The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

Rupert Everett: Algy

Photos 

Quotes 

• Algy : Bunbury? He was quite *exploded*.

  Lady Bracknell : Exploded?

  Algy : [pretending sadness]  Mm.

  Lady Bracknell : Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation.

  Algy : My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was *found out*. The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live - that is what I mean - so Bunbury died.

  Lady Bracknell : He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.

• Jack : I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

  Algy : Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

• Algy : But why does your aunt call you her uncle?

  [Reading cigarette case] 

  Algy : "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out.

• Algy : Do you mean you couldn't love me if I had a different name?

  Cecily : But what name?

  Algy : Well... Algy, for instance.

  Cecily : I might respect you, Earnest, I might admire your character, but I feel that I could never give you my undivided attention.

• [in the end credits] 

  Jack : Algy, you're always talking nonsense.

  Algy : It's better than listening to it.

• Jack : You don't think there's any chance of Gwendolyn becoming like her mother in about 150 years, do you Algy?

  Algy : My dear fellow, all women become like their mothers, that's their tragedy. No man does, and that's his.

• Algy : The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

• Jack : Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.

  Algy : But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins!

  Jack : I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.

  Algy : That may be, but the muffins are the same!

• Algy : Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

  Lane : I didn't think it polite to listen, Sir.

• Algy : I don't seem to care about anything anymore... I only care for you. I love you Cecily. Will you marry me?

  Cecily : Why, of course! We've been engaged for the past 3 months!

  Algy : ...3 months?

• Algy : I really don't see what is so romantic about proposing. One may be accepted - one usually is, I believe - and then the excitement is ended. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

• [while Algy is pretending to be Jack's brother] 

  Jack : [whispering]  Algy! Algy! Algy!

  [Algy looks around, as if wondering who Jack's calling] 

  Jack : Ernest.

  Algy : Ah, good morning, dear fellow.

• Jack : How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't make out! It seems to me to be perfectly heartless...

  Algy : I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

• [over the end credits, Algy and Jack rehearse their song to win back their girls] 

  Jack : I think your high notes may have damaged our chances, old boy. You do want them to come down, don't you?

  Algy : Well, they're never going to come down while you're singing like that, you're completely out of tune.

  Jack : How dare you.

  Algy : I'll take this next bit.

  Jack : You leave this one to me, you go and have a lie-down.

  Algy : I'm doing it.

  Jack : Move out of my way, I'm coming through.

  Algy : Go easy, my dear fellow...

  Jack : [singing]  COME DO-O-O-O-WN, LADY COME DOWN...

  Algy : Overdoing it, less is more.

• Algy : [to Jack]  You are *the* most advanced Bunburyist I know.