Actor Rupert Everett has proven to be a local hero after getting behind the bar of his local pub in a bid to save it from closure.
The My Best Friend’s Wedding star, 66, is one of 30 volunteers at The Swan in Enford, Wiltshire, as the 350-year-old pub faces being shut down.
The pub closed for seven months in 2024 until a new licensee opened it, and then shut again this summer when the latest licensees left.
The community-owned pub is operated by a small group of villagers, with volunteers, including Everett, operating the bar to keep it afloat.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘I’m part of a big rota. Our pub closed down a few months ago, and it’s had a chequered existence for the last 20 years, like many pubs, and it’s in a rural village, and I think the people in the village realised that without it, there’s no possibility of communication, and so the villagers wanted to keep the pub going.
‘Everybody decided to take part in rotas in various roles, and I have done a few stints pulling pints.
‘I was working on Saturday, but I’m off to work now, so I’m not going to be back for a bit.
‘But it’s a great thing. Without a pub in a village, if you’re in the countryside and you’re eight miles from the nearest town, it’s sad, and it’s such a difficult time for pubs in general.
‘I should say where it is. Anyone on the A345 going past Enford, go to The Swan for a drink.’
Asked if he has good arm action for pulling pints, Everett said: ‘I’m doing pretty well so far.’
He added he would be back behind the bar ‘probably at the end of the month.’
Speaking to The Times, Camra Salisbury and South Wiltshire representative, Steve Stringer, explained how the Cemetery Man star became involved.
‘When it came about that the pub closed and we were looking for volunteers, he said, “Well, I want to do that as well”,’ he said.
‘He definitely wants to be part of it because it’s the heart of the village. We’ve got no other facilities in the village. There’s the pub and nothing else.’
Stringer said that Everett had worked three shifts at the boozer and ‘loves it.’
‘Quite a lot of the villagers know him, certainly by sight. They’re used to seeing him walk his dog around the village,’ he continued.
‘He’s a very sociable man. But there are a few who were intrigued to find a local celebrity behind the bar.’
Everett is best known for playing quintessential Englishmen in his roles in Another Country, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and An Ideal Husband.
He hopes to return to his role of George Downes in the upcoming sequel to My Best Friend’s Wedding, the 1997 romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts.
Asked if the sequel will be along the lines of ‘My Best Friend’s Divorce’, he said: ‘That I can’t say, it hasn’t been written yet. It’s only been commissioned in the writing stage.”
Asked if it will be him alongside Roberts again, he said: ‘Let’s hope. It might not be, you never know. You have to be ready for all options.’
Everett will soon be seen joining the cast of the second series of Rivals, the Disney+ adaptation of the Jilly Cooper novel, and he said: ‘I’m thrilled to be in it. I watched the first series and I thought, “God, this is a breath of fresh air somehow”, because it’s not hindered by any sense of political correctness, really.
‘It’s also a really, really good look at the 1980s. It’s a difficult period to do, actually, because it’s almost like how we are now, but it’s also very different.’
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