STAGE TO SCREENS: Kevin Spacey Talks About His New Film, and His Idols
By Michael Buckley
27 Jul 2009
 |
 |
Kevin Spacey
|
| photo by Peggy Sirota | This month, Kevin Spacey discusses his latest film, in which he plays "Shrink" to stars.
*
Happy birthday, Kevin Spacey! As this column first appears, July 26, the gifted actor turns 50. A screenwriter once described Spacey's gifts as an actor as "intelligence, wit, bravado, irreverence and sensitivity." Among Spacey's numerous awards are a Tony (Lost in Yonkers) and two Oscars ("The Usual Suspects," "American Beauty").
Also a director, producer, and singer (he did his own vocals portraying Bobby Darin in "Beyond the Sea," which he directed and co-wrote), since 2003 he's been artistic director of London's Old Vic Theatre. Its Broadway transfer of The Norman Conquests, selected as Best Revival by the Tony and Drama Desk Awards, finishes its run as Spacey blows out his candles.
Like one of his idols, Henry Fonda, he considers theatre a priority. With several films awaiting release, and more in development, Spacey stars (Sept. 18-Dec. 20) in Inherit the Wind, directed by Trevor Nunn, at the Old Vic.
He plays Henry Drummond, a character that's been portrayed by three of Spacey's other idols: Spencer Tracy (in the 1960 movie), Jason Robards (TV, '88), and Jack Lemmon (TV, '99). The character's based on Clarence Darrow, the famed attorney played by both Fonda (on Broadway and TV in 1974), and Spacey (on "American Playhouse," 1991).
"Darrow profoundly affected me," claims Spacey, "his ideas, exploring who he was. I'm going back to a character I have tremendous affection for, and lumber around in his ideas for a couple of months." Might it transfer to Broadway? "Let's get it up on its feet first — and see."
In his new movie, "Shrink," which opened in limited release on July 24 and starts nationwide July 31, Spacey plays Henry Carter, an L.A. psychiatrist to the stars, "far more screwed up than any of his patients."
Mourning his deceased wife, Carter tries to dull his pain with a daily diet of alcohol and pot. He connects an ensemble cast of characters, including a "functioning alcoholic" movie star (Robin Williams), an "aging" actress (Saffron Burrows), a struggling screenwriter (Mark Webber), a power agent (Dallas Roberts), his assistant (Pell James), a pro-bono patient (Keke Palmer), Carter's dealer (Jesse Plemons), a drug-addicted movie actor (Jack Huston), his girlfriend (Laura Ramsey) and Carter's psychiatrist-father (Robert Loggia).
"Shrink" is Spacey's latest exhibit in an eclectic rogues' gallery that boasts such portraits as insufferable movie producer Buddy Ackerman in "Swimming with Sharks"; Roger "Verbal" Kint in "The Usual Suspects"; Jack Vincennes, a smooth-talking police detective, who's fatally shot halfway through "L.A. Confidential"; John Doe, the maniacal serial killer, in "Se7en"; and Lester Burnham, the mid-life-crisis victim, in "American Beauty."
Are there similarities between Lester Burnham and Henry Carter? "Well, the obvious one is that Lester also is self-medicating and smoking pot — and, quite frankly, I think that Lester was smoking much better shit," he says with a laugh.
"But I never thought that Lester gave up. Despite hating his life, his marriage, and his job, I always thought he was a winning personality. I think Carter's quite different. He embraces the muck [that he's in]. Lester lives in an unnamed suburbia; Henry Carter's knee-deep in Los Angeles, the narcissistic capital of the world."
As Carter, Spacey looks completely wasted, exactly how one imagines an alcoholic-pothead would appear. He declares, "I had to look like shit. We had a remarkable make-up department — because, clearly, I rarely look like shit." He laughs.
"Starting at 6 AM, they had to 'build' me. They just reversed the usual process. I think you get a little hint, at the end of the movie, that Carter's starting to pull his head out of his ass."
