#432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life

34:52What does that line mean? And then work backwards. What is that like a catalyst for thinking deeply about what is magical about this play, the story, the narrative? That's what that is, like thinking backwards, that's what that does. Yeah. But also because it's just it's this incredible why didn't I think to ask that question myself? Yeah, that's what you have directors for. That's what you have, you know, so many places where ideas can come from. But that just illustrates that even though in my brain I go, I always like to work backwards. I missed it in that one and I'm very grateful to my to my friend for having pushed me into being able to realize what that meant.

35:37And to ask the interesting question, the I like the poetry and the humility of I'm just a series of colors in someone else's painting. That was a good line. That said, you've talked about improvisation. You said that it's all about the ability to do it again and again and again and yet never make it the same. And you also just said that you're trying to stay true to the text. So where's the room for the improvisation that it's never the same? Well, there's two slightly different contexts, I think. One is in the rehearsal room, improvisation could be a wonderful device. I mean, Sam Mendes, for example, we'll start a scene and he does this wonderful thing.

36:27He brings rugs and he brings chairs and sofas in and he says, well, let's put two chairs here and here. You guys, let's start in these chairs far apart from each other. Let's see what happens with the scene if you're that far apart. And so we'll do the scene that way. And then he goes, okay, let's bring a rug in and let's bring these chairs much closer and let's see what happens if the space of the space between you is. And so then you try it that way. And then, you know, it's a little harder in Shakespeare to improv. But in any situation where you, you want to try and see where, where could a scene go?

37:06Where would the scene go if I didn't make that choice? Where would the scene go if I made this choice? Where would the scene go if I didn't say that or I said something else? So that's how improv can be a valuable process to learn about limits and boundaries and what's going on with a character that somehow you discover in trying something that isn't on the page. Then there's the different thing which is the trying to make it fresh and trying to make it new. And that is really a reference to theater.

37:50I'll put it to you this way. Anybody loves sports, right? So you go and you watch on a pitch, you watch on a tennis game, you watch basketball, you watch football. Yeah, the rules are the same, but it's a different game every time you're out on that court or on that field. It's no different in theater. Yes, it's the same lines, maybe even blocking is similar. But what's different is attack, intention, how you are growing in a role and watching your fellow actors grow in theirs and how every night it's a new audience and they're reacting differently. And you literally, where you can go from week one of performances in a play to week 12 is extraordinary.

38:52And the difference between theater and film is that no matter how good someone might think you are in a movie, you'll never be any better. It's frozen. Whereas I can be better in a more night than I was tonight. I can be better in a week than I was tonight. It is a living, breathing, shifting, changing, growing thing every single day. But also in theater, there's no safety net. If you fuck it up, everybody gets to see you do that. And if you start giggling on stage, everyone gets to see you do that too, which I am very guilty of. I mean, there is something of a seduction of an audience in theater, even more intense than there is when you're talking about film.

39:48I got a chance to watch the documentary now in the Wings on a World Stage, which is behind the scenes of you mentioned, you teaming up with Sam Men as in 2011 to stage Richard III, a play by William Shakespeare. I was also surprised to learn, you haven't really done much Shakespeare. Or at least you said that in the movie. But there's a lot of interesting behind the scenes stuff there. First of all, the camaraderie of everybody, how the bond theater creates, especially when you're traveling. But another interesting thing, you mentioned with the chairs of Sam Men is trying different stuff. It seemed like everybody was really open to trying stuff, embarrassing themselves, taking risks, all that.

40:35I suppose that's part of acting in general, but theater especially, just take risks. It's okay to embarrass a shit out of yourself, including the director. It's also because you become a family. It's unlike a movie where I might have a scene with so -and -so on this day, and then another scene with them in a week and a half. And then that's the only scenes we have in all movie together. Every single day, when you show up in the rehearsal room, it's the whole company. You're all up for it every day. You're learning, you're growing, you're trying. And there is an incredible trust that happens. And I was, of course, fortunate that some of the things I learned and observed about being a part of that family, being included in their family and being a part of creating that family.

41:32I was able to observe from people like Jack Lemmon who led many companies that I was fortunate to work in and be a part of. There's also a sad moment where at the end, everybody is really sad to say goodbye, because you do form a family and then it's over. I guess somebody said that that's just part of theater. I mean, there's a kind of assumed goodbye and that this is it. Yeah, and also there are sometimes when like six months later, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll go, that's not a play that's seen. Oh, God, I just finally figured it out. So maybe you could speak a little bit more to that.

42:17What's the difference between film acting and live theater acting? I don't really think there is any. I think there's just, you eventually learn about yourself on film. You know, when I first did like my first episode of the equalizer, you know, it's just horrible. It's just so bad. But I didn't know about myself. I didn't slowly begin to learn about yourself, but I think good acting is good acting. And I think that, you know, if you, if the camera's right here, you know that your front row is also your back row. You just don't have to, you don't have to do so much. There is in theater a particular kind of energy, almost like an athlete that you have to have vocally to be able to get up seven performances a week and never lose your voice and always be there and always be alive and always be doing the best work you can that you just don't require in film.

43:21You know, you don't have to have the same, it just doesn't require the same kind of stamina that doing a play does. It just feels like also in theater, you have to become the character more intensely because you can't take a break, you can't take a bath of break. You're like on stage. There's no, this is you. Yeah, but you have no idea what's going on on stage with the actors. I mean, I have literally laughed through speeches that I had to give because my fellow actors were putting carrots up their nose or broccoli in their ears or doing whatever they were doing to make me laugh. So they're just having fun.

44:04They're having the time of their life. And by the way, Judy Dentch is the worst giggler of all. I mean, they had to bring the curtain down on her and Maggie Smith because they were laughing so hard they could not continue the play. So even when you doing like a dramatic monologue still, they're still fucking with you. There's stuff. Okay, that's great. That's good to know. You also said, interesting line that improvisation helps you learn about the character. Can you explain that? So like through maybe playing with the different ways of saying the words or the different ways to bring the words to life, you get to learn about yourself.

44:47About the character you're playing. It can be helpful. But improv is, I'm a big, such a big believer in the writing and in serving the writing and doing the words the writer wrote that improv for me, unless you're just doing like comedy and you know, like, I mean, I love improv and in comedy, it's brilliant. So much fun to watch people just come up with something right there. But you're, you know, that's where you're looking for laughs and you're specifically in a little scene that's being created. But I think improv has had value. But I have not experienced it as much in doing plays. As I have sometimes in doing film where you'll start off rehearsing and a director may say, let's just go off book and see what happens.

45:45And I've had moments in film where someone went off book and it was terrifying.

45:54There was a scene I had in Glen Gary Glen Ross where the character I play has, has fucked something up. It's just screwed something up. And Pacino is livid. And so we had the scene where Al is walking like this and the camera is moving with him and he is chewing me a new asshole. And in the middle of the take Al starts talking about me.

46:29Oh Kevin, you don't think we know how you got this job. You don't think we know who's dicked you've been sucking on to get this part in this movie. And I'm now, I'm literally like, I don't know what the hell is happening. But I'm reacting. We got to the end of that take. Al walked up to me and he went, oh, that was so good. Oh my god, that was so good. Just so you know, the sound, I asked them not to record. So you had no dialogue. So it's just me. Oh, that was so good. You look, you look like a car wreck. And I was like, yeah. And it was actually an incredibly generous thing that he gave me so that I would react.

47:21Oh, wow. Did they use that shot because you were a shot. It was my close up. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's the take. That was an intention. Right. I mean, what was it like if we can just linger on that, just that intense scene with Al Pacino? Well, he's the reason I got the movie. A lot of people might think because Jack was in the film that he had something to do with it. But actually, I was doing a play called Lost in Yonkers on Broadway. And we had the same dresser who worked with him, but girl, him Laura was wonderful. Laura Beatty. And she told Al that he should come and see this play because she wanted to see me in this play.

