Kevin Spacey sees stardom as a time to pay back
PHILADELPHIA – For many actors, achieving stardom represents a time to cash in. Kevin Spacey is different. For him, it’s a time to pay back.
The 43-year-old performer, who won Oscars as supporting actor and actor for “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” respectively, takes his celebrity status seriously. That’s apparent in the projects he picks, the causes he supports and the young filmmakers he helps.
Spacey’s new film, “The Life of David Gale,” which opens Feb. 21, marks his screen return after a year absence to refuel his creative juices and to establish a Web site (www.triggerstreet.com) for new screenwriters and directors to have their work be exposed and critiqued. (Spacey’s company, Trigger Street Productions, is named after the San Fernando Valley road where the actor grew up and where frontier favorite Roy Rogers once owned a ranch and originally named the street for his horse.)
With “The Life of David Gale,” Spacey lends his talents to the controversial subject of capital punishment in an intense melodrama about a disgraced Harvard-educated philosophy professor who’s convicted of murder in Texas and has four days remaining until his execution.
Although the R-rated film, directed by British filmmaker Alan Parker (“Midnight Express”) and produced by actor Nicolas Cage, comes down squarely against the death penalty, Spacey wants viewers to draw their own conclusions about America’s judicial system.
“I’m always very reluctant to pontificate about what I think an audience should take away from a film,” Spacey said in a conference room at the Four Seasons Hotel during a publicity stop for “The Life of David Gale.” “It’s always good when a movie can begin discussions. I don’t want the ‘issue’ (of capital punishment) to overshadow the entertainment value of the movie.
“But it’s a decidedly uncomfortable issue. You’ll hear people talk about it passionately, and you’ll certainly hear people who have been involved in some kind of (crime tragedy), but generally, you find people don’t know the facts about the death penalty.
“Very often in these kinds of issues, there’s a peripheral knowledge and sometimes an emotional stance, but often it’s not based on evidence…At the same time, I’ve never had my mother murdered. I don’t know how I would feel about it (capital punishment) under those circumstances.
“I know part of me feels that killing is wrong for any reason, but we’ve recently listened to these families (of crime victims) in Illinois (where the governor commuted all of the death sentences), and they feel betrayed. We’re going to continue to grapple with the question for a long time.”
The highly respected Spacey, who was recently named to the prestigious post of artistic director of London’s historic Old Vic Theatre, is well known for spending time with college students interested in theater and film. Through www.triggerstreet.com, he even provides young talents with access to the motion-picture industry and an opportunity to have their work examined. According to Spacey, he learned about the importance of giving back to the artistic community from a late performer whom he considers his mentor.
“At my company and the Web site, we’ve adopted a great line that I used to hear Jack Lemmon say a lot,” Spacey said. “He used to say, ‘If you’re lucky enough to have done well, then it’s your responsibility to send the elevator back down.’ “I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you that I wished that there were more actors who did (helped others develop their creative talents). I wish there were more actors who spent less time buying things.
“Yes, my mother raised me right, and I’m glad she did. But there’s this remarkably rewarding part of it. It means a lot to me to rally around a young filmmaker and help that person fight to get the movie made against all of the roadblocks that come between an idea and the actual execution of it, particularly with someone who hasn’t proved himself or herself yet.
“No matter how talented you are, negotiating through the waters of the movie industry is very hard, especially if you have virtually no experience and just an idea. Part of it is helping them to learn the art of compromise and not become arrogant about their talent. Most of the great filmmakers were mavericks within the system. They learned how to manipulate the system to make the movies they wanted to make.
“Go back and look at Robert Altman (“M*A*S*H”), Hal Ashby (“Coming Home”), Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver”) or any of them. They weren’t outsiders. They were in it.”
No one was more of a Hollywood outsider than Spacey when he started.
The South Orange, N.J. native moved to Southern California with his father and mother, who wrote technical manuals and worked as a secretary, respectively, as a youngster and was sent to Northridge Military Academy, where he was expelled for hitting a student with a tire.
At a public high school in Chatsworth (where Val Kilmer was in his class), Spacey discovered theater, fell in love with being on stage and performed in a number of plays. After graduation, Spacey, who’s famous for his on-target impressions of performers like Christopher Walken, planned to become a stand-up comic, a calling that seemed less appealing after he was rejected during an audition for “The Gong Show.”
At that point, Spacey moved to the East Coast, was accepted at Manhattan’s Juilliard School, studied for two years and then performed on stage, beginning as the understudy for all of the male roles in director Mike Nichols’ “Hurlyburly.”
Spacey, who will soon start filming a biography of late singer Bobby Darin, would later make his screen debut as a subway thief in Nichols’ “Heartburn” (1986). He gained serious notice as gangster Mel Profitt in the stylish police series “Wiseguy” (CBS; 1987-90) and then began building screen credits with roles in films such as “Dad” (1989) with Lemmon, “Henry & June” (1990) with Uma Thurman, and his breakthrough “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992), also with Lemmon. The back-to-back 1995 hits “The Usual Suspects” and “Seven” catapulted him to a new level, and he enjoyed further critical and commercial success in films such as “A Time to Kill” (1996), “L.A. Confidential” (1997) and “American Beauty” (1999).
Spacey, who made his directing debut with the crime tale “Albino Alligator” (1997) starring Matt Dillon, Faye Dunaway, Gary Sinise and Viggo Mortensen, has particularly fond memories of performing in the Oscar-winning drama about a dysfunctional family.
“‘American Beauty’ (directed by Sam Mendes) was a high for everyone involved,” said Spacey, who will next be seen as a father who learns that his troubled son has committed a murder in “The United States of Leland,” which recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. “You have to face that everything you do for a while after an experience like that will disappoint you.”
For Spacey, it’s important to concentrate on the quality of the work and ignore the lure of fame.
“Celebrity is not a profession,” said Spacey, who traveled with President Bill Clinton on a fact-finding mission to Africa. “It’s adopted as one by many people, but the reality is that I’m a character actor.
“I’ve broken through some levels and walls, but I think you have to be smart about what you do and don’t do, because there’s so much cynicism, especially about actors (involved in political debates). Quite frankly, I think a lot of actors do what they do (in terms of political statements) because they want press (attention). So of course there’s cynicism, because those actors look suspect.
“I try to be careful.”
And now that he’s at the top of the Hollywood hierarchy, how does Spacey select his roles?
“There’s two criteria for me,” he said. “One: Will this movie have a decent chance of standing the test of time? Two: Will it be really fun on a second viewing?
“In some cases, that’s worked out pretty well for me, and in others, it hasn’t.”