Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #432
- The following is a conversation with Kevin Spacey, a
two-time Oscar winning actor who has starred in "Se7en,"
"The Usual Suspects," "American Beauty" and "House of Cards." He is one of the greatest actors ever, creating haunting
performances of characters who often embody the dark
side of human nature. Seven years ago, he was
cut from "House of Cards" and canceled by Hollywood and the world when Anthony Rapp made an allegation that Kevin Spacey sexually
abused him in 1986. Anthony Rapp then filed a civil
lawsuit seeking $40 million. In this trial and all civil and criminal trials that
followed, Kevin was acquitted. He has never been found guilty nor liable in the court of law. In this conversation, Kevin makes clear what he did and what he didn't do. I also encourage you to
listen to Kevin's Dan Wootton and Alison Pearson interviews
for additional details and responses to the allegations. As an aside, let me say that one of the principles I operate under for this podcast and in life is that I will talk with everyone, with empathy and with backbone. For each guest, I hope to
explore their life's work, life story and what and how they think and do so honestly and fully. The good, the bad, and the ugly, the brilliance and the flaws. I won't whitewash their sins, but I won't reduce them to
a worse possible caricature of their sins either. The latter is what the mass hysteria of internet mobs too
often does, often rushing to a final judgment
before the facts are in. I will try to do better than that, to respect due process
in service of the truth. And I hope to have the courage
to always think independently and to speak honestly from
the heart, even when the eyes of the outrage mob are on me. Again, my goal is to
understand human beings at their best and at their worst. And the hope is such understanding leads to more compassion and
wisdom in the world. I will make mistakes and when I do, I will
work hard to improve. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description and now, dear friends,
here's Kevin Spacey. You played a serial killer
in the movie "Se7en." Your performance was one of, if not the greatest portrayal
of a murderer on screen ever. What was your process of becoming him, John Doe, the serial killer? - The truth is, I didn't get the part. I had been in Los Angeles
making a couple of films, "Swimming with Sharks"
and "Usual Suspects," and then I did a film called "Outbreak" that Morgan Freeman was in. And I went to audition for David Fincher in probably late November of '94. And I auditioned for this
part and didn't get it and I went back to New York. And I think they started
shooting like December 12th. And I'm in New York, I'm back in my, I have a wonderful apartment
on West 12th Street and my mom has come to visit for Christmas and it's December 23rd and it's like seven o'clock
at night and my phone rings and it's Arnold Kopelson,
who's the producer of "Se7en." And he's very jovial
and he's very friendly and he says, "How you doing?" And I said, "Fine." And he said, "Listen, do you remember that film you came in for, Se7en?" And I said, "Yeah, absolutely." He goes, "Well, turns out
that we hired an actor and we started shooting and then yesterday David fired him. And David would like you
to get on a plane on Sunday and come to Los Angeles and
start shooting on Tuesday." And I was like, "Okay, would it be I imposing
to say, can I read it again? 'Cause it's been a while
now and I'd like to..." So they sent a script over, I read the script that night. I thought about it and I had this feeling, I can't even quite describe it, but I had this feeling that it would be really good if I didn't take billing in the film. And the reason I felt that was because I knew that by the
time this film would come out, it would be the last
one of the three movies that I just shot, the fourth one. And if any of those films
broke through or did well, if it was gonna be Brad
Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey, and you don't show up for
the first 25, 30, 40 minutes, people are gonna figure
out who you're playing. - So people would know that you play the serial
killer in the movie and serial killer shows
up like more than halfway through the movie.
