Kevin Spacey: Hail to the Chief

Kevin Spacey’s father wrote “how to” manuals. It wasn’t his dream job, but it put food on the table. He was a straight-laced, by the book kind of guy, and like countless straight-laced, by the book fathers before him, he discouraged his young son from entering show business, insisting he get a degree instead. Any “how to” manual on parenting would deem this sound, conservative advice, the type that saves a kid from a lifetime of barista aprons and disappointment.

And then, shortly after he died, Spacey and the family discovered his father’s secret creative side, in the form of an epic 16-volume novel the late technical writer had clandestinely written and stashed away.

“My dad never thought it was good enough,” Spacey tells me, “so he didn’t really share it with us.”

It’s a story that, once you’ve met the younger Spacey, makes a lot of sense. Like father, like son. Almost.

Obviously, Kevin Spacey didn’t listen to his dad’s advice. He went on to study acting, and to pursue a career in show business. Needless to say, with two Oscars and a Golden Globe under his belt, the man has done alright for himself. He’s been as successful as any technical writer’s son could have ever hoped for. Not that he sees it that way. “There are very few times I’ve thought my work was good enough,” he says, echoing his father’s refrain. “Even if it’s been deemed successful.”

Unlike his father, Spacey doesn’t follow the instructions. Plot twists have long been his signature, his professional bread and butter. The Keyser Soze reveal in The Usual Suspects, the surprise head in a box in Se7en, that thing — spoiler alert — that happens to Zoe Barnes in season two of House of Cards. Or, hell, that thing that happens with Meechum. But he catches us unawares in real life, too.

At 55, Spacey has veered pretty far off the predictable Academy Award winner’s trajectory. After nabbing the Best Actor statue for American Beauty in 1999 — four years after winning Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects — he could have set up shop as a leading man and enjoyed a fruitful Jack Nicholson-esque middle age. Instead, he pulled way back, largely ducking out of the movie game. For the past 10 years, he’s spent most of his time in London, resurrecting the Old Vic, a historic theatre that had fallen into disrepair, as its artistic director. The decade-long commitment, which finally wraps up this year, has left him little time for onscreen projects, save for that game-changing Netflix show, of course.

If Hollywood made “how to” manuals for acting careers, they’d look nothing like this.

“It was either that I was going to spend the next 10 years doing exactly the same thing, trying to keep making movie after movie after movie,” he says. “Quite frankly, in a lot of cases, I’ve witnessed actors get to a certain point, reach that groove and start showing up and playing the same role again and again and again. I really wanted a different kind of challenge. I also wanted to become a better actor.”

“There were a number of people in the film world who thought I was fucking crazy.”

Which makes sense. Not only because Hollywood is so fickle that when you’re on top, it seems nuts to risk being forgotten. But, also, crazy because Spacey saying he wants to become a better actor is like Deep Blue saying it wants to become a better chess player.