48:04I was playing this gangster's fun, fun, fun part. So I didn't know Pacino came on some night and saw this play. And then like three days later, I got a call to come in and audition for this Glenn Greglin Ross, which of course I knew as a play. David Mambit's play. And then I auditioned. Jamie Foley was the director who would eventually direct a bunch of house of cards. Wonderful, wonderful guy. And I got the part. Well, I didn't quite get the part. They were going to bring together the actors that they thought they were going to give the parts to on a Saturday at Al's office. And they asked me if I would come and do a read through.

48:46And I said, who's going to be there? And they said, well, someone, someone, someone, someone, and then Jack Leman is flying in. And I said, don't tell Mr. Leman that I'm doing the read through. It was that possible. And I'm like, sure. So I'll never forget this. Jack was sitting in the chair and Pacino's office doing the New York Times Crossword puzzle as he did every day. And I walked in the door and he went, oh, Jesus Christ. Is it possible you can get a job without me? Jesus Christ. I'm so tired of holding up your end of it. Oh my God, Jesus. So that's, I got the job job because of Pacino. And you know, I was, it was, it was really one of the first major roles that I ever had in a film.

49:28And you know, to be working with that group. Yeah, that's like one of the greatest ensemble cast ever. We got Al Pacino, Jack Leman, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, you, Jonathan Price. It's just incredible. And I would have to say, I mean, maybe you can comment, you've, you've talked about how much of a mentor and a friend Jack Leman has been. That's one of his greatest performances ever. You have a scene at the end of the movie with him. That was really powerful. Like firing on all cylinders. You're playing the stain to perfection. And he's playing desperation to perfection. What a scene.

50:14What was that like? Just like at the top of your game, the two of you. Well, by that time we had done Long Days Journey tonight in the theater. We'd done a mini series called The Murder of Mary Fagan on NBC. We'd done a film called Dad, the Gary David Goldberg directed with Ted Danson. So this was the fourth time we were working together and we knew each other. We become, he become my father figure. And I don't know if you know that I originally met Jack Leman when I was very, very young. He was doing a production at the Marth Tape Reform of a Shonto K .C. Play called Juno in the Pecock with Walter Mathell and Marine Stableton.

50:56And on a Saturday in December of 1974, my junior high school drama class went to a workshop. It was called How to Audition. And we did this workshop. Many schools in Southern California were part of this drama teachers association. So we got these incredible experiences of being able to go see professional productions and be involved in these workshops or festivals. So I had to get up and do a monologue in front of Mr. Leman when I was 13 years old. And he walked up to me at the end of that and he put his hand in my shoulder and he said, that was a church at your Rific. He said, no, I mean, everything I've been talking about, you just did.

51:36What's your name? I said, Kevin, he said, wait, let me tell you something. When you get finished with high schools, I'm sure you're going to go on and do theater. You should go to New York and you should study the being actor because this is what you're meant to do with your life. And he was like an idol. And 12 years later, I read in the New York Times that he was coming to Broadway to do this production of a long -day journey tonight, a year and some months after I read this article. And I was like, I'm going to play Jamie in that production. And I then, with a lot of opposition, this is the cast and director didn't want to see me.

52:15They said that the director, Jonathan Miller, wanted movie actors to play the two sons. And ultimately, I found out that Jonathan Miller, the director was coming to New York to do a series of lectures at Alice Tully Hall. And I went to try to figure out how I could maybe meet him. And I was sitting in that theater listening to this incredible lecture he was doing. And sitting next to me was an elderly woman. I mean, elderly, AD something. And she was asleep. But sticking out of her handbag, which was on the floor, was an invitation to a cocktail reception and honor Dr. Jonathan Miller. And so I thought, you know, she's tired.

53:14She's probably going to go home. So I took that and walked into this cocktail reception and ultimately went over to Dr. Miller, who was incredibly kind and said, sit down. I was very curious what brings young people to my lectures. And I said to him, Eugene O 'Neill, Brum here. And he was like, what, what? I've always wanted to meet him. Where is he? And I told him that I've been trying for seven months to get an audition for Long Day's Turnie and that his American cast directors were telling my agents that he wanted big American movie stars. And at that moment, he turned and he saw one of those cast directors who was there.

53:58That night. So I knew he was going to be in New York starting auditions that week. And she was staring daggers at me. And he just got it. And he said, someone of a pen, and he took a little paper, started writing, he said, listen, Kevin, there are many situations in which casting directors have a lot of say and a lot of power and a lot of leverage. And then there are other situations where they just take director's messages. And on this one, they're taking my messages. This is where I'm staying. Make sure you people get to me. We start auditions on Thursday. And on Thursday, I had an opportunity to come in and audition for this play that I've been working on and preparing.

54:40And at the end of it, I did four scenes at the end of it. He said to me that unless someone else came in and blew him against the wall, like I had just done, as far as he was concerned, I pretty much had the part, but I couldn't tell my agents that yet, because I had to come back and read with Mr. Lemon. And so three months later, in August of 1985, I found myself in a room with Jack Lemon again at 890 Broadway, which is where they were. There's a lot of Broadway plays. And we did four scenes together. And I was toppling over him. I was pushing him. I was relentless. And I'll never forget at the end of that.

55:22Lemon came over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, that would you touch it terrific. I never thought we'd find the rod and kid, but he's it. Jesus Christ, what the hell was that? And I ended up spending the next year of my life with that man. So it turns out he was right. Yeah. This world works in mysterious ways. It also speaks to the fact of the power of somebody you look up to giving words of encouragement, because those can just reverberate through your whole life and just like make the path clear. I've always used to we used to joke that if every contract came with a Jack Lemon clause, it would be a more beautiful world.

56:09Beautifully said, Jack Lemon is one of the greatest actors ever. What do you think makes him so damn good? Wow.

56:22I think he I think he truly set out in his life to accomplish what his father said to him on his deathbed. His father was dies. Father was by the way called the Donut King in Boston and not in the entertainment business at all. He's literally known to Donut Company. When he was passing away, Jack said, the last thing my father said to me was go out there and spread a little sunshine. And I truly think that's what Jack loved to do.

57:06I remember this. And I don't know if this is will answer your question, but I think it's revealing about what he's able to do and what he was able to do and how that ultimately influenced what I was able to do. Same end is had never directed a film before American beauty. And so what he did was he took the best elements of theater and applied them to the process. So we rehearsed it like a play in a soundstage where everything was laid out like it would be in a play and this couch will be here. And he sent me a couple of tapes. He sent me two cassette tapes.

57:59One moved in a direction and then postlester and they just were different songs.

58:07And then he said to me one day and I think always thought this was brilliant of Sam to use lemon knowing what lemon meant to me. He said, when was the last time you watched the apartment? And I said, I don't know. I mean, I love that movie so much because I want you to watch it again. And then let's talk. So I want to watch the movie again. And we sat down and Sam said, what lemon does in that film is incredible because there is never a moment in the movie where we see him change. He just evolves. And he becomes the man he becomes because of the experiences that he has through the course of the film.

58:58But there's this remarkable consistency in who he becomes. And that's what I need you to do as lester. I don't want the audience to ever see him change. I want him to evolve. And so we did some, I mean, first of all, it was just a great direction. And then second of all, we did some things that people don't know we did to aid that gradual shift of that man's character. First of all, I had to be in the best shape from the beginning of the movie because we didn't shoot it in sequence. So I was in this crazy shape. I had this wonderful trainer named Mike Torsche who just was incredible. But so what we did was in order to then show this gradual shift was I had three different hair pieces.

59:53I had three different kinds of costumes of different colors and sizes. And I had different makeup. So in the beginning, I was wearing a kind of drab, dull, slightly you know, uninspired hair piece. And my makeup was kind of gray and boring. And I was a little bit, there were times when I was like too much like this and Sam would go, Kevin, you look like Walter Mathout. Would you please stand up a little bit? We're sort of midway through at this point. And then at a certain point, the wig changed. And it had little highlights in it, a little more color, a little more. The makeup became a little, the suits got a little tire.