- Very late in the movie. - When we say billing,
it's like the posters, the VHS cover and everything. You're gone. You're not there. - Not there. And so New Line Cinema
told me to go fuck myself, that they absolutely could use my picture and my image, blah, blah. And this became a little bit of a, I'd say 24 hour conversation. And it was Fincher who said, "I actually think this
is a really cool idea." So the compromise was,
I'm the first credit at the end of the movie
when the credits start. So I got on a plane on that
Sunday and I flew to Los Angeles and I went into where they were shooting, and I went into the makeup room
and David Fincher was there, and we were talking
about what should I do, how should I look. And I just had my hair
short for "Outbreak" 'cause I was playing a military character and I just looked at the hairdresser and I said, "Do you have a razor?" And Fincher went, "Are you kidding?" And I said, "No." He goes, "If you shave your
head, I'll shave mine." So we both shaved our heads. And then I started shooting the next day. So my long-winded answer
to your question is that I didn't have that
much time to think about how to build that character. What I think in the end, Fincher was able to do so brilliantly with such terror, was
to set the audience up to meet this character. - I think the last scene, the ending scene and the car ride leading up to it, where it's mostly on you in conversation with Morgan
Freeman and Brad Pitt, it's one of the greatest
scenes in film history. So people who somehow
didn't see the movie, there's these five murders that happened that are inspired by five
of the seven deadly sins and the ending scene is inspired, represents the last two deadly sins. And there's this calm subtlety about you in your performance
that's just terrifying. Maybe in contrast with
Brad Pitt's performance, that's also really strong, but that in the contrast
is the terrifying sense that you get in the audience that builds up to the twist at the end, or the surprise at the end with the famous, "What's in
the box," from Brad Pitt. That is Brad Pitt's
character's wife, her head. - Yeah, I can really only tell you that while we were shooting
that scene in the car, while we were out in the desert, in that place where all
those electrical wires were, David just kept saying, "Less, do less." And I just tried to. I mean, I remember he kept saying to me, "Remember, you are in control. Like you are going to win. And knowing that should allow you to have tremendous confidence." And I just followed that lead. And I just think it's the kind of film that so many of the elements that had been at work from the beginning of the movie in terms of its style, in terms of how he built this terror, in terms of how he built for the audience, a sense
of this person being one of the scariest people that
he might ever encounter, it really allowed me to be able
to not have to do that much, just say the words and mean them. And I think it also, it's an example of what makes tragedy so difficult. I mean, you know, very often tragedy is people operating without enough information. They don't have all the facts. Romeo and Juliet, they
don't have all the facts. They don't know what
we know as an audience. And so in the end, whether Brad Pitt's character
ends up shooting John Doe or turning the gun on himself, which was a discussion, I
mean, there were a number of alternative endings that were discussed nothing ends up being tied
up in a nice little bow. It is complicated and shows how nobody wins in the end when you're not operating
with all the information. - When you say, "Say the
words and mean them," what does "mean them" mean? - I've been very fortunate to be directed by Fincher a couple of times, And he would say to me sometimes, "I don't believe a thing that
is coming out of your mouth. Shall we try it again?" And you go, "Okay, yeah,
we can try it again." And sometimes he'll do a take and then you'll look to see if he has any added genius to hand you. And he just goes, "Let's do it again, and then let's do it again." And sometimes I say this in all humility, he's literally trying to
beat the acting out of you. And by continually saying, "Do it again, do it again, do it again" and not giving you any specifics, he is systematically shredding you of all pretense of all, you know... 'Cause look, very often,
you know, actors, we come in on the set and we've
thought about the scene and we've worked out, you
know, I've got this prop and I'm gonna do this thing with a can, you know, all these things all the tea, I'm gonna do a thing with the thing. And David is the kind of director where he just wants you to
stop adding all that crap and just say the words and say
them quickly and mean them. And it takes a while to get to that place. I'll tell you a story. This is a story I just love because it's in the exactly
the same wheelhouse. So Jack Lemmon's first
movie was a film called "It Should Happen To You," and it was directed by George Cukor. And Jack tells this story, and it was just an
incredibly charming story to hear Jack tell. He said, "So I'm doing his picture and let me tell you, this
is a terrific part for me. And I'm doing a scene,
it's on my first day, it's my first day, and
it's a terrific scene." And he goes, "We do the first take and George Cukor comes up to me and he says, 'Jack." I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Let's do another one, but just do a little less in this one.'" And Jack said, "A little less? A little less than what I just did?" He said, "Yeah, just a little less." So he goes, "We do another take." And I think, "Boy, that was it. I mean, let's just go home." And Cukor walked up to him. He said, "Jack, let's do
