About once a year, Rupert Everett will pop up and give an interview that ends up offending many people. He’s complained about the treatment of openly gay actors, he’s complained about the Hollywood system, he’s complained about Jennifer Aniston’s career, he’s complained about gay people raising children and so much more. This year’s Rupert Everett rant is about posh actors versus not-posh actors. It’s part of a larger discussion happening in the UK, as posh, privately educated actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston tend to “break” Hollywood and get more roles. In the UK, there’s concern about this, like people are asking if they need to celebrate more “working class” actors, and whether it’s right that an Eton or Harrow education is somehow required to make it as an actor. Surprisingly, I didn’t hate what Ol’ Rupes had to say about this subject.

America loves posh English actors: “Everyone’s whining about that but the fact of the matter is, acting is like hooking. What people want to see is what people want to see. What the Americans want to see of the English – they don’t want to see snaggle-toothed working class people, obviously. They want to see upper class people – that’s what they want. That’s why they love Downton Abbey. The upper class people are making the films that the Americans like but that’s how it is. There’s nothing we can do about that. We can’t force the Americans to change their minds but we could also just not be so envious and bitter about it and celebrate at the same time all the other people who do amazing work and are huge stars in our own country and then get to break out as well.”

Posh actors aren’t the only success stories: “There’s the Fassbenders, there’s tons of people who aren’t upper class – Daniel Craig isn’t upper class. Actually there are three or four upper class actors from Harrow and Eton but there are tons more from everywhere else and if there’s not, it’s because [Americans] want to see upper class films full stop and showbusiness is about demand. It’s not about forcing people to have what they don’t want – it’s difficult to say what they want to see. They do want to see The Full Monty and when there’s another Full Monty made, they’ll want to see that too. The danger of our world is it gets so furious and angry about something – it’s suddenly ‘where are the working class actors?’ But they’re all over the place and doing extremely well, I would say.”

[From Radio Times]

Rupert ends his comments by complimenting British soap operas (typically cast with working class actors), saying their soap operas are “the best soaps in the world.” Anyway, I think he’s right – yes, at the moment, Hiddles, Bendy and Redmayne are getting a lot of press, acclaim, awards and high-profile roles. But so are other actors who have less poshness. And Rupert is right about American audiences driving the demand for a certain type of British actor too – Americans love to think that England is full of Colin Firths, Hugh Grants and Benedict Cumberbatchs, and we don’t want to consider the idea that present-day England looks more like an old-school Guy Ritchie film. Americans want to think England is “quaint” not rough-and-tumble.

Photos courtesy of WENN.