Rupert Everett has admitted that the negative critical reception the film he and Madonna starred in together wound up affecting their friendship.
The Bafta-nominated actor and Queen of Pop grew close in the late 1990s, and wound up appearing as the leads in the 2000 film The Next Best Thing, about a pair of best friends who decide to raise a child together.
During a new interview on the podcast How To Fail, Rupert remembered the film as a “car crash”.
“It was not a failure as such really at the box office because of video sales in those days – Madonna sold a lot of videos – but the film itself didn’t work, even though for a long time, it was the only film that dealt with this issue that was actually then happening and being born,” he said.
Rupert said that “everything went wrong” behind the scenes, and it wound up “completely finishing things for me in Hollywood”, having previously won favour for his performance in the romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Asked about his famous co-star (who, let’s face it, doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to her acting career), Rupert admitted: “I think it’s very difficult for her to be in films because everyone has such a preconception. I don’t know how she could ever be good enough to make people say, ‘Oh God, that’s really good’.
“I think it was great having her in the film. Yeah. I think she was touching in the film, too, myself. I haven’t seen it for ages, though. I mean, every time that comes on, I kind of look the other way.”
“Friendships and failure in Hollywood are very difficult things to keep going,” he added, noting that the film definitely caused a “strain” on his relationship with the Grammy-winning singer.
Asked if he thought that he and Madonna could “ever reconnect”, he added: “Possibly. I don’t know.”
One positive to come out of The Next Best Thing was Madonna’s cover of Don McLean’s American Pie, which she recorded for the soundtrack and ended up giving the singer her ninth UK number one single.
Madonna herself was seemingly not such a fan of it, though, and famously left it off her second greatest hits collection GHV2 as a “punishment” to the song.