rupert Everett, who is an excellent and vastly underrated actor who really should be getting more work than he does. I decided right then and there that I absolutely had to see it. By the time it came out in Germany, however, I was already back home, where I then spent the better part of a year obsessively scanning lists of upcoming movie releases to no avail. I still haven't seen that damned movie. Reading this wonderful, self-deprecating, utterly charming behind the scenes account of the long, long years that labour of love was in the making, I now want to see it even more. I am also once again convinced that as good an actor as Everett is, he might just be an even better writer.
January 29, 2021
Have read all of Rupert Everett's memoirs -- this does not disappoint, witty and engaging it follows through the trials and tribulations of his making of the Oscar Wilde film The Happy Prince. Full of self deprecation - gossip and great humour.
Would highly recommend.
Would highly recommend.
November 26, 2020
For 12 years Rupert Everett dreamed of writing, directing, starring in, and producing a film about Oscar Wilde in exile. "To the End of the World" is the story of how that dream became a reality.
In 2008, after years of blood, sweat and tears the film was completed. It received many favourable reviews but was ignored by major film distributors. Cumulative worldwide gross takings of US$2.6 million are unlikely to have covered costs. Called "The Happy Prince" for reasons explained in Everett’s latest memoir, it was a creative success but did not do well financially. He had a chance of the film being produced by a Hollywood studio using his script, but having Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oscar Wilde. Everett refused. A pity.
Everett, now in his early 60s, with a net worth estimated at US$20 million, was first noticed by the film-going public when he played a character loosely based on the notorious spy Guy Burgess in the 1984 movie, Another Country. He’s more widely known, however, for his role in the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding starring Julia Roberts.
In 2000, Everett appeared in The Next Best Thing with Madonna. He’s no longer on Madonna’s Christmas card list as he included alleged intimate details involving her and Sean Penn in his first biography, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, published in 2004. In this latest memoir, To the End of the World, Everett explains how he blotted his copy book and lost the friendship of Joan Collins for many years.
Numerous famous and infamous names, well-known in Europe, are mentioned along with indiscreet anecdotes, several of which are not for the faint-hearted. Eccentric, unforgettable characters spice up the narrative, giving the reader respite from the somewhat tiresome detail of film-making decisions.
October 25, 2020
Everett + Wilde ...I am thoroughly entertained from first page to last. Everetts candid telling of this story is made so much better by the fact that he obviously adores language. It is just beautifully written. Love the insights into what it actually takes to make a movie.
February 3, 2021
After three memoirs, I think I love Rupert Everett. I really hope he comes out with more books.
October 31, 2021
Keep writing memoirs and novels, Rupert Everett. xo
An aside:
I like how he describes Beatrice Dalle:
Bea can do no wrong even if she cruises the juice out of Thierry and Franck. The girls turn a blind eye. She can't help it. She must attract and be attracted, and men are zombies in her company. She is up for all sorts of things, including shoplifting and grave robbery. She is utterly thrilling even if she consumes your energy, but she can't help that either. However she is discreet, aware that she is a killer bee. Her latest boyfriend Fred think he controls her, and can get quite frustrated doing it. Bea loves this. She needs the frisson of violence and the mirage of male power, although of course it is he that is being controlled - slowly eaten from inside. By the end of the relationship he will be a hollow shell and Bea - our butterfly of love, that little innocent elegant cabbage white - will one day casually eat his face, burp discreetly and flutter off through the moonbeams to pastures new. After Fred she falls in love with a felon.
An aside:
I like how he describes Beatrice Dalle:
Bea can do no wrong even if she cruises the juice out of Thierry and Franck. The girls turn a blind eye. She can't help it. She must attract and be attracted, and men are zombies in her company. She is up for all sorts of things, including shoplifting and grave robbery. She is utterly thrilling even if she consumes your energy, but she can't help that either. However she is discreet, aware that she is a killer bee. Her latest boyfriend Fred think he controls her, and can get quite frustrated doing it. Bea loves this. She needs the frisson of violence and the mirage of male power, although of course it is he that is being controlled - slowly eaten from inside. By the end of the relationship he will be a hollow shell and Bea - our butterfly of love, that little innocent elegant cabbage white - will one day casually eat his face, burp discreetly and flutter off through the moonbeams to pastures new. After Fred she falls in love with a felon.
