Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of sexual assault charges after a four-week trial at Southwark crown court in July. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/
Actor delivered Shakespeare scene during lecture at Oxford theatre in memory of Roger Scruton
Kevin Spacey was given a standing ovation at a theatre in Oxford on Monday night – in his first stage appearance since being cleared of sexual assault – after performing a brief scene by Shakespeare.
Spacey’s first film since he was cleared of sexual assault makes effective use of his silken voice, but that’s not enough to rescue this wooden and occasionally deranged sci-fi thriller
Peter Bradshaw
Tuesday 14 November 2023
Kevin Spacey’s redemptive journey of uncancelling steps another millimetre forwards, or sideways, with his somewhat bizarre new role in this low-budget British indie in which, as a disembodied voice, he plays the implacable punisher of other people’s sexual misdemeanours.
Spacey’s first film since he was cleared of sexual assault makes effective use of his silken voice, but that’s not enough to rescue this wooden and occasionally deranged sci-fi thriller
Peter Bradshaw
Tuesday 14 November 2023
Kevin Spacey’s redemptive journey of uncancelling steps another millimetre forwards, or sideways, with his somewhat bizarre new role in this low-budget British indie in which, as a disembodied voice, he plays the implacable punisher of other people’s sexual misdemeanours.
Kevin Spacey’s celebrated House of Cards character Frank Underwood finds a home among real US presidents at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
A celebrated full-length portrait of America’s first president, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796, will be removed from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery next week to be treated by conservation experts. It will be absent for 18 months.
But by coincidence, a new president is about to be hung on the gallery’s walls.
Underwood is the fictional commander-in-chief played with ratlike cunning by Kevin Spacey in the hit political television drama House of Cards.
A 6ft-square portrait of Spacey as Underwood, painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, was unveiled at the gallery in Washington on Monday night, coinciding with the launch of House of Cards’ fourth season, which premieres on Netflix on Friday 4 March.
While Underwood will begin his tenure with other new acquisitions near the gallery entrance, Yeo, who once produced an unofficial portrait of George W Bush from images snipped from pornographic magazines, expressed a hope that one day he might sit near the prestigious “America’s Presidents” section. “That would be a lovely playful and interesting way of hanging it.”
The section is one of two official national collections of presidential portraits (the other belongs to the White House). The rooms include a pensive Lyndon Johnson by Peter Hurd, which LBJ declared “the ugliest thing I ever saw”, and a benevolent Richard Nixon by Norman Rockwell who, a caption notes, “admitted that he had intentionally flattered Nixon”.
Yeo, 45, mimics such official portraits but with loose, lateral brushstrokes that suggest a flickering screen – fitting for a digitally streamed series that has changed viewing habits. Underwood, in a suit and tie, looks back at the viewer with a characteristically steely gaze, his right fist resting on his desk, his legs crossed and left foot looming large.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Yeo said it was intended to make the audience uncomfortable. Spacey added: “When it is hung at the right height you may wonder if I’m about to kick you in the face, which seems appropriate for this particular character. Staying still for 16 hours was difficult …”
“Naked,” Yeo interjected, to laughter.
Spacey replied: “Yes, he puts the clothes on later. ‘He wants to be free.’”
Underwood is known for looking at the camera and taking the audience into his confidence in a manner similar to Richard III – another Spacey performance captured on canvas by Yeo – and Ian Richardson’s Francis Urquhart in the original British version of House of Cards.
Asked what Underwood would think of his own portrait, Spacey answered: “If you compare it to what Frank spends a good amount of time doing, which is looking you directly in the eye and telling you exactly what he thinks, this is a pretty direct address, so I think he’d be pleased with it.”
When a journalist asked about his prominent knuckle, a jocular Spacey shot back: “That’s funny because when people see me on stage, often they remark, ‘Wow! Look at those knuckles.’ This has been happening since I was in junior high. ‘Knuckles Spacey’ they used to call me at high school.’”
But the actor and former artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London shrank from the idea of sitting for a portrait as himself. “I don’t think I’m as interesting as the characters I play, ever, so to me it would be a relatively dull image,” he said.
“But I love this, I’m honoured that I’m going to hang in the Smithsonian, it’s pretty remarkable, as it was when I found myself with the Richard III portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in London. It’s just an incredible honour. I hope I can play characters in the future that Jonathan thinks are really interesting to capture.”
In an election year dominated by reality TV host and billionaire Donald Trump, Yeo noted that the painting is a timely and curious case of life imitating art imitating life. “The Smithsonian encouraged this deliberate blurring of distinction between reality and artifice and the fact that the painting is obviously of a performance, but it’s a performance in particular of fictional character in a real job,” he said.
“The fact we’re doing it in the city where the real events happen, in a gallery where they have the most famous collection of political portraits in the world, and obviously most of the best presidential portraits. It plays on that further.”
Spacey, 56, is a Democratic donor and friend of Bill Clinton. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton once told People magazine that she and her husband “totally binge-watched” the first season of House of Cards. But on Monday, Spacey declined to say which candidate he supports or pass any comment on the real-life election.
First he tried a lighthearted response: “Listen, I have an election to win myself. I can’t spend any time thinking about what’s going on in the real world. I have a fictional election to win. I’m absolutely convinced, a few more cities and I’m going to win this damn election.”
Later he was more forthright: “It’s nothing but a trapdoor for me that I don’t want to fall through.”
Yeo, the son of former British Conservative MP Tim Yeo, has painted subjects including David Cameron, Prince Philip, Nicole Kidman, Damien Hirst and Malala Yousafzai. For the Underwood portrait he visited the House of Cards set in Baltimore and its fictional version of the Oval Office.
The painting has been approved for acquisition, though it still requires a donor. But Underwood, the Machiavelli of Washington, is not the first fictional character to figure in the National Portrait Gallery. Others include actor Ira Aldridge as Othello, Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, and Robin Williams as Mork in Mork & Mindy.
Kevin Spacey once met Laurence Olivier. “I was a Juilliard student at the time. I met him in a hallway. I was very nervous,” he divulged during a Guardian webchat last year. If there’s more to the anecdote, we’re unlikely to get it out of an actor so notoriously tight-lipped that it was once remarked: “We know more about the surface of Mars tihan we do about Kevin Spacey’s private life.” But the encounter is an intriguing prospect. Did they talk? Did irascible old Olivier offer advice, or brusquely shove Spacey out of his way? In the biopic version of the scene, their eyes would meet with a glimmer of fateful recognition as they passed in opposite directions.