another one this time, just a little bit less." And Jack said, "Less than
what I just did now?" He said, "Yeah, just a little bit less." He goes, "Oh, okay." So he did another take and Cukor came up and he said, "Jack,
just a little bit less." And Jack said, "A little
less than what I just did?" He said, "Yes." He goes, "Well, if I do any
less, I'm not gonna be acting." And Cukor said, "Exactly, Jack exactly." - I mean, I guess what you're saying is
it's extremely difficult to get to the bottom of a little less because the power, if we
just stick even on "Se7en" of your performances in
the tiniest of subtleties, like when you say, "Oh, you didn't know," and you turn your head a little bit and a little bit like
little bit maybe a glimmer of a smile appears in your face. That's subtlety, that's less, that's hard to get to, I suppose. - Yeah and also because
I so well remember, I think the work that Brad did and also Morgan did in that scene, but the work that Brad had
to do, where he had to go. I remember rehearsing with
him as we were all staying at this little hotel nearby that location and we rehearsed the night before we started shooting that sequence. And, I mean, it was just incredible to see the levels of emotions
he had to go through, and then the decision of, what do I do? Because if I do what he
wants me to do, then he wins. But if I don't do it, then what kind of a man, husband am I? I just thought he did
really incredible work. So it was also not easy to not react to the power of what
he was throwing at me. I just thought it was a
really extraordinary scene. - So what's it like being in that scene? So it's you, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Brad Pitt is going over the top just having
a mental breakdown and is weighing these extremely
difficult moral choices, as you're saying, but he's like screaming and in pain and tormented while
you're very subtly smiling. - In terms of the writing and in terms of what the
characters had to do, it was incredible culmination of how this character could manipulate in the way that he did and in the end, succeed. - You mentioned Fincher
likes to do a lot of takes. That's the famous thing
about David Fincher. So what are the pros and cons of that? I think I read that he
does some crazy amount. He averages 25 to 65 takes and most directors do less than 10, so. - Yeah, sometimes it's timing. Sometimes it's literally
he has a stopwatch and he's timing how
long a scene is taking. And then he'll say, "You need to take a
minute off this scene." "Like a minute?" "Yeah, a minute off this scene. I want it to move like this. So let's pick up the pace. Let's see if we can take a minute off." - Why the speed? Why say fast is the important
thing for him, you think? - I think because
Fincher hates indulgence, and he wants people to talk
the way they do in life, which is, you know, we don't take big dramatic pauses, you know, before we speak. We speak, we say what we want. - And I guess actors
like the dramatic pauses and the indulge in the dramatic. - We didn't always like
the dramatic pauses. I mean, look, you go back, any student of acting, you
go back to the thirties and the forties, fifties, the speed at which actors spoke,
not just in the comedies, which of course, you know, you look at any Preston Sturges movie, and it's incredible how
fast people are talking and how funny things are
when they happen that fast. But then, you know, acting styles changed. We got into a different kind of thing in the late fifties and sixties and, you know, a lot of
actors are feeling it, which is, I'm not saying it's
a bad thing, it's just that if you want to keep an audience
engaged as Fincher does and I believe successfully
does in all of his work, pace, timing, movement, clarity, speed are admirable to achieve. - In all of that, he wants the actor to be as natural as possible to strip away all the bullshit
of acting and become human. - Look, I've been lucky
with other directors. Sam Mendes is similar. I remember when I walked in
to maybe the first rehearsal for "Richard III" that we were doing, and I had brought with
me a canopy of ailments that my Richard was going to suffer from. And Sam, you know,
eventually whittled it down to like three, "Like maybe your arm and maybe your leg but let's get rid of the other 10 things that you brought into the room," because, you know, I was so excited to, you know, capture this character. So, you know, very often, Trevor Nunn is this way, a lot of wonderful
directors I've worked with, they're really good at
helping you trim and edit. - David Fincher said about you, he was talking in general, I think, but also specifically in the
moment of "House of Cards," said that you have exceptional
skill, both as an actor and as a performer, which he
says are different things. So he defines the former
as dramatization of a text and the latter as the
seduction of an audience. Do you see wisdom in that distinction? And what does it take to
do both, the dramatization of a text and the
seduction of an audience? - Those are two very
interesting descriptions. I guess, when I think performer, I tend to think entertaining. I tend to think comedy. I tend to think winning over an audience. I tend to think there's something about that quality of wanting to
have people enjoy themselves. And when you saddle that against what maybe he means as an actor, which is more dramatic
or more text driven... Look, I've always believed that my job, not every actor feels this way, but my job, the way that