1:00:38And then finally, a third wig that was golden highlights and sunshine and, and you know, rosy cheeks and tight fit. And these are what we call theatrical tricks. You know, this is, this is how you, an audience doesn't even know what's happening. But it is this gradual. And I just always felt that that was such a a brilliant way because he knew what I felt about Jack. And when you watch the apartment, it is extraordinary that he doesn't ever change. He just, so I'm, I'm, and in fact, I, I thanked Jack when I won the Oscar. And, uh, he, I did my thank you speech and I walked off stage. And I remember I had to sit down for a moment because I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go to the press room because I wanted to see if Sam was going to win.

1:01:42And so I was waiting and my phone rang and it was lemon. He said, you're a son of a bitch. I said, what? He goes, you know, first of all, congratulations. And thanks for thanking me because, you know, God knows you couldn't have done it without me. He said, second of all, he said, you know, how long it took me to win a, from supporting actor? I wanted it in, for Mr. Roberts. And it took me like 10, 12 years to win Oscar. You didn't four years, son of a bitch. Yeah. The apartment was, I mean, it's widely considered one of the greatest movies ever. People sometimes refer to as the comedy, which is an interesting kind of classification.

1:02:26I suppose that's a lesson about comedy that the best, uh, the best comedy is the one that's basically a tragedy. Well, I mean, some people think clockwork orange is a comedy. And I'm not saying there's some good laughs in clockwork, but yeah, you know, it's, I mean, yeah, there's, what's that line between comedy and tragedy for you?

1:02:52Well, if it's a line, it's a line I cross all the time because I've tried always to find the humor, um, unexpected sometimes, uh, maybe inappropriate sometimes, maybe shocking. But I've tried and I think almost every dramatic role I've had to have a sense of humor and to be to bring that along with everything else that is serious because frankly, that's how we deal with stuff in life, you know, I think Sam and I actually said in the now documentary something like with great theater, with great stories, you find humor on the journey to the heart of darkness, something like this. Very poetic. Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't be that poetic.

1:03:53I'm very sorry. But it's true. I mean, I, the people I've interacted in this world have been to a war zone and the ones who have lost the most and have suffered the most are usually the ones who are able to uh, make jokes the quickest. And the jokes are often dark and absurd and cost every single line, no political correctness, all of that. Sure. Well, I mean, you know, it's like, uh, the great Maritime War show where they can't stop giggling it at the clown's funeral. I mean, it's, it's just one of the great episodes ever. You know, giggling it a funeral is as bad as farting it a funeral. And you know, I'm, I'm sure that there's some people who have done both.

1:04:39Oh man.

1:04:45Uh, uh, not changing, but evolving. That's really interesting because that movie is about like finding yourself. It's a, it's a philosophical, profound movie. It's about various characters in their own ways, finding their own identity in a world where, um, maybe a system of, a materialistic system no one wants to be like everyone else. And so I mean, Lester is really transforms herself throughout the movie and you're saying the challenge there is there still be the same human being fundamentally. Yeah, and I also think that the film was powerful because you had three very honest and genuine portrayal of young people.

1:05:39And then you had Lester behaving like a young person. Um, it's doing things that were unexpected and, and, uh, and I think that, um, the honesty with which it dealt with those, uh, issues that those teenagers were going through. And the honest with which it dealt with what Lester was going through. Um, I think our, um, some of the reasons why the film had the response that it did from so many people. I mean, I, I used to get stopped and someone would say to me, when I first saw American beauty, I was married. And the second time I saw it, I wasn't. And I was like, well, we weren't trying to increase the divorce rate.

1:06:28It wasn't our intention. But it is interesting how so many people, um, have those kinds of crazy fantasies. And what I admired so much about who Lester was as a person why I wanted to play him is because in the end, he makes the right decision. I think a lot of people live lives of quiet desperation in a, in a job they don't like. In a marriage, they're unhappy in. And to see somebody living that life and then saying, fuck it in every way possible. And not just in a cynical way, but in a way that opens them, opens Lester up to see the beauty in the world. That's, you know, the beauty in American beauty.

1:07:22It's well, and you know, you may have to blackmail your boss to get there, but, you know, and in that, there's a bunch of humor also in the, in the anger and the, in the absurdity of sort of taking a stand against the conformity of life, there's this humor. And I read somewhere that the scene, the dinner scene, which is kind of play like where Lester's slams the plate against the wall was improvised by you. The, uh, the slamming of the plate against the wall. No, no, absolutely. Internet. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, written and directed. Yeah. Can't take credit for that. The plate. Okay. Well, that was a genius interaction there.

1:08:14There's something about the dinner table and losing your shit at the dinner table. Having a fight and losing your shit at the dinner table. Um, where, where else? Like yellow stone was another situation where it's a family at the dinner table. And then one of them says, fuck it. I'm not eating this anymore. And I'm going to create a scene. Right. It's a beautiful kind of environment for dramatic scenes or, or Nicholson in the shining. I mean, there, there's some, there's some family scenes gone awry in that movie. The contrast between you and an event bending in that scene creates the genius of that scene.

1:08:54So how much of acting is the dance between two actors?

1:09:02Well, with a net, I just adored working with her. And we were the two actors that Sam wanted from the very beginning, much against the will of the higher ups who wanted other actors to play those roles. But I've known a net since we did a screen test together from Miloš Forman for a film he did of the Lele's on Dangerous movie. It was a different film from that one, but it was the same story. And I've always thought she is just remarkable. And I think that the work she did in that film, the relationship that we were able to build, for me, the saddest part of that success was that she didn't win the Oscar.

1:10:00And I felt she should have. What kind of interesting direction did you get from Sam Endes in how you approach playing Lester in different, how to take on the different scenes? There's a lot of just brilliant scenes in that movie. Well, I'll share with you a story that most people don't know, which is our first two days of shooting were in Smiley's, the place where I get a job in fast food place. Yeah, it's a burger joint. Yeah. And I guess it was like maybe the third day or the fourth day of shooting, we'd now done that. And I said to Sam, so how are the daily's? How do they look? He goes, which ones?

1:10:51I said, well, the first Smiley's, he goes, oh, they're shit. And I went, yeah, no, how were they? He goes, no, they're shit. I hate them.

1:11:04I hate costumes. I hate the location. I hate that you're inside. I hate the way you acted. I hate everything but the script. So I've gone back to the studio and asked them if we can reshoot the first two days. And it was like, Sam, this is your very first movie. You're going back to Steven Spielberg and saying, I need to reshoot the first two days entirely. And that's exactly what we did. A couple of weeks later, they decided that it was now a drive -through because Annette and Peter Galler used to come into the place and ordered from the counter. Now Sam had decided it has to be a drive -through.

1:11:54You have to be in the window of the drive -through, change the costumes, and we shot those first two days. And Sam said it was actually a moment of incredible confidence because he said the worst thing that could possibly have happened happened in my first two days. And after that, I was like, I know what I'm doing and I knew I had to reshoot it and it was absolutely right. And I guess that's what a great director must do is have the guts in that moment to reshoot everything. And that's a pretty gutsy move. Two other little things to share with you about Sam, but the way he is, you wouldn't know it, but the original script opened and closed with a trial.

1:12:42Ricky was accused of Lester's murder and the movie was bookended by this trial. Very different movie, which they shot the entire trial for weeks.

1:12:59And I used to fly in my dreams. You know those opening shots over the neighborhood, I used to come into those shots in my bathroom flying. And then when I hit the ground and the newspaper was thrown at me by the newspaper guy and I caught it, the alarm would go off and I wake up in bed. I spent five days being hung by wires and filming these sequences of flying through my dreams. And Sam said to me, yeah, the flying sequences are all gone and the trial is gone. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? And here's my other little favorite story about Sam and that. When we were shooting in the valley, one of those places I flew, this was an indoor set.

1:13:52Sam said to me in the morning, hey, lunch, I just want to record a guide track of all the dialogue, all of your narration, because they just needed an editing as a guide. And I said, sure. So I remember we came outside of this, in this hallway where I had a dressing room in this little studio we were in. And Sam had like a cassette tape recorder and like a little microphone. And we put it on the floor and he pushed record. And I read the entire narration. And I never did it again. That's the narration in the movie. Because Sam said, when he listened to it, I wasn't trying to do anything. He said, you know, I do where these things were going, where they were going to be placed, what they were going to mean.

