Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox in conversation

The scene is the foyer of the Hampstead Theatre, as late afternoon melts into early evening: curtain-up approaches for the critically acclaimed The Judas Kiss by David Hare. Rupert Everett, 53, one of our best-loved actors, is sitting at a table wearing sports kit and an expensively distressed black leather jacket. He holds his playscript defensively close at all times, like a talisman.

ES Is this the first time you’ve played Oscar Wilde?

Rupert Everett Yes. I adore Oscar Wilde. He’s my patron saint, or my Christ figure. Whenever I’ve been in his plays it’s worked well for me. The Picture of Dorian Gray, directed by Philip Prowse, was a great success. Then I did The Importance of Being Earnest, in French in Paris, when I was trying to break into their film industry. I was in An Ideal Husband, and that was great for me too. Now I’ve written a film about his final years and I’m going to play him and direct it. When I was a kid, 16 or 17, I used to hang out with highbrow queens in Belgravia…

ES Such as Quentin Crisp?

RE No! He was a common queen. These were Belgravia queens. They were very grand. They still talked with the same nuance and timbre of the queens of the 1930s and 1940s, and they were influenced by the Bright Young Things in the 1920s, who knew the queens of the 1890s, like Oscar Wilde and Alfred Lord Douglas. Of course, those grand Belgravia queens I knew are all gone now, but from them I got a glimpse of how to play Wilde, how to glide through these very long and complicated sentences. The more naturalistic the better. People tend to overact when they play Coward or Wilde because they’re desperate to be stylish, but it’s much better to lie back with it.

ES You were the jewel of these Belgravia dinner parties, I suppose.

RE Of course. I was quite the coquette. Very precocious.

ES What was for dinner?

RE Baked beans under a Van Dyck.

Enter Freddie Fox, 23, who plays the lethal adonis, Alfred Lord Douglas, otherwise known as Bosie, Oscar’s great love. He is the youngest member of the Fox acting dynasty (son of Edward, brother of Emilia, cousin of Laurence). He bounces tiggerishly up to the table, five minutes late.

Freddie Fox: Sorry!

RE [affectionately] Oh, you are the biggest diva on the planet.

FF Me? Prima donna?

ES Playing Bosie, have you managed to find any sympathy for him?

FF It’s easy to say he’s a shitbag, but I do have compassion for him. He’s deeply selfish, but of course he doesn’t realise that. He thinks he’s right. He believed he was a great poet. He thought he was arthouse to Oscar’s popcorn blockbusters. His family were bona fide aristocrats — well, they were landowners in Scotland — and he would have been conscious Oscar wasn’t as posh as him. It would be easy to play him as a spoilt brat, but hopefully I don’t do that.

RE I believe everyone is worthy of sympathy in some shape or form. And, of course, if you’re playing a villain you have to defend them to the hilt, otherwise you’re lost. But for me, I don’t think Bosie is very nice. His moods! He’s so histrionic. When he had flu in Worthing, Oscar looked after him, and then when Oscar caught the flu, Bosie said, ‘You’re the most boring person I know,’ and left. Impossible self-centredness.

ES You have to be padded to play Oscar.

RE I’m padded, yes.

ES You didn’t consider pigging out?

FF That’s not Rupert’s style.

RE I would, but I don’t know that I could pig out that much. I’d just get a little pregnant stomach even worse than I have already. Lately I’ve been embracing austerity measures and making my own breakfast at home. I have Duchy of Cornwall oats with water, blueberries, blackberries and Waitrose compote. And a grapefruit and spelt toast — is it spelt or smelt?

FF Spelt! Smelt toast has been left in the toaster too long. This morning I went to The Breakfast Club in Soho with Tam [the actress Tamzin Merchant, his girlfriend]. I had fruit, porridge and most of Tam’s French toast.

RE I can’t get my head around French toast.

FF With apples and cinnamon. It’s so good.

RE I can’t bear cinnamon, it reminds me of when I had to snog someone for a dare and they were wearing cinnamon lip balm. Ugh! I nearly puked in their mouth.

ES Boy or girl? One has to ask.

RE I can’t possibly reveal that. It’s too contentious.

ES There’s been a slight media storm around you of late, Rupert...

RE What’s that? Oh, about saying I didn’t want to be the child of gays? Well for one thing, where’s everyone’s sense of humour? And for another, the good news is, I’m not standing for public office, and we live in a country where free speech is encouraged. I was only saying my own opinion. I’m absolutely not against progress. It was just me saying what I like for me. As me. I’m out of kilter with the whole world, to be honest.