Walk on the Wilde side
Everett feels connection with Irish playwright in ‘Happy Prince’
NEW YORK — “The Happy Prince” follows Oscar Wilde as he’s released from prison, wanders Italy and France in exile and, just 45, dies in Paris in 1900.
For Rupert Everett, its 59-year-old producer, writer, director and star, “The Happy Prince” may be a sad story but an ideal subject.
The Irish playwright, novelist, dandy and wit might as well be an old friend.
Everett, long an “out” actor, performed Wilde plays, did two film adaptations — “The Importance of Being Earnest”(2002), “An Ideal Husband” (1999) ---- and even played the man himself in the 2012 revival of “The Judas Kiss.”
His fascination with this Irish genius began when his mother read him Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” as a bedtime story.
As to why Wilde is such a comfort zone, “Originally when I did the first play, it was just a great fit as an actor with Wilde’s dialogue.
“Instinctively it was something I had an understanding of. I knew exactly the way to do it.
“The main thing,” he continued during a one-on-one interview, “it was very successful between me and the audience. Wilde onstage was great fun — and that’s terribly valuable, when an actor finds a writer that really works for him. It’s magic.”
“Happy Prince” filmed in 47 days and co-stars Colin Firth and Emily Watson as Wilde’s wife, Constance.
As Wilde’s friends gather as he lays dying, “I knew it was going to be very sad,” Everett said.
“The story reminded me at the end so much of things I witnessed when friends started to die of AIDS in the 1980s.
“You’d be with friends doing deathbed vigil; sometimes that took weeks actually. I found the deathbed of Wilde rather similar.
“Friendship has to go over a bridge into another area when someone gets very sick. It’s incredibly profound, deep, exhausting and draining but quite wonderful as well.
“So I knew it was going to be sad but it’s also funny. The thing about Wilde in exile, he’s not a victim. He sails right on. He’s curious about life, he falls in love, he has theories about everything.
“Of course, it’s a tragic, reduced existence, but it’s one he does without compromise in a way. Which I think is very valiant and inspiring.” (“The Happy Prince” opens Friday.)