Glamour (British) August 2001
Rufus Sewell built his career on playing the romantic costume drama hero, but in Hollywood
he's leading-ladyless. It's surprising, considering his
chiselled cheekbones, tabloid status as a 'smouldering Byronic hero' and the fact that he
once ran out on Madonna during a dinner date.
"I laugh at those descriptions of me as some kind of suave, moody, romantic,
smoothie," he says. "It's so divorced from who I am, which is just a
giggling twerp."
Rufus, 33, is animated and surprisingly warm for an actor with a stand-offish
reputation. And he's every bit as sexy as he is on screen,
with the presence of an old-fashioned matinee idol.
We talk about the breakdown of his year-long marriage to Australian fashion buyer Yasmin
Abdullah, whom he split from early this year. "We had a short
marriage but a long relationship," says Rufus, who made his name in TV costume dramas
Middlemarch and Cold comfort Farm. "It wasn't as if I met
someone and just got married. It hasn't made me cynical or taught me anything.
things go wrong, that's all. I'd get married again, and I'd love
to have kids some day." It's hard to believe this is the same man who couldn't
get girls at school because I was fat and not good-looking".
"I still haven't grown out of my 15-year-old fat-boy suspicions of women yet,"
he says. "Nor my suspicion of good-looking people. I used to think
they were a bunch of smarmy gits."
Similarly, he laughs at the cooing over his appearance. "There's nothing worse
than someone trying to be sexy," he says. "All that sex-symbol stuff
makes me think of medallions and aftershave ads."
True to type, in his latest film, the swashbuckling "A Knight's Tale", Rufus
ends up without the girl. He plays Count Adhemar, a dashing but arrogant
medieval knight with an evil streak. "He's a sort of Basil Rathbone
villain" says Rufus. "You know, one of the moustache-twiddling
types. It
was great fun to play a character like that." Adhemar is the champion jouster,
who's upstaged by a heroic rival (Heath Ledger), and the two
compete for the beautiful Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon). No prizes for guessing the
winner.
Since the film came out in the US, everyone's gone mad for Rufus - the latest talented
Brit packer with a self-depracating sence of humour. But he
remains low-key. "I don't want to make any pronouncements about how success
hasn't gone to my head." He smiles, lighting a cigarette. "It's
something
you have to keep a check on all the time. But I can't ever see myself 'swimming in
Lake Me'. the thing that changes is the calibre of roles I can
go for. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't changed at all. If I'd met you when I was 18
I'd have wanted you to buy me dinner because I didn't have any
money."
Now, he's being linked with everyone from Donna Air to Heather Graham. Most of the
time, he says, the reports are wrong. "Donna and I did go on a
couple of dates when I split up with my wife and was going out a lot. Nothing
against Donna - she's a lovely girl - but it wasn't serious."
He also insists that tabloid reports that he dated Hollywood star Heather Graham are
untrue. She's happily involved with his friend Heath Ledger.
"Me and Heath went for a meal with four other people and photos were taken of us
coming out of The ivy. They cust Heath and everyone else out and said
I was seeing Heather.
"Sometimes it's funny, but when they talk about me being with a friend's girlfriend,
it's embarrasing and hurtful.
Now, he says, he's seeing a "non-actress I like very much", but bats off all
queries with a smile. "She's gorgeous, but my idea of beauty isn't model
looks. I love a woman with a lound laugh, but not obnoxious. I've never been
with anyone I didn't think was beautiful."
thanks, Sian!!