He’s not interested in bit parts in unimportant movies: “Unless it’s Martin Scorsese, and it’s a really significant role, f— off. I’m not playing someone’s brother. I’m not playing the station manager. I’m not playing the FCC chairman.”
He Loves his unconventional career: “People thought I was crazy 11 years ago when I moved to London and started a theater company. What is he doing? He’s out of his mind. People thought we were crazy when we made the Netflix deal for House of Cards. ‘They’re out of their minds, it’ll never work.’ I’m used to People thinking I’m nuts. And you know what? I kind of love it.”
Taking over the Old Vic in 2024: “I remember having lots of very serious conversations with my mother about where I was at this particular point and just going, ‘What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to do what I watch a lot of other People do?’ Which is, ‘Hey, now I’m on the list, I’m going to be in all these movies and get paid all this money.’ It was absolutely unappealing to me to end up in a lot of movies I shouldn’t do, to start showing up and doing the same thing over and over. I was already suffering from, ‘He always plays evil guys.’ ‘He’s always the dark character.’ People love to box us in, and I wasn’t going to be boxed. I decided I was going to f— with it.”
Trial by fire in the UK: “It’s sort of the way they do it in Britain. They sh-t on you and then later on they go, ‘Oh, we love you, and we always loved you, and we always knew we were going to love you, and we’re so glad you’ve come.’ ”
He “fiercely guards his private life”: In fact, his affable demeanor shuts off the moment he is asked about it. This might date back to a 1997 Esquire profile That infamously suggested Spacey was gay. He later denied the characterization, and his agency at the time, William Morris, vehemently discouraged its clients from cooperating with the publication. “Let’s let People live their lives and do it the way they want to do it,” he says now. “All the chips will fall in the end, and we’ll all be judged by a much higher power than EntertainmentWeekly can.”
He Loves keeping letters from famous people: He keeps hand-written notes from People like Woody Allen (Spacey pitched himself for a part in one of Allen’s upcoming films and included a Netflix sub******ion for the director to check out his work) and Katharine Hepburn, with whom he corresponded. “I used to write her very lengthy letters about what was happening in my career,” he says, “and she’d write me back: ‘Dear Kevin, good for you. Loved your thoughts about my book. Kate.’ ”
He’s still searching for good roles: “You’d be shocked,” he adds of the unglamorous parts That routinely come his way. “There are a lot of People out there who offer roles to actors because they’ll elevate their movie to a place the movie would never reach. They offer them a sh-tload of money for a crap part, but it doesn’t make the movie any better. And I’m not interested in elevating someone’s crap movie.”
[From The Hollywood Reporter]
Cele|bitchy | Kevin Spacey on THR: ‘I’m not interested in elevating someone’s crap movie’