I've looked at it, is that my job is to serve the writing. And that if I serve the writing, I will in a sense serve myself, because I'll be in the right world, I'll be in the right context, I'll be in the right style. I'll have embraced what a director's... You know, it's not my painting, it's someone else's painting. I'm a series of colors in
someone else's painting. And the barometer for
me has always been that when people stop me and talk to me about a
character I've played and reference their name
as if they actually exist, that's when I feel like I've
gotten close to doing my job. - Yeah, one of the challenges for me in this conversation is remembering that your name is Kevin, not Frank or John or any of these characters, because they live deeply in the psyche. - To me, that's the greatest compliment for me as an actor. I love being able to go. I mean, when I think about performers who inspire me, and I remember when I was young and I was introduced to Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, I believed who they were. I knew nothing about them. They were just these
extraordinary characters doing this extraordinary stuff. And then I think more
recently contemporary, when I think of the work that
Philip Seymour Hoffman did and Heath Ledger and people that when I think about what they could be doing,
what they could do, what they would've done
had they stayed with us. I'm so excited when I go into a cinema or I go into a play and I completely am taken to someplace that I believe exists and
characters that become real. - And those characters become
like lifelong companions. Like for me, they travel with you. And even if it's the darkest aspects of human nature, they're always there. I feel like I almost met them and gotten to know them and gotten to become like
friends with them almost. Hannibal Lecter or Forrest Gump, I mean, I feel like I'm like
best friends with Forrest Gump. I know the guy and I guess he's played
by some guy named Tom, but like Forrest Gump is
the guy I'm friends with. And I think that everybody feels like that when they're in the audience
with great characters. They just kind of, become
part of you in some way, the good, the bad, and the ugly of them. - One of the things that I feel that I try to do in my work is when I read something for the first time when I read a script or play, and I am absolutely devastated by it. It is the most extraordinary,
the most beautiful, the most life-affirming or terrifying, it's then a process weirdly
of working backwards because I wanna work in such a way that that's the experience
I give to the audience when they first see it, that they have the experience
I had when I read it. I remember that there's been
times in the creative process when something was pointed out to me or something was... I remember I was doing a play and I was having this really tough time with one of the last scenes in the play and I just couldn't figure it out and I was in rehearsal and although we had a
director in that play, I called another, a friend
of mine who was also director and I had him come over. And I said, "Look, this scene,
I'm just having the toughest, I cannot seem to crack this scene." And so we read it
through a couple of times and then this wonderful
director named John Swanbeck who would eventually direct me in a film called "The Big
Kahuna," but this is before that. He said to me the most incredible thing. He just said, "All right,
what's the last line you have in this scene before you
fall over and fall asleep?" And I said, "The last line is, 'That last drink, the old KO.'" And he went, "Okay, I
want you to think about what that line actually means
and then work backwards." And so he left and I sort of was left with this, "What? Like, what does that mean? How am I supposed to?" And then like a couple of days went by, a couple of days went by and I
thought, okay, so I see that, what does that line actually mean? "Well, that last drink, the old KO." KO is knockout, which is a boxing term. It's the only boxing term
the writer uses in the play. And then I went back and I realized my friend was so smart and so incredible to, you know, said, "Ask a question you haven't
thought of asking yet." I realized that the playwright
wrote the last round, the eighth round between
these two brothers and it was a fight, physical
as well as emotional. And when I brought that
into the rehearsal room to the directors doing that
play, he liked that idea and we staged that scene as
if it was the eighth round, although audience
wouldn't have known that. But just what I loved about that was that somebody said to me,
"Ask yourself a question you haven't asked yourself yet. What does that line mean
and then work backwards." - What is that like a catalyst for thinking deeply about what is magical about this play,
this story, this narrative? That's what that is. Like thinking backwards,
that's what that does. - Yeah, but also because
it's this incredible, why didn't I think to
ask that question myself? That's what you have directors for. That's why you have, you know, so many places where ideas can come from, but that just illustrates that even though in my brain I go, I always
like to work backwards, I missed it in that one, and I'm very grateful to my friend for having pushed me into being able to realize what that meant. - To ask the interesting question. I like the poetry and the humility of, "I'm just a series of colors
in someone else's painting." That was a good line. That said, you've talked
about improvisation. You said that it's all about the ability to do it again and again and again, and yet never make it the same. And you also just said that you're trying to stay true to the text. So where's the room for the improvisation that it's never the same? - Well, there's two slightly