1:14:48You just read it so innocently, so purely, so directly that I knew if I brought you into a studio and put headphones on you and had you do it again, it would change the ease with which you'd done it. And so they just fixed all of the problems that they had with this little cassette. And that is the way I did it and the only time I did it was in this little hallway. And once again, a great performance lies in being doing less. Yeah. Yeah. The innocence and the purity of less. He knew I would have come into the studio and fucked it up. Yeah. What do you think about the notion of beauty that permeates American beauty?

1:15:38What do you think that theme is with the roses, with the rose petals, the characters that are living this mundane existence slowly opening their eyes up to what is beautiful in life? See, it's funny. I don't think of the roses and I don't think of her body and the poster and I don't think of those things as the beauty. I think of the bag. I think that there are things we miss that are right in front of us that are truly beautiful. The little things, the simple things. Yeah. And in fact, I'll even tell you something that I always thought was so incredible.

1:16:30When we shot the scenes in the office where Leicester worked, the job he hated, there was a bulletin board behind me on a wall. And someone who was watching a cut or early dailies who was in the marketing department saw that someone had cut out a little piece of paper and stuck it and it said, look closer. And they presented that to Sam as the idea of what that could go on the poster. The idea of looking closer was such a brilliant idea, but it wasn't like, it wasn't in the script. It was just on a wall behind me and someone happened to zoom in on it and see it and thought, that's what this movie is about.

1:17:23This movie is about taking the time to look closer. And I think that in itself is just beautiful. Mortality also permeates the film. It starts with acknowledging that death is on the way. That your Leicester's time is finite. You ever think about your own death? Yeah. Scared of it?

1:17:56When I was at my lowest point, yes, it scared me. What does that fear look like? What's the nature of the fear? What are you afraid of?

1:18:10That there's no way out. That there's no answer.

1:18:22That nothing makes sense.

1:18:27See, the interesting thing about Leicester is facing the same fear. He seemed to be somehow liberated and accepted everything and then saw the beauty of it. Because he got there. He was given the opportunity to reinvent himself and to try things he'd never tried to ask questions he'd never asked to trust his instincts and to become the best version of himself he could become. And so Dick Van Dyke, who has become an extraordinary friend of mine, Dick is 98 years old. And he says, you know, if I know and I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. When I spend time with him, I'm just moved by every day, you know, he gets up and he goes, it's a good day.

1:19:32I woke up and I learn a lot about I have a different feeling about death now than I did seven years ago.

1:19:55I'm on the path to being able to be in a place where I've resolved the things I needed to resolve and won't probably get to all of it in my lifetime, but I certainly would like to be in a place where if I were to drop dead tomorrow, it would have been an amazing life. So Lester got there, it sounds like Dick Van Dyke got there. He tried to get there. Sure. You said you feared death at your lowest point. What was the lowest point? It was November 1st of 2017 and then Thanksgiving day of that same year. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about this dark time. Let's talk about the sexual allegation against you that led to you being canceled by the entire world for the last seven years.

1:20:55I would like to personally understand the sins, the bad things you did and the bad things you didn't do. So I also should say that the thing I hope to do here is to give respect to do process innocent until proven guilty that the mass hysteria machine of the internet and click Bay Journalism doesn't do. So here's what I understand. There were criminal and civil trials brought against you, including the one that started it all when Anthony Raps sued you for 40 million dollars. In these trials, you were acquitted, found not guilty and not liable. Is that right? Yes. I think that's really important again in terms of due process.

1:21:49And I read a lot and I watched a lot in preparation for this on this point, including of course, the recently detailed interviews you did with Dan Wooten and then Alison Pearson of the telegraph and those are all focused on this topic and they go in detail where you respond in detail to many of the allegations of people interested in the details that can listen to those. So based on that and everything I looked at as I understand, you never prevented anyone from leaving if they wanted to sort of in a sexual context, for example, by blocking the door. Is that right? That's correct. You always respected the explicit no from people again in the sexual context.

1:22:33That is correct. You've never done anything sexual with an underage person, right? Never. And also, as it's sometimes done in Hollywood, let me ask this, you've never explicitly offered to exchange sexual favors for career advancement, correct? Correct. In terms of bad behavior, what did you do? What was the worst of it? And how often did you do it? I have heard and now quite often that everybody has a Kevin Spacey story. And what that tells me is that I hit on a lot of guys. How often did you cross the line? And what does that mean to you? I did a lot of forcing around it. A lot of things that at the time I thought were sort of playful and fun.

1:23:18And I have learned since we're not. And I have had to recognize that I crossed some boundaries. And I did some things that were wrong and I made some mistakes. And that's in my past. I mean, I've been working so hard over these last seven years to have the conversations I needed to have, to listen to people, to understand things from a different perspective than the one that I had. And to say, I will never behave that way again for the rest of my life. Just to clarify, I think you're often too pushy with the flirting. And that manifests itself in multiple ways, but just to make clear, you never prevented anyone from leaving if they wanted to.

1:24:10You always took the explicit no from people as an answer, no stop. You took that for the answer. You've never done anything sexual with an underage person. And you've never explicitly offered to exchange sexual favors for career advancement. These are some of those sort of accusations that have been made. And in the court of law, multiple times have been shown not to be true. But I have had a sexual life and I've fallen in love. And I've been so admiring of people that I, that I, I mean, I'm so romantic. I'm such a romantic person that there's this whole side of me that hasn't been talked about, isn't being discussed.

1:24:56But that's who I know. That's the person I know. It's been very upsetting to hear that some people have said, I mean, I don't have a violent bone in my body. But to hear people describe things as having been very aggressive is incredibly difficult for me. And I'm deeply sorry that I ever offended anyone or hurt anyone in any way. It is, it is crushing to me. And I have to work very hard to show and to prove that I have learned I got the memo and I will never, ever, ever behave in those ways again. From everything I've seen in public interactions with you, people love you. Colleagues love you, co -workers love you.

1:25:44There's a flirtatiousness. Another word for that is chemistry. There's a chemistry between the people you work with. And by the way, not to take anything away from my accountability for things I did where I got it wrong. I crossed the line. I pushed some boundaries. I accept all of that. But I live in an industry in which flirtation, attraction, people meeting in the workspace and ending up marrying each other and having children. And so it is a space and a place where these notions of family, these notions of attraction, these notions of, it's always complicated if you meet someone in the workspace and find yourselves attracted to each other.

1:26:34You have to be mindful of that. And you have to be very mindful that you don't ever want anyone to feel that their job is in jeopardy. Or you would punish them in some way if they no longer wanted to be with you. So those are important things to just acknowledge. Another complexity to this, as I've seen, is that there's just a huge number of actors that look up to you. A huge number of people in the industry that look up to you. So just and love you. I've seen just from this documentary, just a lot of people just love being around you, learning from you what it means to create great theater, great film, great stories.

1:27:18And so that adds to the complexity. I wouldn't say it's a power dynamic, like a boss employee relationship. It's an admiration dynamic that is easy to miss and easy to take advantage of. Is that something you understand? Yes. And I also understand that there are people who met me and spent a very brief period of time with me, but presumed I was now going to be their mentor. And then behaved in a way that I was unaware of that they were either participating or flirting along or encouraging me without me having any idea that at the end of the day they were expecting something.

1:28:08So these are about relationships. These are about two people. These are about people making decisions, people making choices. And I accept my accountability in that. But there are a number of things that I've been accused of that just simply did not happen. And I can't say, and I don't think it would be right for me to say, well, everything that's ever been I've been accused of is true because we've now proved that it isn't and it wasn't. But I am perfectly willing to accept that I had behaviors that were wrong and that I shouldn't have done. And I am regretful for. I think that's also speaks to a dark side of fame.

1:29:00The sense I got is that there are some people potentially a lot of people trying to make friends with you in order to get roles in order to advance their career. So not you using them, but they trying to use you.

