Kevin Spacey: Hail to the Chief
With House of Cards, now in its third season, Spacey’s off-the-map journey continues. He’s the de facto leader of a pop-cultural revolution: the face of the first landmark, Emmy-nominated TV series to appear solely online. He also happened to give anti-tech network execs the definitive wakeup call at the Edinburgh International Television Festival a couple of years ago. His impassioned keynote speech — in which he predicted the death of appointment television at the hands of Netflix — went viral, making him the poster boy for digital content.
“Everyone for many, many years, has talked about how fucking crazy the pilot system is, but nobody was willing to do anything to change it,” he says. “The audience wants to be in control and we’re giving them that control.”
By releasing entire seasons at once, House of Cards gives Spacey control, too. He gets to play the narrative long game rather than chopping scripts and sequences into cliffhanger-baited bits, letting him develop Underwood at his own pace. It’s a luxury he’s learned to enjoy performing at the Old Vic, and one he feels actors just can’t experience in film.
“I’m frustrated by the fact that in the movie world, no matter how good you may be in a movie, you’ll never be any better,” he says. “But in a play, I can be better. I can be better next Tuesday. I can be better two weeks from now.”
****
When Spacey finally leaves the Old Vic this fall, his phone might literally explode from the seismic wave of texts he’ll get from movie execs. In middle age, he’s reached a second prime of his career, his name as hot as it was just before he left for London. Once again, he’s free to have any leading role he desires. The expectations are high; his nerves, presumably, shot.
He has, in fact, already signed on for two films. Both comedies. In one, he’ll play Richard Nixon, back when the former US president first met Elvis Presley. (If his Nixon impression is even half as good as the one he does of his buddy Bill Clinton, he’ll do just fine.) And, in the other, he’ll play a man trapped in a cat’s body. No, really.
“You know, I love doing things that are unexpected,” he says. “Mostly for me. I love doing things that suddenly make a left turn when everyone’s expecting you to keep going straight ahead.”
What everyone’s expecting Spacey to do, of course, is, take some damn Oscar-bait. The fact that he hasn’t, to some, might seem like he’s afraid. The likelier explanation, though, is that he’s hungry. He could take another brooding leading role, but at this point in his career, he’s craving greater tests of thespian strength. It’s evolution by way of dissatisfaction. It’s Frank Underwood-level striving, without the malice. Also, it’s the mark of a true artist.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he says, “now people don’t think I’m fucking crazy.”
****
It’s impossible, as people who aren’t Kevin Spacey, to know if Kevin Spacey will ever be satisfied — in fact, it’s a safe bet that Spacey himself doesn’t know. But he will admit to feeling that emotion — or something like it — at least once in his life. It happened in 1991, when his parents visited him backstage after his Tony-winning performance in Broadway hit Lost in Yonkers. “I was leaning up against a wall and there was a whole group of people in the centre of the room chatting. My dad leaned over, looked at me and said, ‘So…this acting thing seems to be working out.’”
He laughs. “I said, ‘Yeah dad, it’s going okay.’”
