Actor Rupert Everett brands British soldiers 'pathetic, whining wimps'

The 49-year-old, whose father is a retired major and has relatives who earned Victoria Crosses, branded modern recruits as "pathetic" and claimed: “The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed.”

The gay star has just finished filming a portrait of the 19th Century soldier and adventurer Sir Richard Burton for the Channel 4 documentary The Victorian Sex Explorer. 

Blast: Rupert Everett described modern soldiers as 'wimps' compared to those of the Victorian era

And comparing troops from now and then he said: “In Burton's day they were itching to get into the fray.

“Now it is the opposite. They are always whining about the dangers of being killed. Oh my God, they are such wimps now!

"The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit.

“I don't think there is any point in having wars if that's how you're going to behave. It's pathetic. All this whining!"

And risking further fury from veterans, the actor who once worked as a rent boy after running away from boarding school at age 15, told the Sunday Telegraph: “The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting yourself blown up.

“That and p***ing on prisoners. Yet we all get shocked by Abu Ghraib.

"But that's war. If you don't like that side of it, don't do it. Of course soldiers are going to p*** on the first prisoners they take. It goes with the territory."

Duty: British soldiers on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Everett, whose most recent film rolls include parts in Stardust, St Trinian’s, and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek, served one year in the Army Cadets while at the Catholic public school Ampleforth.

But he added: “It wasn’t for me. I would have liked to have been in the Army in Burton’s time, because you could do more or less what you wanted.

“They would give you four years to go off and explore. Now what do you get in the Army?

“Bad helmets and Basra. Your guns don’t work and everyone hates you when you get back.”

Last week the actor, who has a history of being loose-tongued, described Americans as "whiny victims" whose entire language is taken from Friends and Sex And The City.

And he said we live in a repressed Victorian-style culture, obsessed with the "authority of what Posh is wearing".

Victorian soldier: Sir Richard Burton

"All the problems we have now, they're all really about people not daring to stand up and say anything," he said.

And speaking about Americans, he said: "I'm totally off the States now. The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation.

"Now they are whiny victims whose language is entirely taken from two TV shows - Friends and Sex And The City - and there's nothing sexy about them any more.

“And that kind of semi-blindness about the rest of the world, which was attractive when America was exciting, is really unattractive now."

• The Victorian Sex Explorer is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday