Stephen Fry Knows He's Become a Middle-Aged Cliché

New York Times

19-06-2025

By email, the actor and prolific writer (three memoirs!) apologized, sort of, for outgrowing D.H. Lawrence. SCOTT HELLER
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?
Jo, the crossing sweeper in 'Bleak House,' is the character who has the most powerful effect on me whenever I return to that peerless book. (Incidentally, Miriam Margolyes's reading of the audiobook is one of the wonders of the age.) Jo is a minor character really, not a hero, but he literally sweeps across the different worlds of the novel. And Dickens's authorial voice denouncing the society that let him die is a masterpiece of fury and despair.
Your favorite antihero or villain?
Tom Buchanan in 'The Great Gatsby' stands out. There are so many Tom Buchanans in the world now. Running it. Or — to change a letter — ruining it.
In 2021, the Times described you as an 'avuncular public intellectual.' How do you feel about that label?
Oh my lordy lord. Avuncular gives me great pleasure. But I disavow 'intellectual,' just as I disavow 'artist' (not that quite so many call me that). I am, I think, an entertainer, impure and simple. But I love the company of real intellectuals.
When were you first exposed to Greek mythology?
At prep school, which in Britain means aged 7 to 13. I instantly fell in love with the juice, energy and fierce delight of them.
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