Thomas Moffett wrote the screenplay, and Jonas Pate directed.
Robin Williams and he share one of Spacey's favorite scenes in the film. "We improvised a lot of it. I've known Robin a long time. He's so much fun to work with. …I'm so happy that his [heart] operation was successful. He's doing great."
What attracted Spacey to the role? "It made me laugh, and I was touched by the relationship between Carter and [15-year-old] Keke Palmer's character. To me, it's the most-satisfying relationship in the film. We had a great time. She's really talented and has her feet on the ground."
Did it take time for him to wind down after playing scenes as a depressed character? "It's different in films than in theatre. You don't ever really play the character. What you play are bits and moments of a character, spread over 25 or 30 days, in various locations, with various actors.
"With a play, you live in a character for two hours, or longer. At the end of the night, you can feel like you've been hit by a truck. Sometimes, it's hard for me to do curtain calls, because I'm still in the world [of the character]. In movies, you rarely experience that — or, at least, I rarely do. I'm able to hang up the character with the costume."
Does he consider acting to be a form of therapy? "Yes, I do. You get to express emotions and physically get to go places that most people don't get a chance to do. If you're forced to look at life from another person's view — and put yourself in another person's shoes, which is what the job of acting is — it's an incredibly humanizing force. One of the most positive things is that it makes it that much harder to be prejudicial against other people.
"Our job [as actors] is to bring light to places that are dark. You have to understand what motivates somebody, why someone did something. I think that's what therapists — the good ones — try to do."
Protective of his private life — an oft-repeated remark insists that the less one knows about him as a person, the more believable he can be as a character — Spacey started out doing stand-up comedy. His expert impersonations range from Johnny Carson to Katharine Hepburn, and include Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Christopher Walken, Bill Clinton, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, William Hurt, Ian McKellen and John Gielgud.
Imitating Carson on the telephone, he'd often obtain "Tonight Show" tickets, and later on make reservations at Studio 54 for Carson's "sons" (Spacey and pal).
Two of his idols — Jason Robards (1922-2000) and Jack Lemmon (1925-2001) — became his friends, whom he regarded as "almost second fathers."
|  | |
Kevin Spacey in The Iceman Cometh
|
| photo by Tristam Kenton |
Robards (also born July 26) and Spacey played the same Eugene O'Neill characters: Hickey in The Iceman Cometh and Jamie Tyrone — as a young man in Long Day's Journey into Night and an older one in A Moon for the Misbegotten.
A breakthrough role (and May 1956 Off-Broadway debut) for Robards, he reprised the character on TV (in '60). Spacey played Hickey at the Old Vic, becoming the first American to win an Olivier Award. He earned an Outer Critics Circle Award for its Broadway transfer.
Jamie was originated by Robards in the November 1956 production of Long Day's Journey (his Broadway debut). He reprised it for the '62 movie version. Spacey played the part, his breakthrough role, in the first Broadway revival, on TV, and in the West End.
On Broadway, Robards starred in a 1973 revival of Misbegotten (reprising his performance on TV in 1975); Spacey played the role in 2007. They met in 1985, at the Kennedy Center, where Robards was starring in a pre-Broadway Iceman revival. Spacey, in rehearsals for The Seagull, starring Colleen Dewhurst, would sneak into the presidential box of the Eisenhower theatre.
"Night after night, I would watch the master." Invited by Dewhurst to escort her to the Iceman closing-night party, Spacey met "the master." Aware that Spacey soon would be playing Jamie, Robards greeted him by saying: "Be good to him. He was very good to me." Said Spacey, "That night, [Robards] passed the torch to me."
Remembering Robards in the New York Times (Jan. 14, 2001), Spacey wrote that the actor's "passionate commitment to the art of acting will burn so bright that the lights of the American theatre will never go out." (His son, Sam Robards, had a supporting role in "American Beauty."). Continued...
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2009 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|