“In 10 years, it won’t mean anything. My work will live longer than I will, and that’s what will be remembered,” Kevin Spacey said in an interview with Germany’s Zeit magazine last month in the lead-up to his sexual assault trial. “There are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London.”
The actor, who carved out a niche as Hollywood’s favourite sinister villain, has spent years in the wilderness since abuse allegations first surfaced amid the growing #MeToo movement. Now he will seek to restore his reputation and rebuild his career after he was cleared of sexually assaulting four men.
The defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC told jurors at Southwark crown court that Spacey was flirtatious, promiscuous and a little odd – but that did not make him a sex offender.
During his four-week criminal trial, Spacey flatly denied very few of the allegations against him. Instead, he insisted they had been misrepresented as sexual assaults when in fact they were consensual, intimate moments. A clumsy kiss, a rub of a thigh, the touching of a groin, a sex act on a sofa – these were all romantic situations, he claimed. “I’m a big flirt,” he told jurors.
Spacey denied grabbing a driver’s crotch so hard it almost caused the man to crash on the way to a white tie and tiara ball hosted by Elton John. Addressing the man’s claims, Spacey said the pair had a “somewhat sexual” relationship. “It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way,” he said. “It was gentle and it was touching and in my mind romantic.”
Whether jurors believed his version or not, they rejected the prosecution’s case, acquitting Spacey on all charges. He left court on Wednesday – his birthday – ostensibly without a stain on his character.
The double Oscar-winner may now be considering a return to the silver screen, assuming no blemish remains on his name. But the PR expert Mark Borkowski said Spacey, 64, would struggle to secure big Hollywood roles despite his acquittal.
“As an actor, he is an extraordinary talent. I remember seeing him in Richard III and I couldn’t really believe his physical prowess and his skill. But entertainment is corporate these days. There are huge sums of money involved,” Borkowski said.
“I think it’s highly unlikely that a big franchise will come knocking on Kevin Spacey’s door while this level of negative publicity hangs around him. I don’t believe the likes of Disney or the big US studios will take that kind of risk. However, when you look at Johnny Depp, he has managed to find some very interesting, independent projects [since facing domestic abuse allegations]. The world is a very big place with many different attitudes and values. We’ve seen many people who’ve been accused of things, or thrust into cancel culture, finding a career path – despite the noise on social media.”
Borkowski said Spacey could use independent projects and social media to rehabilitate his image.
“As a Hollywood star, Kevin Spacey will want retribution, to ignore what’s happened and move forward with his old job, to seek the adoration he once had. But what he wants may be very different from the actual opportunities he’s offered,” he said. “While the mainstream media may be reluctant to take him on, he could carve out a career on his social media channels and recharge his image that way. He’s well resourced and could do it.”
The Italian director Franco Nero cast Spacey in his film The Man Who Drew God, and Spacey received a lifetime achievement award from the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy, in January. According to the Internet Movie Database, he has completed two other movies that are yet to be released.
Kate Wilson, a lawyer and producer on blockbusters including Magnolia, said the European film industry was “culturally hugely different” from America. “Film is a commercial economy in the US. In Europe, it’s much more heavily subsidised and is seen as a cultural medium. In the UK, we sit in this funny middle ground. If you take France as an example … they take a much lighter attitude towards sexual harassment within their space,” she said.
While giving evidence in courtroom 1, Spacey became emotional as he told jurors that his “world exploded” in the wake of the allegations in October 2017. Dabbing his eyes with a tissue and sniffing as he spoke, Spacey said: “There was a rush to judgment, and before the first question was asked or answered I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”
Spacey said that “with a few exceptions” he had not been able to work over the past five or six years. “Some courageous and very kind film-makers or producers who even in the face of the accusations wanted to work with me and offered me to come and work with them and I was very glad to do so,” he told jurors. He said that none of the work had aired yet.
The actor Anthony Rapp was the first to come forward with allegations in a BuzzFeed article, accusing Spacey of an unwanted sexual advance. Spacey responded with a statement denying the claims and coming out as gay, which he said angered the LGBTQ+ community.
Spacey told the court: “I thought, in the face of this terrible accusation, maybe I can do something at least positive. The gay community had been pressuring me for a very long time about coming out. Maybe now that the allegation against Mr Anthony Rapp has been proven to be false, maybe people will read that with a little bit more understanding now.”
Rapp attempted to sue Spacey for $40m (£31m) in a civil trial in New York but the former House of Cards star was found not liable last October.
The accusations in the US led to two other indictments but they have been dropped.
The court heard that Spacey was facing civil claims in the UK from two of the complainants in the criminal trial. In the civil courts they would have to prove their claims only “on the balance of probabilities” – a lower bar than the criminal “beyond reasonable doubt”. Whether the two men will go ahead with their claims after this jury’s verdict remains to be seen.