May 5, 2021
Like his previous two excellent sojourns into the memoir racket, TO THE END OF THE WORLD was a delight to read. Like you would expect from your catty but witty middle aged fey mate, Everett is personable, warm and naughty. His stories are gossipy, louche and of the dramatic.
This tome follows his first journey into the directing/producing world of film, as he attempts to bring life his life's dream work. That of the last days of Oscar Wilde. And any fan of the 'Importance of Being Earnest' will know how much the late playwright means to him. Because he stole that film, he is brilliant.
Anyway, Rupert flits around Europe, panics, eats in restaurants, panics some more, checks into many hotels, frets about his project and is loquacious about the not-so-rich and famous. It's a cracking read all round.
I normally would have got through this book in a much shorter time, but I had to constantly wade through all the names he dropped to get to it each day.
This tome follows his first journey into the directing/producing world of film, as he attempts to bring life his life's dream work. That of the last days of Oscar Wilde. And any fan of the 'Importance of Being Earnest' will know how much the late playwright means to him. Because he stole that film, he is brilliant.
Anyway, Rupert flits around Europe, panics, eats in restaurants, panics some more, checks into many hotels, frets about his project and is loquacious about the not-so-rich and famous. It's a cracking read all round.
I normally would have got through this book in a much shorter time, but I had to constantly wade through all the names he dropped to get to it each day.
March 28, 2021
A somewhat battered Rupert Everett, by this time on his third vol of memoirs, recounts the 10 year struggle to get his film of Oscar Wilde's last years made.
The strength of his writing is that you feel you are in the same room, listening to him moan while laughing at the same time. He states somewhere he wished he had realised he could write earlier. The knowledge might have given him a very different trajectory.
I was left, at the end of his travails, slightly mourning the brilliant young hopeful he'd once been. He gets to sound very jaded. Which is sad because his achievement, in the shape of his Oscar film, is a small masterpiece - one of those films we will come back to, over time.
I was encouraged to see him on television recently, saying he was in a much better place. He certainly looked it.
The strength of his writing is that you feel you are in the same room, listening to him moan while laughing at the same time. He states somewhere he wished he had realised he could write earlier. The knowledge might have given him a very different trajectory.
I was left, at the end of his travails, slightly mourning the brilliant young hopeful he'd once been. He gets to sound very jaded. Which is sad because his achievement, in the shape of his Oscar film, is a small masterpiece - one of those films we will come back to, over time.
I was encouraged to see him on television recently, saying he was in a much better place. He certainly looked it.
May 23, 2021
Even though the book grows smug in places, there's no arguing that Everett is an excellent and sensitive writer; all his anecdotes are so richly detailed and funny, you can forgive the character assassinations. After all, his portrait of Hollywood, the actors, the players, the bottom-feeders, the "middle management figures" plus the whole godless business of film production are spot on. Even more hilarious are Everett's experiences in drama school academia. Additionally, there's plenty of sympathy points earned when it comes to his descriptions of aging actors and the business of fighting for parts. This new reality comes with a punch during the books' conclusion. Thank God for writing.
June 3, 2022
The story of the long attempt to make “The Happy Prince” that touches on the entire span of Everett’s life from the age of three onward. If you have read his other biographies, this has the same voice, humour, and charm with some new anecdotes and characters. The story bounces around the way memory does, it’s impressive he writes so well and so floridly. It is vivid and fun. The one caveat -which is not truly a negative - is that it is heavily focused on this single film, so if you haven’t seen “The Happy Prince” you might want to in order to get the most out of this book (and it is a deeply underrated film anyway)
August 21, 2022
Rupert Everett is actually a very talented writer and this book is a very endearing and witty account of his labour of love. Notorious for his candour, you get a real insight into show biz and indie film making. Suddenly it all seems a bit tawdry, not the glitzy world we see. There are moments when you realise he's not lived in the real world, horrified at being asked to work over the two week Christmas holidays (!?) as if this was what everyone gets off , but he does slog his guts out in the theatre ( again it's a bit grim really ), so overall one is won over by his charm and his elegant writing style.
