Charles Spencer and Colin Firth
Charles Spencer and Colin Firth (Photo: Shutterstock)

You may be unaware that Charles Spencer, the younger brother of Princess Diana, was a background actor in a well-known gay classic. 

Another Country was the 1984 British movie that shot Rupert Everett to fame. Future Oscar winner Colin Firth made his feature film debut as the co-lead. 

The story is loosely based on the life of real-life British spy Guy Burgess. It focuses on the schooldays of the fictional Guy Bennett (Everett) in an upper-class, English public school. We see Bennett exploring his queer attraction to other students and becoming disillusioned with Britain’s elitist class system. The seeds are sown for his later decision to spy for Russia.

Everett himself attended boarding school and was perfect for the role. However, he wasn’t the only privileged young man to feature in the movie. Charles Spencer had a non-speaking part. 

In a new Instagram post, Spencer, 60, reflected on his brief movie career. Another Country was his only acting credit. 

Spencer posted a photo of Rupert Everett from the movie.

“Rupert Everett looking exceptionally dashing in his breakout role in the movie ‘Another Country’, filmed in Oxford, Northamptonshire and London in 1983,” Spencer said in a caption.

“Far left in this photograph sees me as a mere ‘featured extra’ in that film,” he continues. 

“I bumped into Colin Firth – whose first film this also was – when he was promoting ‘The King’s Speech’, and said: ‘Colin, you won’t remember me – but we took a shower together in “Another Country”.’

“‘Of course I remember!’, he laughed: ‘You have fantastic buttocks!’

“‘Had, I’m afraid,’ I replied: ‘Not have…’”

On X, Spencer called Another Country, “The start and finish of my acting career…!”

What happened next

Another Country proved a much better springboard for both Everett and Firth. The latter went on to win an Oscar for his role in The King’s Speech in 2011. His other notable movies include A Single Man, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Kingsman: The Secret Service. 

Everett appeared opposite Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Madonna in The Next Best Thing. He made his directorial debut with the 2018 movie, The Happy Prince, which depicted the last two years of Oscar Wilde’s life. Everett played Wilde and Colin Firth played his friend, Reggie Turner. It was the first time they’d acted together since Another Country. 

Everett has said that Firth agreeing to appear in the movie, at a reduced fee, helped to ensure The Happy Prince got financial backing.

Charles Spencer, who famously gave an emotive speech at his sister’s funeral in 1997, has recently published a memoir, A Very Private School. It reflects the culture of cruelty he experienced at the boarding school he was sent to, aged eight, and how it shaped him and others who experienced it. 

Spencer still resides at Althorp, the stately home in Northamptonshire where Princess Diana grew up and is buried. 

Watch a trailer for Another Country below. 

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