1:29:18What's that like? How do you know if somebody likes you for you, for Kevin or likes you for like you said you're romantic. You see a person and you're like, I like this person. And they seem to like you. How do you know if they like you for you? Well, to some degree, I would say that I have been able to trust my instincts on that and that I most of the time been right. But obviously in the last number of years, not just for people who have accused me, but just also people in my own industry, you know, to realize that, oh, I thought we had a friendship, but I guess that was about an inch thick and not what I thought it was.

1:30:08But look, one shouldn't be surprised by that. I have to also say, you know, you said a little while ago that the world had canceled me and I have to disagree with you. I have to disagree because for seven years, I've been stopped by people. Sometimes every day, sometimes multiple, multiple times a day. And the conversations that I have with people, the generosity that they share, the kindness that they show and how much they want to know when I'm getting back to work, tells me that while there may be a very loud minority, there is a quieter majority. In the industry, have you been betrayed? In life?

1:30:56And how do you not let that make you cynical?

1:31:04I think betrayal is a really interesting word, but I think if you're going to be betrayed, it has to be by those who truly know you. And I can tell you that I have not been betrayed. Unless a beautiful way to put it. For the times you cross the line, do you take responsibility for the wrongs you've done? Yes. Are you sorry to the people you may have hurt? Yes.

1:31:37And I have spoken to many of them privately, which is where a man should be made. Were they able to start finding forgiveness? Absolutely. Some of the most moving conversations that I have had, when I was determined to take accountability, have been those people have said, thank you so much. And I think I can forgive you now. If you got a chance to talk to the Kevin Spacey of 30 to 40 years ago, what would you tell him to change about his ways? How would you do it? What would be your approach? Would you be nice about it? Would you smack him around? I think if I were to go back that far, I probably would have found a way to not have been as concerned about my revealing my sexuality and hiding that for as long as I did.

1:32:42I think that had a lot to do with confusion and a lot to do with mistrust. Both my own and other peoples. For most of your life, you were not opened with the public about being gay. What was the hardest thing about keeping who you love a secret? That I didn't find the right moment of celebration to be able to share that. That must be a thing that weighs on you to not be able to fully celebrate your love. Ian McClellan said, he was 49 when he came out. 27 years, he'd been a professional actor, being in the closet. And he said he felt it was like he was living a part of his life not being truthful.

1:33:48And that he felt that it affected his work when he did come out because he no longer felt like he had anything to hide. And I absolutely believe that that is what my experience has been and will continue to be. I am sorry about the way I came out.

1:34:11But Evan and I had already had the conversation. I had already decided to come out. And so it wasn't like, oh, I was forced to come out. But it was something I decided to do. And by the way, much against Evan's advice, I came out in that statement and he wishes that I had not done so. Yeah, you made a statement when the initial accusation happened. There could be up there's one of the worst social media posts of all time it's like two for one. Don't hold back. No, come on. Really tell me the first part, you kind of implicitly admitted to doing something bad, which was later shown and proved completely to never have happened and was a lie.

1:35:04No, I basically said that I didn't remember what this person was, the Anthony Rapids claiming, from 31 years before. I had no memory of it. But if it had happened, if this embarrassing moment had happened, then I would owe him an apology. That was what I said. And then I said, and while I'm at it, I think I'll come out. And it was definitely not the greatest coming out party ever. I will admit that. Well, from the public perception, the first part of that, the second part is a horrible way to come out, yes, we'll all agree. And then the first part, from the public viewpoint, they see guilt in that, which also is tragic because at least that particular accusation and it's a very dramatic one, it's a $40 million lawsuit, it's a big deal and an underage person was shown to be false.

1:35:53Well, but you're melding two things together. The lawsuit didn't happen until 2020 and then it didn't get to court until 2022. We're back in 2017 when it was just an accusation he made in BuzzFeed magazine.

1:36:10Look, I was backed into a corner. When someone says, you were so drunk, you won't remember this thing happened. What's your first instinct? Is your first instinct to say this person's a liar? Or is your first instinct to go, what? I was what? 31 years at a party, I don't even remember throwing. Obviously, a lot of investigation happened after that in which we were then able to prove in that in that court case that it had never occurred. But at the moment, I was sort of being tall. I couldn't push back. You have to be kind. I think even to me now, none of it sounds right. But I don't know that I could have said anything that would have been satisfactory to anybody.

1:37:01There's a almost convincing explanation for the worst social media post of all time. Almost accepted. I'm really surprised. I guess you haven't read a lot of media posts because I can't believe that's the actual worst. It's beautifully bad. There's how bad that social media posts. As you mentioned, Liam Neeson and Sharon Stone came out in support of you recently speaking to your character. A lot of people who know you and some of whom I know, who have worked with you privately, show support for you, but are afraid to speak up publicly. What do you make of that? I mean, to me personally, this just makes me sad because perhaps that's the nature of the industry that it's difficult to do that, but I just wish it would be a little bit more courage in the world.

1:37:50I don't think it's about the industry. I think it's about our time. I think it's the time that we're in and people are very afraid. Just afraid. Just a general. No, they're literally afraid that they're going to get canceled if they stand up for someone who has been. And I think it's, I mean, we've seen this many times in history. This is not the first time it's happened. So as you said, your darkest moment in 2017, when all of this went down, one of the things that happened is you were no longer in the house of cards for the last season. Let's go to the beginning of that show. One of the greatest TV series of all time, a dark, fascinating character in Frank Underwood, a ruthless, cunning, borderline evil politician.

1:38:47What are some interesting aspects to the process you went through becoming Frank Underwood? Maybe you Richard III. There's a lot of elements there in your performance that maybe inspired that character. Well, that fair enough. I'll give you one very interesting, specific education that I got in doing Richard III and closing that show at BAM in March of 2012 and two months later started shooting house of cards. There is something called direct address. In Shakespeare, you have Hamlet talks to the world. But when Shakespeare wrote Richard III, it was the first time he created something called direct address, which is the character looks directly at each person close by.

1:39:58It is a different kind of sharing than when a character is doing a monologue, opening of Henry IV.

1:40:10And while there are some people who believe that direct address was invented in Ferris Bueller, it wasn't. It was Shakespeare who invented it. So I had just had this experience every night in theaters all over the world, seeing how people reacted to becoming a co -conspirator because that's what it's about. And what I tried to do and what Fincher really helped me with in those beginning days was how to look in that camera and imagine I was talking to my best friend.

1:40:58Because you're sharing the secret of the darkness of how this game is played with that best friend. And there were many times when I suppose the writers thought I was crazy where I would see a script and I would see this moment where this direct address would happen. It would say all this stuff. When we do a read through of the script, I go, I don't think I need to say any of that. And they were like, what do you mean? I said, well, the audience knows all of that. All I have to do is look. They know exactly what's going on. I don't need to say a thing. So I was often cutting dialogue because it just wasn't needed because that relationship between it, that I'd learned that I'd experienced doing Richard III, was so extraordinary.

1:41:47Where I literally watched people, they were like, oh, I'm in on the thing and this is so awesome. And then suddenly, the way he killed the kids, he killed those kids in the tower. Oh, maybe it's not so. And you literally would watch them start to reverse their having had such a great time with Richard III. And the first, you know, three acts. I thought this is going to happen in this show. If this intimacy can actually land.

1:42:25And I think just think there was some brilliant writing. And we always attempted to do it in one take. No matter how long something was, we would try to do it in one take, the direct addresses. So there's never a cut. Well, we went on on locations. We started to then find ways to cut it and make it slightly broader, but that's interesting because you're doing a bunch of with both Richard III and Frank Underwood, a bunch of dark, borderline evil things. And then I guess the idea is you're going to be losing the audience and then you win them back over with the addresses. That's the remarkable thing is against their instincts and their better sense of what they should and should not do.

1:43:12They still rallied around Frank Underwood. And I saw even with the documentary, the glimmers of that with Richard III, I mean, you were seducing the audience. Like, there was such a chemistry between you and the audience on stage. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in that production, that's absolutely true. Also, Richard is one of the weirder weird, I mean, by weird, is an early play of Shakespeare's. And he's basically never off stage. I mean, I remember when we did the first run through, I had no idea what the next scene was every time I came out stage. I no idea what was next. They literally had to drag me from one place to another scene.