February 19, 2021
I got this book for Christmas and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Needless to say I was not disappointed, I had no idea lovely Rupert even made a film about Oscar which had honestly devastated me but I’ll be watching that this weekend! The book was brilliant, I love how Rupert writes and I found myself going through a rollercoaster of emotions I was laughing, huffing and puffing, gutted, annoyed and frustrated throughout the last two weeks. It was a wonderful journey to embark on and I’m almost sad it’s over!
March 27, 2021
If the rest of the book was as gently & beautifully written as the epilogue, I would have fallen into the depths with arms open to embrace life written before me.
The majority of the book is erratic, it takes forever to get to the main focus which is Everett’s attempts to get his Oscar film actually made. Certain snippets are a delight, but they are few and far between, it feels like he is trying hard to amuse.
When he allows himself to stop and just speak, it is poetic, but the epilogue is one hell of a place to start!
The majority of the book is erratic, it takes forever to get to the main focus which is Everett’s attempts to get his Oscar film actually made. Certain snippets are a delight, but they are few and far between, it feels like he is trying hard to amuse.
When he allows himself to stop and just speak, it is poetic, but the epilogue is one hell of a place to start!
August 25, 2022
The journey of Mr Everett to get financing for his pet project off the ground,told through a cynical eye.a bit remenicent of the trials a tribulations of orson wells getting various films off the ground.the only downside being his rather lascivious details about some of the men he met.if it had been women he'd been writing about,the me to generation would be up in arms.not a bad read other then that.
December 2, 2024
As always, an enjoyable, witty read, from Everett. There are anecdotes littered throughout that aren't strictly related to his attempt at filming his Oscar Wilde screenplay but the bulk of it is his wrangling of the moneymen, scouting for locations, the collapse of it all, and eventually the filming and release.
At one point he bemoans, "Why didn't I realise I could write, all those years ago..." which strikes me as odd for someone who actially wrote two novels decades ago.
At one point he bemoans, "Why didn't I realise I could write, all those years ago..." which strikes me as odd for someone who actially wrote two novels decades ago.
February 23, 2021
A birthday present from my mum. Not sure she knew much about it, but it was a great choice. Rupert Everett is breezy, self-deprecating, cruel, funny and charming, line after line. One minute he’s shocking, the next you feel like crying in the loos with him. He wears his heart on his sleeve and puts his soul into The Happy Prince. I can’t wait to watch it.
September 20, 2023
The tortuous but exquisitely written tale of the making of Rupert’s Oscar Wilde film. Often the places he visits bring back memories, some are sad and some are hysterically funny. This is the third part of his autobiography and it shares the same glorious storytelling as parts one and two. I loved it!
February 9, 2021
Funny and touching, he has a lovely, at times poetic writing style. It’s a wry and mournful look at the struggles of being an actor and filmmaker in an industry that is always looking for the next big thing. A great read even if you aren’t an Oscar Wilde fan.
February 26, 2023
Was recommended this by my cousin, and despite knowing nothing about Oscar Wilde before, I feel like I know him relatively well now. Rupert Everett seems to be a close personal friend, a sensation created by his intimate and friendly writing style.
April 17, 2024
Rupert writes with such wit and glittery language. His writing is as flamboyant as him and admittedly I got very lost here and there but soon found my way back. A must for fans of Oscar Wilde or Rupert Everett but for the everyday Joe … skip!
October 17, 2020
Buy it!
You won't be disappointed. If you have seen The Happy Prince this describes the agony and ecstasy of it's creation.
You won't be disappointed. If you have seen The Happy Prince this describes the agony and ecstasy of it's creation.
January 8, 2021
Beautifully written, honest, reflective and very funny.
June 30, 2021
Who knew Rupert Everett was such an amazing writer? Sharp, laugh out loud funny, but also a nail-biting tale of whether his film of Oscar Wilde will come to fruition. Loved it.
November 1, 2021
I love Rupert Everett’s books so much. Have to watch the film now!
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