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I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR RU

‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ Star Reveals Body-Ruining Mistake

His toned physique came at a painful cost.

Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

PublishedJun 3, 2026, 3:36 PM EDT

UpdatedJun 3, 2026, 3:36 PM EDT

Updated Jun 3, 2026, 3:36 PM EDTPublished Jun 3, 2026, 3:36 PM EDT

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For most My Best Friend’s Wedding fans, the “Say a Little Prayer” scene may be the most memorable part of the 1997 film. But for actor Rupert Everett, it’s the damage his body endured from preparing to play George Downes that he’ll never forget.

Everett, then in his late thirties, starred alongside Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, and Cameron Diaz in the feel-good rom-com.

The 6-foot-4 Englishman’s character, George, is gay but pretends to be engaged to Jules Potter (Roberts) in order to spark jealousy in Michael O’Neal (Mulroney), who is freshly engaged to the much younger Kimmy Wallace (Diaz).

​In an interview with the Guardian, Everett, now 67, explained that the fitness regimen he followed ahead of playing George left his body in a state of near-disrepair.

​Everett is self-critical throughout the interview, telling reporter Simon Hattenstone, “When you were young, hot weather was nice. But when you’re chubby like me now, it’s not so nice.”

As Everett reflected on his feelings toward his more youthful appearance, ​Hattenstone remarked, “Well, none of us are as thin as we once were, and you were probably too skinny back then.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Everett countered. “I was wonderful-looking at one point. I had muscles. Everything. It was quite short-lived. I call [1997] my Hollywood year.”

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But achieving his buff frame in the ‘90s was an unhealthy endeavor, Everett said, mainly because of how he went about it.

“I ruined myself,” he told the Guardian. “Now I’m almost crippled as a result. I could never be bothered to do all those things, like stretching, which were necessary for lifting weights, because your tendons get tighter and tighter. So boring. I didn’t do any of that.”

He added, “So now my demise will be musculoskeletal, I think.”

Everett also noted that his on-screen physique was not entirely natural and recalled wearing bodysuits with artificially enhanced muscular definition to make him appear even more brawny.

“I met these two queens in Tufnell Park who made bodysuits, and they made me a false bottom, false calves, false shoulders, false everything,” he said.

When asked if he wore these suits in movies, Everett answered affirmatively. “Yes, in everything,” he said. “I’d go into the fittings for the costumes with all my things on.”

Everett, who later voiced Prince Charming in the Shrek franchise, describes the insecurity he felt in his career and personal life.

“Even work was about cruising, really,” he said. “Trying to be attractive. Which obviously came from the feeling of not being attractive enough. My vanity for me wasn’t about ‘mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?’ Vanity is often a feeling of deep insecurity rather than feeling how fabulous I am.”

​Still, he was not the type to dwell on the future. In his youth, he believed he would not live past 30—and, at least at that time, nor did he want to.

“No, not when I was 20,” he stated. “It was James Dean. I aspired to die in a car crash.”

​Despite his early doubts, Everett is now comfortably in his mid-sixties and has written two memoirs about his experience as an actor, including Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins (2006) and Vanished Years (2012).

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Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

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