1:43:58Now it's the same with Hastin. Now it's the setup. But I now understand these wonderful stories that you can read in old books about Shakespeare's time that actors grab Shakespeare around the cuff and punch him and throw him up against wall. So you ever write a part like this again, I'm going to kill you. And that's why in later plays, he started to have a pageant happened and then a wedding happened. And the main character was off stage resting because the actor had said, you can't do this to us. There's no breaks. And it's true. There's very few breaks in Richard III. You're on stage most of the time.

1:44:39The comedic aspect of Richard III and Frank Underwood, is that a component that helps bring out the full complexity of the darkness that is Frank Underwood? I certainly can't take credit for Shakespeare having written something that is funny or but Willemann and his team to have written something that is funny is fundamentally funny. It just depends on how I interpret it.

1:45:11That's one of the great things that why we love you know in a year's time we can see five different hamlets. We can see four Richard III's. We can see two Richard II's. That's part of the thrill that we don't own these parts. We borrow them and we interpret them. And what Ian McCallan might do with a role could be completely different from what I might do because of the way we perceive it. And also very often in terms of going for humor, it's very often a director will say, why don't you say that with a bit of irony? Why don't you try that with a bit of boba? Yeah, there's often that, like a a rice mile.

1:45:56The line that jumps to me when you're talking about Claire in the early, maybe first episode even, I love that woman more than Sharks love blood. I just, I mean, I guess there's a lot of ways to read that line. But the way you read it had both humor, had legitimate affection, had all the ambition and narcissism, all of that mixed up together. I also think that one should just acknowledge that where he was from. There is something that happens when you do an accent. And in fact, sometimes the one I would say to bow or one of the other writers, this is really good, and I love the idea, but it rhythmically doesn't help.

1:46:48I need at least two more words to rhythmically make this work in his accent because it just doesn't scan. And that's not I am big pentameter. I'm not talking about that. There is that as well in Shakespeare, but there was sometimes when it's too many lines, it's not enough lines in order for me to make this work for the way he speaks, the way he sounds, and what that accent does to emphasis. How much of that character in terms of the musicality of the way he speaks is Bill Clinton. Not really at all. I mean Clinton, you know, Bill Clinton, he had a way of talking, you know, that he was very slow and he felt your pain, you know.

1:47:41But Frank Underwood was a deeper, more direct and less poetic in the way that Clinton would talk. I'll tell you this Clinton story that you'll like.

1:47:59So we decided to do a performance of the Iceman come up for the Democratic Party on Broadway, and the president is going to come, he's going to see this four and a half hour play, and then we're going to do this event afterward. And I'm going to a couple weeks before we're going to do this event. Someone at the White House calls and says, I'm listening. It's very unusual to get the president for like six and a half hours. So we're suggesting that the president come and see the first act, and then he goes. And I knew what was happening. Now, first of all, Clinton knows this play. He knows what this play is about.

1:48:36And I, you know, as gently as I could said, well, if the president is thinking of leaving it in a mission, then I'm afraid we're going to have to cancel the event. There's just no way that. So anyway, then I don't know. It's fine. It's fine. Now, I know what was happening. What was happening was that someone had read the play. And they were quite concerned. And I'll tell you why. Because the play is about this character that I portrayed named Hickey. And in the course of the play, as things get more and more revealed, you realize that this man that I'm playing has been a flanderer. He's cheated on his wife quite a lot.

1:49:13And by the end of the play, he is arrested and taken off because he ended up ending his wife's life because she forgave him too much and he couldn't live with it. So now imagine this. There's 2 ,000 people at the Brooks Act as the theater watching President Clinton watching this play. At the end of the night, we take our curtain call. They bring out the presidential podium. Bill Clinton stands up there. And he says, well, I suppose we should all thank Kevin and this extraordinary company of actors for giving us all way too much to think about.

1:50:04And the audience fell over and laughter and then he gave a great speech. And I thought that was a pretty good way to handle that. Well, in that way, him and Frank on a wheelchair like a charisma. There's certain presidents that just have politicians that just have this charisma. You can't stop listening to them. Some of it is the accent. But some of it is some other magical thing. When I was starting to do research, I wanted to meet with the whip, Kevin McCarthy. And he wouldn't meet with me until I called his office back and said, tell him I'm playing a Democrat, not a Republican. And then he met with me.

1:50:50And he was helpful. He took me to whip meetings. Politicians. So you worked with David Fincher that he was the executive producer, but he also directed the first two episodes. Yeah. High level. What was it like working with him again? In which ways do you think he helped guide you in the show to become the great show that it was? I give him a huge amount of the credit. And not just for what he established, but the fact that every director after stayed within that world. I think that's why the series had a very consistent feeling to it. I was like watching a very long movie. The style where the camera went, what it did, what it didn't do this, there were there were things that he laid the foundation for that we managed to maintain pretty much until Bo Willemann left the show.

1:52:10They got rid of Fincher. And I was sort of the last man standing in terms of fighting again. Netflix had never had any creative control at all. We had complete creative control. But over a time they started to get themselves involved because look, this is what happens to networks. They never made a television show before, ever. And then four years later, they were the best. And so then you're going to get suggestions about casting and about writing and about who music and scenes. And so there was a considerable amount of pushback that I had to do when they started to get involved in ways that I thought was affecting the quality of the show.

1:52:55What are those battles like? I heard that there was a battle of the execs. Like you mentioned earlier on about your name not being on the billing for seven.

1:53:14I heard that that battle like how often does that happen? How do you win that battle? Because it feels like there's a line where the networks or the execs are really afraid of crossing that line into this strange, uncomfortable place. And then the great directors and great actors kind of flirt with that line. It can happen in different ways. I mean, I remember one argument we had was we had specifically shot a scene so that there would be no score in that scene. So that there was no music. It was just two people talking. And then we end up seeing a cut where they've decided to put music in. And it is against everything that scene is supposed to be about.

1:54:06And you have to go and say, guys, this was intentional. We did not want score. And now you've added score because what you think it's too quiet. You think our audience can't listen to two people talk for two and a half minutes. This show has proved anything. It's proved that people have patience and they're willing to watch an entire season over a weekend. So there are those kind of arguments that can happen. You know, there's different arguments on different levels. And they sometimes have to do with, I mean, look, go back to the Godfather. They wanted to fire a Pacino because they didn't see anything happening.

1:54:45They saw nothing happening. So they wanted to fire a Pacino. And then finally, couple of thought, I'll shoot the scene where he kills the police commissioner. And they'll do that scene now. And that was the first scene where they went, yeah, actually, there's something going on there. So Pacino kept the role. You think that Godfather's room Pacino is like the Pacino we know is born or is that more like, there's the character that really over the top in central woman. There's like stages, I suppose. Yeah, of course. Look, I think that we can't forget that Pacino is also an animal of the theater.

1:55:23He does a lot of plays and he started off doing plays and movies were, you know, Panic and Needle Park was his first. And yeah, I think there's that period of time when he was doing some incredible parts, incredible movies. When I did a series called Wise Guy, I got cast on a Thursday and I flew up to Vancouver on a Saturday and I started shooting on Monday. And all I had time to do was watch the Godfather in Ceparco. And then I went to work. Would you say ridiculous question? Godfather greatest film of all time?

1:56:01Well, certainly, yes. Yes. But I also look, I'm allowed to change my opinion. I can next week say it's Lawrence of Arabia or a week after that, I can say Sullivan's Travels. I mean, that's the wonderful thing about movies and particularly great movies is when you see them again, it's like saying that for the first time. Yeah, you pick up things that you didn't see the last time. And for that day, you fall in love with that movie. You might even say to a friend that that is the greatest movie of all time. And also, I think it's the degree with which directors are daring. I mean, Kubrick decided to cast one actor to play three major roles in Dr.

