Rupert Everett uses St Trinians press to slate Hollywood A-list

Hollywood insiders remained bemused this morning as to why the British actor Rupert Everett, a fairly minor star in the firmament as seen from Beverly Hills, should use a newspaper interview promoting the opening of his new film, St Trinian's, to lambast such movie icons as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Robert Redford. "They're all parodies of themselves," he said.

He reserved his most poisonous venom for George Clooney, saying: "He's not the brightest spark on the boulevard. He'll be President one day. Mark my words, if he's straight, he'll be President."

Of Clooney's attempts to make serious films - such as the recent Michael Clayton - Everett told John Walsh of the Independent: "Clooney thinks that, provided he does films which are politically committed, he's allowed to do Oceans 11, 12 and 13. But the Oceans movies are a cancer to world culture. They're destroying us."

He then launched into Diane Keaton. "The other day I saw a film called Because I Said So with Diane Keaton, and I thought, here's one of the women we loved most in 1970s cinema, debasing and humiliating herself in this load of trash. Why?" Finally, of Al Pacino he said: "[He] looks like a mad old freak now. I say, give it a rest, or go and do some serious stuff."

Everett plays the headmistress in a modern revival of St Trinian's - a role he says he modelled partly on his mother and partly on the Duchess of Cornwall - opposite a cast of beautiful young actresses and models including Mischa Barton, Talulah Riley, Gemma Arterton, Antonia Bernath, Lily Cole and Girls Aloud (pictured with Everett) as the unruly schoolgirls.

Will he ever work again in Hollywood? "He's certainly made some powerful enemies," said one Hollywood agent. "If he wasn't gay, I'd say all those girls in gymslips must have gone to his head."

It appears his homosexuality may be at the heart of his dismay at Hollywood culture. In the Times today, he is quoted as saying: "Hollywood is a place that pretends it's very liberal but it's not remotely. It's like al-Qaeda."

In his autobiography Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins he claimed that the head of MGM once vetoed his casting as the male lead opposite Sharon Stone in a film, saying that "to all intents and purposes a homosexual was a pervert in the eyes of America and the world would never accept me in the role and therefore MGM would never hire me". ·