Rupert Everett hates ‘every single episode’ of ‘Hacks’ but ‘can’t stop watching’ it

Not sure what Deborah Vance would say about this.

Actor and Taormina Film Festival juror Rupert Everett shared his thoughts on the film and television industry at the annual film festival in Italy, where he also spoke about his love-hate relationship with the acclaimed HBO comedy Hacks.

“I like to watch things I really don’t like,” the British actor said at the festival, per Deadline. “For example, I’ve been watching this series called Hacks recently, and I really hate every single episode. Each episode I hate more than the last one, but I can’t stop watching.”

He added, “So I enjoy that.”

From Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, the Emmy-winning Hacks centers on the dark mentorship between comic legend and late-night host Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and young comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder).

Elsewhere at Taormina, Everett lamented “cinematic wokery” in what he called a “puritanical” entertainment climate.

“I think, for me, it’s not having a very good moment because I preferred the world of entertainment when it was a little bit less puritanical,” he said when asked about the state of the industry. “I feel that now we’ve got into a world where everybody’s so easily offended by anything that anybody does that the result is that everything is completely predictable, and as a result really quite boring.”

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The actor said there are “good” shows out there, “but I don’t feel, for me, there’s personality behind a lot of things. There’s just this horrible political movement of kind of cinematic wokery, which I really don’t like. I think it’s as bad as the 4th century Christians in the Roman Empire; they’re destroying everything.”

Everett is known for roles in Another Country, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Happy Prince, and The Next Best Thing.

His assertion that cinema has become “too woke” has been regurgitated by filmmakers and actors aplenty as of late, including Joker director Todd Phillips, who said he transitioned from the comedy genre to darker matter because “woke culture” has made it more difficult to work on comedies. Quentin Tarantino has also lamented “political correctness” in the movie business.