Kevin Spacey: Fighting back

Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty."

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Sept. 24, 1999) -- Kevin Spacey seems like a man with a mission. Make that two missions.

As a highly regarded movie actor, he's purposefully expanding his options, adding sympathetic characters to his repertoire.

In his most popular previous screen performances -- in The Usual Suspects, Seven and L.A. Confidential -- Spacey made quirky evil or sly corruption his speciality.

In the stunning new film, American Beauty, Spacey offers strikingly different colors.

"Going into the millennium, I am no longer interested in playing dark and villainous characters," he tells me. "That doesn't present a challenge to me. When something stops being a challenge, you have to do something new."

On a more private front, Spacey has had to combat sly innuendo about his off-screen life, culminating in a 1997 Esquire magazine cover story that strongly implied that Spacey is gay.

For an actor, such accusations strongly affect the type of roles being offered. It's not personal, it's business.

Spacey initially responded with a statement from his publicist calling the article "dishonest and malicious." Then he turned to a full slate of work, including several films, and the recent award-winning stage revival of The Iceman Cometh. However, he kept a low profile with the media, granting few interviews.

But this month, Spacey took off the gloves. In the current Playboy interview, he takes questions about the accusation and responds, "It's not true. It's a lie."

And he goes on to explain that a co-worker's sexuality is of no interest to him, and shouldn't be to anyone else. But it affects an actor's livelihood.

"It would sure be great if it didn't matter," Spacey tells Playboy. "But it does."

Spacey assumes the innuendos got started because "I'm not married and I won't talk about my private life, so it must mean I'm gay."

And now, with American Beauty, Spacey is finally granting occasional interviews, including our recent conversation at a hotel in Toronto.

Spacey's in Canada to help launch American Beauty at the Toronto International Film Festival. (It went on to win the prize as the audience favorite at the 10-day fest.)

And he's also anxious to turn the page on innuendo.

"I'm glad the interview is out, and I stand by it, and that's all I have to say about," he says.

However, on the issue of diversifying his screen image, Spacey had a lot to say.

He knew the role in American Beauty was just what he was seeking. Lester Burnham has found his American dream gone sour, and is clearly in a rut.

"I recognized immediately that Lester was a character I could really relate to. I was on my own journey to break out of something I'd done over a number of years, and had been trying to move toward a kind of liberation."

Spacey says he feels blessed to have found this material, "and a director (Sam Mendes) who wanted me to play a role that's closer to my own feelings and experiences. It's something I've never done before on screen."

He talks quietly but firmly, while sitting at a table in an empty hotel ballroom.

Between sips on a cup of coffee, he adds that American Beauty offered other distinctively rare elements.

"This is the first film I've done in a long while that didn't go through a major re-write before we did it.

"(DreamWorks co-founder Steven) Spielberg read it and said, 'Let's make this movie and NOT change a word.'

"The film deals with a lot of topics, subjects and ideas and feelings in a mature, hysterical and un-politically correct way. But I think it's an honest film, and that's great."

Spacey says he wasn't quite so happy with all the work he had to do to buff up for the scenes when Lester becomes a health-conscious weight-lifter.

"I worked out every day for four months till I wanted to shoot myself," Spacey says.

Asked if he's continued the fitness routine when the film ended, Spacey says it wasn't necessary.

"I went right into The Iceman Cometh, and doing a four-hour O'Neill play every day is more than enough to keep in shape."

Now 40, the actor was born Kevin Spacey Fowler in South Orange, N.J., but raised in Southern California.

Spacey was restless and troublesome in his youth, until he discovered acting. Then he became such an accomplished performer, he was recruited by a high school to become part of their dramatics team. His fellow actors at Chatsworth School included Val Kilmer and Mare Winningham.

After graduation, Spacey briefly tried stand-up comedy, and studied for two years at Julliard School in Manhattan before quitting to try Broadway. A few understudy roles caught the eye of director Mike Nichols, who cast him in minor roles in a couple of films.

His big break, though, was as a villain in the cult 1980s TV series, Wiseguy. This lead to film roles in Lost in Yonkers, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Henry and June, before he hit a star's stride with Seven, the Oscar-winning portrayal in The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and The Negotiator.

He took a stab at directing in 1996, though Albino Alligator failed to register on most filmgoers' radar.

"I don't think it was perceived as a great film, but I didn't start out with material that was personal to me. I wanted to work on the craft of filmmaking, working with actors and understanding the camera. So, for me, it was a great experience. I walked away loving the job.

"I'm going to do something next that's much more personal for me, and probably much more difficult."

For now, though, Spacey is proud of what American Beauty accomplishes.

"Everyone has their own vision of what's beautiful and what is the American Dream. Part of that dream is wanting it to BE beautiful, and wanting to have a relationship with your family and wanting it to be successful, and have a nice house. And those things everyone seeks.

"I think the lesson is that the things we seek aren't outside of ourselves after all, but much closer to our own relationship to ourselves and to the world.

"Lester finally learns the lesson -- the theme of the film -- which is to look close and find the right things and find an inner peace.

"I suspect the most beautiful thing people can come to realize is where they fit in the world."