No WONDER

RUPERT EVERETT reveals what’s behind his new collection of short stories, a meditation on rejection

- RUPERT EVERETT

ARMED WITH A rapier wit, Rupert Everett is one of those rare actors who holds writing as an equivalent competency, counting Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene among his primary literary inspirations. In February, Everett returns with a brand-new book, The American No, a collection of eight short stories about rejection that breathe new life into a handful of failed star-vehicle pitches that lived on in his head.

"I started writing in a moment of career doldrums so that's how I got to do it, because I only really learned how to write when I was about 15. It's just so lovely and lucky to have two arrows to one's bow," he tells Vanity Fair.

"Writing doesn't come very easily to me.