In the original ending to "My Best Friend's Wedding," Julia Roberts danced with a blobby frat boy. Some consolation prize after watching Dermot Mulroney marry Cameron Diaz.

	Rupert Everett, right, is the voice of Prince Charming. He joins Puss in Boots, Shrek and the Gingerbread Man and in "Shrek the Third." Click photo for larger image. Related stories 'Shrek the Third' review Family Film Guide: 'Shrek the Third'

But the audience spoke and clamored: Bring back Rupert Everett, as the handsome gay best friend. And so the filmmakers did.

In his autobiography, "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins," Everett writes that the studio looked at the scores from test screenings and "Middle America wanted their sweetheart to end up with 'the gay guy.' Why? Because he was funny."

So a new finale was filmed, and Everett got even more screen time as the witty best friend who had posed as Roberts' fiance and led a rousing restaurant sing-along to "I Say a Little Prayer."

Best friend? Yes. Prince Charming? No, until Jeffrey Katzenberg came along and offered him the voice of Prince Charming in "Shrek 2."

Everett was ecstatic, and he's back as the pretty boy in "Shrek the Third," and this time, he vows to claim the kingdom of Far Far Away -- even as he headlines in dinner theater that, in the words of the Gingerbread Man, "is worse than 'Love Letters.'"

Everett was thrilled to be aboard again. "I think it's a lovely film. I watched it yesterday, and I really enjoyed it, and I feel very lucky to be in it, to be honest," he said recently by phone from Los Angeles, where he was doing a round of interviews.

"The look of it has gotten deeper and more romantic than the first ones, in a way, so it was a real thrill to see the way it looked."

In this summer of sequels, Everett said the challenge for the filmmakers was very simple: "Just to keep it fresh and new and also to retain the things that people liked about it before. I think it's very difficult for the filmmakers. From the actor's point of view, it's quite an easy thing, from a voice point of view."

And he could use that plummy British voice from anywhere. He recorded his lines in Los Angeles, New York, London, Germany, even Hong Kong. "That's the great beauty of it; you can do it by satellite," alone in a studio somewhere, which is how actors deliver their lines for computer-animated movies.

He had no trick for getting into character. "I come from the just-get-on-and-do-it school, so you just get on and do it, really, and you get warmed up during the course of the morning and you're kind of off."

In his autobiography, Everett advanced a theory about America and movies:

"It is a strange fact that America is only prepared to look at herself through the safety of cartoons: 'Shrek,' 'South Park' and 'The Simpsons' hold the mirror to society. Only the titles of live-action films give you any indication about the absurd state of our world: 'Mission Impossible,' 'Failure to Launch,' 'Maid in America.'"

Pressed about this insight, he said, "It just struck me, really, writing the book, that we seem to be more at ease looking at ourselves through cartoons. Maybe live action is too real, and live action has suddenly become like religion, and we portray ourselves as what we want to be or what we think we should be, rather than what we are."

The relationships in live-action movies often aren't real, but they are in animated stories. "Even what makes an insurgent, everything about it is quite profound," he said, of the "Shrek" movies. "I think that's the secret of why they're so successful."

Everett is no stranger to Pittsburgh, having made "Inspector Gadget" here alongside Matthew Broderick and Joely Fisher in fall 1998. "I was there for a month, I think, or three weeks or something. I enjoyed making 'Inspector Gadget'; it just went on forever."

Location shooting here, however, did allow Everett to visit The Andy Warhol Museum, which he loved. In his book, he writes about Warhol and his longtime business manager, Frederick Hughes, who was credited with bringing the museum to Pittsburgh.

"Andy was disheveled, still very much a Pittsburgh Warhola trudging home from the foundry. He wore cheap clothes and carried a brown paper bag wherever he went that housed his tape recorder and camera. His wig was studiously plonked wonky. ...

"His lashless eyes were surprised raisins hidden behind dirty glasses. The only thing that gave one an inkling of the minute observation machine that lay underneath was his cranky half-smile that lit the raisins briefly and was inevitably accompanied by a signature inanity. ('Aww, gee! That's great!')"

Later, Everett compares his "Hearts of Fire" co-star Bob Dylan to Warhol. "In a way, Bob reminded me of Andy Warhol. You could never be certain whether he was really vacant or just playing vacant. Like Andy, he had perfected the art of being the still centre of a raging storm. Whether it was a contrivance or not, who knew? Probably not even him, at this stage."

Everett, who has grand plans for another novel, screenplay and updating of his autobiography, will be seen in the fantasy epic "Stardust" later this summer.

Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, the movie begins in a village in England and ends up in an imaginary world. The cast also includes Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, Peter O'Toole, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and Ricky Gervais. Everett plays a prince -- again -- who tumbles off the side of a building and becomes a ghost.

The shoot involved acting in front of a green screen, which later would have background images substituted for that blank slate.

Asked how he coped, he quipped, "I had to have Valium. It's so-ooo boring. I was tearing my hair out, plus I wore prosthetics. I was sitting in the chair for two hours every morning and standing in front of the green screen. I thought I was going to go mad. But it's worth it."

"Stardust" alights in theaters Aug. 10.