1:56:49Strangelove. I mean, who has the balls to do that today? I was going to mention what we're talking about seven that just if you're looking at the greatest performances portrayals of murderers. So obviously, like I mentioned, hand -willed lectern, sounds of the lambs that's up there. Seven to me is like competing for first place with sounds of the lambs. But then there's a different one with Kubrick and Jack Nicholson, right? With a shine. And there's as opposed to a murderer who's always been a murderer, here's a person like an American beauty who becomes that, who descends into madness. I read also the Jack Nicholson improvised here's Johnny, and that scene.

1:57:40I believe that. That's a very different performance than yours in seven. What do you make of that performance? Nicholson's always been such an incredible actor because he has absolutely no shame about being demonstrative and over the top. And he also has no problem playing characters who are deeply flawed. And he's interested in that. I have a pretty good Nicholson story though, nobody nobody knows. You also have a pretty good Nicholson impression, but what's the story? Story is a story was told to me by a sound man. Dennis Matlin, who's a great great great guy. He said he was very excited because he got on Pritz's honor, which was Jack Nicholson, Angelic Houston, directed by John Houston.

1:58:30He said I was so excited as my first day on the movie. And I get told to go into Mr. Nicholson's trailer and mic him up for the first scene. So I knock on the trailer door and I hear, yes, and come on in. I come inside, Mr. Nicholson is changing out of his regular clothes and he's putting on his costume. And so I'm setting up the mic and I'm getting ready. I said Mr. Nicholson, I just wanted to tell you I'm extremely excited to be working with you. Again, it's a great pleasure. And Jack goes, did we work together before? And he says yes, yes, we did. And he says what film did we do together? He says what we did, Missouri breaks.

1:59:14Nicholson goes, oh my God, Missouri breaks. Jesus Christ, we were out of our minds on that film. Holy shit, Jesus Christ, wonder I'm alive. My God, there was so much drugs going on and we were stoned out of our minds. Holy shit. Just then he folds the pants that he's just taken off over his arm and an eighth of Coke drops out on the floor.

1:59:40Dennis looks at it. Nicholson looks at it. Jack goes, have more in these pants since Missouri breaks. Man, I love that guy. Unapologetically himself. Oh yeah, your impression of him, like at the AFI was just great. Well, that was for, that was for Mike Nicholson. Oh yeah, he had a big impact in your career. He's really important. He can talk about him, like what role did he play in your life? I think it was, yeah, I was 1984. I went into audition for the national tour of a play called The Real Thing, which Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close were doing on Broadway that Mr. Nicholson directed. So I went in to read for this character, Brody, who is a Scottish character.

2:00:32And I did the audition and Mike Nicholson comes down the aisle of the theater and he's asking me questions about where did you go to school and what have you been doing? I just come back from doing a bunch of years of regional theater and different theaters. I was in New York and meeting Mike Nicholson was just incredible. So Mr. Nicholson, have you seen the other play that I directed up the block called Hurley Burley? And I said, no, I haven't. He says, why not? I said, I can't afford a Broadway ticket. He said, we can arrange that. I'd like you to go see that play and then I'd like you to come in next week and audition for that.

2:01:09I was like, okay, so I went to see Hurley Burley, William Hurt, Harvey Cytell, Chris Walkin, Candace Bergen, Cynthia Nixon, Jerry Stiller. And I watched this play. David Ray Play about Hollywood. This is crazy. I mean, Bill Hurt was like unbelievable. I was extraordinary. Chris Walkin, this guy's, so there's this Harvey Cytell, Walkin came in later. Harvey Cytell's playing this part. And I come in and I audition for it. Nichol says, I want you to understudy Harvey Cytell, I want you to understudy Phil. And I'm like, Phil? I mean, Harvey Cytell is like in his 40s. He looks like he can beat the shit out everybody on stage.

2:01:58I'm just like 24 year old. And Nichol said to stall about attitude, if you believe you can beat the shit out everybody on stage, the audience will too. So I then started to learn Phil. And the way it works when you're an understudy, unless you're in name, they don't let you rehearse on the stage. You just rehearse in a rehearsal room. But I used to sneak onto the stage and rehearse and try to figure out where the props were. Anyway, one day I get a call. You're going on today. It's Phil. So I went on. Nichol is told by Peter Lawrence, who's the stage manager. Spacey's going on his Phil. So Nichol comes down and watches the second act.

2:02:46He comes backstage. He says, that was really good. How soon could you learn Mickey? Mickey was the role that Ron Silver was playing. Chris Walken also played. I said, I don't know. I made maybe a couple of weeks. He goes, learn Mickey too. So I learned Mickey. And then one day I'm told, you're going on tomorrow night is Mickey. Mickey. Nichol's comes, sees the second act, comes backstage, says, that was really good. I mean, that was really funny. How soon could you learn Eddie? And so I became like the pinch hitter on herly burly. I learned all the male parts, including Jerry Stillers, although I never won his Jerry Stillers part.

2:03:38And then I left the play. I guess about two months later, I get this phone call from Mike Nichols. He's like, Kevin, how are you? And I'm like, I'm fine. What can I do for you? He says, well, I'm going to make a film this summer with Mandy and Merrill. And there's a role I'd like you to come in and audition for. So I went in, auditioned, cast me as this mugger on a subway. Then there's this whole upheaval that happens because he then doesn't continue with Mandy Patemkin. Mandy leaves the movie and he asks Jack Nicholson to come in and replace Mandy Patemkin. So now I had no scenes with him. But I'm in a movie with Jack Nicholson and Merrill Streep.

2:04:27And my first scene in this movie, which I shot on my birthday July 26th of 85, I got to wink at Merrill Streep in this scene. And I was so nervous. I literally couldn't wink. Nichols had to like, call me down and help me wink. But that became my very first film. And he was incredible. And he let me come and watch when they were shooting scenes. I wasn't in. And I remember ending up one day in the makeup trailer on the same day. We were working, Jack and me. We had no scene together. But I remember him coming in and they put him down in the chair and they put cucumbers, frozen cucumbers on his eyes and did his neck.

2:05:13And then they raised him up and did his face. And then I remember Nichols and went like this, looked in the mirror and he went, another day, another $50 ,000. And walked out of the trailer. Well, what was Christopher Walker like? So he's a he's the theater guy too. Oh yeah, he started out as a course boy dancer. Well, I could see that. Yeah. The guy knows how to move. I know I'm walking a long time and I did a Saturday at Live where I did, we did these Star Wars auditions. So I did Chris Walken as Hans so good. And I'll never forget this. I was in Los Angeles about two weeks after. And I was at Shatown, Marmol.

2:06:03There's some party happening at Shatown, and I saw Chris Walken come out of onto the balcony and I was like, oh, it's Chris Walken. And he walked up to anyone. Kevin, I saw you little sketch. It was funny. Ha ha.

2:06:23It was a really good sketch and that guy, there's certain people that are truly unique. And on a Paul Jettick continue being that throughout their whole career, the way they talk, the musicality of how they talk, how they are, their way of being. He's that. And it somehow works. Watch. Yeah. I mean, it works in so many different contexts. He plays like a mobster in true romance. And it's like genius. That's genius. But he could be anything. He could be soft. He could be a badass. All of it. And he's always Christopher Walken. But somehow works for all these different characters. So I guess we were talking about House of Cards like two hours ago before we took a tangent upon a tangent.

2:07:15But there's a moment in episode one where President Walker broke his promise to Frank Underwood that he would make him a secretary of state. Was this one the monster in Frank was born or was the monster always there? The sort of for you looking at that character. Was there an idealistic notion to him that there's loyalty and that broken or did he always know that there's this whole world is about manipulation and do anything to get power? Well, I mean, it might have been the first moment an audience saw him be betrayed. But it certainly was not the first betrayal he'd experienced. And once you start to get to know him and learn about his life and learn about his father and learn about his friends and learn about their relationship and learn what he was like even as a cadet.

2:08:09I think you start to realize that this is a man who has very strong beliefs about loyalty. And so it wasn't the first. It was just the first moment that in terms of the storyline that's being built, night takes king was the name of our production company. Yeah. What do you think motivated him at that moment and throughout the show? Was it all about power and also legacy? Or was there some small part underneath it all where he wanted to actually do good in the world? No, I think power is a is a afterthought. What he loved more than anything was being able to predict how human beings would react.

