NW: Is this the career that you imagined? I never imagined living past 30.
Why? I don’t know. You know you always set yourself dates when you are a kid.
When did you set that date? When I saw my first James Dean film. [Laughs] When I was a kid, as opposed to now, I kind of looked up at the tragic rather than looking down on it. Everyone wanted to suffer, wanted to live like Montgomery Clift or Patti Smith.
Was it difficult to reconcile your Catholic upbringing with being gay? No, not really. The thing that was probably more weird for me was going away to school so early. I was 7. The moment you have to leave your family is very heartbreaking. I had a good time at school, but I think there is something that happens to English people when they are sent away. There is something in your heart that kind of calcifies. There is a certain detachment about English people–and that’s what the English always wanted, really. When they had an empire they wanted to send the kids straight out to run the empire. They trained them rather cleverly. They wanted them to be detached. That’s the thing I possibly regret.
If you had a child, would you raise him or her as a Catholic? I’d start him off Catholic because I think it is valuable to have a starting point. But I wouldn’t have [a child] now. I can hardly look after my dog, I couldn’t look after a kid.
How have your movie offers changed since “Wedding”? I get offered a lot more choice. But there is a lot of very bad stuff around.
Are you tired of the media’s demand to reveal oneself? I don’t think the public cares nearly as much as the media. Have you ever read an interview with anyone? I never have. I look at the pictures.
Have you read your interviews? [Laughs] Oh yeah, I’ve gone through every single one of mine!
