Everett’s death wish

Rupert Everett is acutely conscious of growing old, said Victoria Coren in The Observer (U.K.). The actor is just 53, but says he now knows how a tree feels in autumn. “One day it’s full of leaves, then the wind blows and there’s only one left,’’ he says. “Physically, I feel a big change has happened. If you want to be maudlin about it, it’s part of dying.” Not all the symptoms of aging are unwelcome. For example, the openly gay Everett says, it’s a great relief not to be governed by his once-raging libido. “It’s over! I’ve spent most of my adult life, since the age of 10, thinking almost exclusively about sex, and getting it, or recovering from it. But it’s all smoke and mirrors to me now. Since it stopped, that major driving force, I’ve felt a lot calmer.” And death itself no longer seems so frightening. “I love death!” he insists. “I adore it! I’ve got to that age, I’m over the yardarm. I love funerals. Good hymns, nice church, funny-looking people pottering down the aisle. I hate parties and I never go to people’s houses, but I love funerals.” He’s already planned his own send-off. “I’ll go on the bonfire. That’s what I’d like. I wanted to put my dad on the bonfire. But nobody else wanted to, so we didn’t.”