2:09:04He was a behavioral psychologist. And he could know like he was 17 moves ahead in the chess game. He couldn't know if he did this at this moment that eventually this would happen. He was able to be predictive and was usually right. He knew just how far he needed to push someone to get them to do what he needed them to do in order to make the next step work. You've played a bunch of evil characters. Well, you call them evil. But you don't, but my the reason I say that I don't mean to be snarky about it. But the reason I say it that way is because I never judge the people I play. And the people that I have played or that any actor has played don't necessarily view themselves as this label.

2:10:04It's easy to say. But that's not the way I can think. I cannot judge a character I play and then play them well. I have to be free of judgment. I have to just play them and let the cards drop where they where they may and let an audience judge. I mean, the fact that you use that words perfectly fine. That's your, but it's like people asking me, was I really from K -Packs or not? It's just entirely depends on your perspective. Do roles like that, like seven, like Frank Underwood, like lesser from American beauty, they change you psychologically as a person. So walking around in the skin of these characters, these complex characters with a very different moral systems.

2:11:11I absolutely believe that wandering around in someone else's ideas and someone else's clothes and someone else's shoes teaches you a Norris empathy and that goes to the heart of not judging. And I have found that I have been so moved by, I mean, look, let's, yes, you've identified the darker characters, but I put Clarence Dero three times. I've played a play called National Anthem. I've done movies like recount. I've done films like The Ref. I've done films that in which there are, that doesn't exist in any of those characters that I hate for those qualities. Paid forward. And so it is incredible to be able to embrace those things that I admire and that are like me.

2:12:17And those things that I don't admire and aren't like me. But I have to put them on an equal footing and say I have to just play them as best I can and not decide to wield judgment over them. Without judgment. Without judgment. In Gulagar Kapelago, Alexander Solje Nitsen famously writes about the line between Good and Evil and that it runs to the heart of every man. So the full paragraph there when he talks about the line. During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place. Sometimes it is squeezed one way by a super and evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish.

2:13:08One in the same human being is at various ages under various circumstances a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change. And to that name we're scribed a whole lot. Good and evil. What do you think about this note that we're all capable of good and evil and throughout life that line moves and shifts throughout the day, throughout every hour? Yeah, I mean one of the things that I've been focused on very succinctly is the idea that every day is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to make better decisions to learn and to grow.

2:14:07And I also think that look up. I grew up not knowing if my parents loved me, particularly my father.

2:14:24I never had a sense that I was loved and that stayed with me my whole life. And when I think back at who my father was and more succinctly who he became, it was a gradual and slow and sad development. When I've gone back and now I've looked at diaries my father kept and albums he kept, particularly when he was a medic in the US Army. Served our country with distinction. When the war was over and they went to Germany, the things my father said, the things that he wrote, the things that he believed were his patriotic as any American soldier who had ever served. But then when he came back to America and he had a dream of being a journalist or his big hope was that he was going to be the great American novelist.

2:15:44He wanted to be a creative novelist and so he sat in his office and he wrote for 45 years and never published anything. And somewhere along the way in order to make money, he became what they call a technical procedure writer which the best way to describe that is that if you built the F -16 aircraft, my father would have written the manual to tell you how to do it. I mean as boring as technical as tedious as you can imagine. And so somewhere in the 60s and into the 70s, my father fell in with groups of people and individuals pretend intellectuals who started to give him reasons why he was not successful as a white Aryan man in the United States.

2:16:44And over time, my father became a white supremacist.

2:16:55And I cannot tell you the amount of times as a young boy that my father would sit me down and lecture me for hours and hours and hours about his fucked up ideas of America, of prejudice, of white supremacy. And thank God for my sister who said don't listen to a thing he says he's out of his mind. And even though I was young, I knew everything he was saying was against people and I loved people. I had so many wonderful friends. My best friend, Mike, you still, my close friend to this day, I was afraid to bring him to my house because I was afraid that my father would find out he was Jewish or that my father would leave his office door open and someone would see his Nazi flag or his pictures of Hitler or Nazi books or what he might say.

2:18:10So when I found theater in the eighth grade and debate club and choir and festivals and plays and everything I could do to participate in that wouldn't make me have to come back home, I did.

2:18:40And I had to reconcile who he became because the gap between that man who was in the US army as a medic and the man he became I could never fill that gap. But I've forgiven him.

2:19:11But then at the same time I've had to look at my mother and say she made excuses for him. Oh, he just needs to give it off his chest, it doesn't matter, just let him say.

2:19:25So while on the outside I would say, oh yeah, my mother loved me, but she didn't protect me.

2:19:36So was the, was all the stuff that she expressed and all of the attention and all the love that I felt was that because I became successful and I was able to fulfill an emptiness that she'd lived with her whole life with him. I don't know, but I've had to ask myself those questions over these last years to try to reconcile that for myself. And the thing you wanted from them and for them is less hate and more love. Did your dad said he loves you? I don't have any memory of that. I was in a program and I they were showing us an experiment that they'd done with psychologists and mothers and fathers and their children.

2:20:34And the children were anywhere between six months and a year sitting in a little crib. And the exercise was this. Parents are playing with the baby right there, toys, yada yada, babies, and then the psychologists would say stop. And the parent would go like this. And you would then watch for the next two and a half, three minutes, this child trying to get their parents attention in any possible way. And I remember when I was sitting in this theater watching this. I saw myself that was me screaming and reaching out and trying to get my parents attention. That was me. And that was not something I'd ever remembered before.

2:21:26But I knew that what that baby was going through. Is there some elements of politics in maybe the private sector that are captured by the house of cards? Like how true to life, do you think that is? From everything you've seen about politics, from everything you see about the politicians of this particular elections. I heard so many different reactions from politicians about house cards. Some would say, oh, it's not like that at all. And the others would say, it's closer to the truth than anyone wants to admit. And I think I fall down on the side of that idea. I have to interview some world leaders, some big politicians.

2:22:26In your understanding of trying to become Frank Underwood, what advice would you give in interviewing Frank Underwood? How did you get it to say anything that's at all honest? Well, in Frank's case, all you have to do is tell him to look into the camera and he'll tell him. He'll tell you what you want to hear. That's great. Unfortunately, we don't get that look into the mind of a person the way we do with Frank Underwood in real life, sadly. Well, but you could say to somebody, you like the series house of cards. I'd love for you to just look into the camera and tell us what's really going on, what you really feel about.

2:23:07Blah, blah, that's a good technique. I'll try that with Zelensky with Putin. What do you hope your legacy as an actor is and as a human being? People ask me now what's your favorite performance you've ever given. And my answer is I haven't given it yet. So there's a lot more that I want to be challenged by, be inspired by.

2:23:47There's a lot that I don't know. There's a lot I have to learn.

2:23:57And that is a very exciting place to feel that I'm in.

2:24:04It's been interesting because we're going back, we're talking. It's nice to go back every now and then. But I'm focused on what's next. Do you hope the world forgives you?

2:24:27People go to church every week to be forgiven. And I believe that forgiveness and I believe that redemption are beautiful things. I mean, look, don't forget, I live in an industry in which there is a tremendous amount of conversation about redemption from a lot of people who are very serious people in very serious positions. Who believe in it? I mean, that guy who finally got out of prison, he was wrongly accused. That guy who served his time and got out of prison. We see so many people saying, let's find a path for that person. Let's help that person rejoin society. But there is an odd situation if you're in the entertainment industry, you're not offered that kind of a path.

2:25:22And I hope that the fear that people are experiencing will eventually subside and common sense will get back to the table. If it does, do you think you have another Oscar worthy performance in you? I mean, if it would piss off Jack Lemon again for me to win a third time, I absolutely think so. Well, you have to mention it again. You know, Ernest Hemingway once said that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. And I agree with him on both counts. Kevin, thank you so much for talking today. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Kevin Spacey. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.

2:26:09And now let me leave you with some words for Merrill Streep. Acting is not about being so indifferent. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different and then finding myself in there. Thank you for listening. And hope to see you next time.