different contexts, I think. One is in the rehearsal room, improvisation could be a wonderful device. I mean, Sam Mendes for
example, he'll start a scene and he does this wonderful thing. He brings rugs and he
brings chairs and sofas in and he says, "Well, let's
put two chairs here and here. You guys, let's start in these chairs far apart from each other. Let's see what happens with the scene if you're that far apart." And so we'll do the scene that way. And then he goes, "Okay,
let's bring a rug in and let's bring these chairs much closer and let's see what happens if the space between you is..." And so then you try it that way. And then, you know, it's a little harder in Shakespeare improv, but in any situation where you wanna try and see where could a scene go. Where would the scene go if
I didn't make that choice? Where would the scene go
if I made this choice? Where would the scene
go if I didn't say that or I said something else? So that's how improv can
be a valuable process to learn about limits and boundaries and what's going on with a character that somehow you discover in trying something
that isn't on the page. Then there's the different thing, which is the trying to make it fresh and trying to make it new and that is really a reference to theater. I'll put it to you this way. Anybody loves sports, right? So you go and you watch on a pitch, you watch a tennis game,
you watch basketball, you watch football. Yeah, the rules are the same, but it's a different game
every time you're out on that court or on that field. It's no different in theater. Yes, it's the same lines,
maybe even blocking is similar, but what's different is attack, intention, how you are growing in a role and watching your fellow
actors grow in theirs and how every night it's a new audience and they're reacting differently. And literally, where you can go from week one of performances in a play to week 12 is extraordinary. And the difference between
theater and film is that no matter how good
someone might think you are in a movie, you'll never
be any better, it's frozen. Whereas I can be better tomorrow
night than I was tonight. I can be better in a
week than I was tonight. It is a living, breathing,
shifting, changing, growing thing every single day. - But also in theater,
there's no safety net. If you fuck it up, everybody
gets to see you do that. - And if you start giggling
on stage, everyone gets to see you do that too,
which I am very guilty of. - I mean, there is something of a seduction of an audience in theater even more intense than there is when you're talking about film. I got a chance to watch the documentary "Now in the Wings on a World Stage," which is behind the scenes of, you mentioned you teaming
up with Sam Mendes in 2011 to stage "Richard III," a
play by William Shakespeare. I was also surprised to learn you haven't
really done Shakespeare, or at least you said that in the movie, but there's a lot of interesting
behind-the-scenes stuff there. First of all, the comradery of everybody, how like the bond theater creates, especially when you're traveling. But another interesting
thing you mentioned with the chairs of Sam Mendes
trying different stuff, it seemed like everybody was
really open to trying stuff, embarrassing themselves,
taking risks, all of that. I suppose that's part
of acting in general, but theater especially. Just take risks, it's okay to embarrass
the shit outta yourself including the director. - And it's also because
you become a family. You know, it's unlike a movie where, you know, I might have a scene with so and so on this day and then another scene with
them in a week and a half and then that's the only scenes we have in the whole movie together. Every single day when you
show up in the rehearsal room, it's the whole company. You're all up for it every day. You're learning, you're
growing, you're trying and there is an incredible
trust that happens. And I was of course fortunate that some of the things I learned and
observed about being a part of that family, being
included in that family and being a part of creating
that family, I was able to observe from people like Jack Lemmon who led many companies that
I was fortunate to work in and be a part of. - There's also a sad moment where at the end everybody
is really sad to say goodbye 'cause you do form a
family and then it's over. I guess somebody said that
that's just part of theater. It's like, I mean, there's
a kind of assumed goodbye and that this is it. - Yeah and also there are sometimes when like six months later
I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll go, ah,
that's how to play that scene. Oh God, I just finally
figured it out. (laughs) - So maybe you could speak
a little bit more to that. What's the difference between film acting and live theater acting? - I don't really think there is any. I think there's just, you eventually learn
about yourself on film. You know, when I first
did like my first episode of "The Equalizer," you know, it's horrible. It's just so bad. But I didn't know that about myself. So slowly begin to learn about yourself but I think good acting is good acting and I think that, you know, if a camera's right here, you know that your front row is also your back row. You don't have to do so much. There is in theater, a
particular kind of energy, almost like an athlete
that you have to have, vocally to be able to get
up seven performances a week and never lose your voice and always be there and always be alive and always be doing the best work you can that you just don't require in film. You know, you don't have to have the same, it just doesn't require
the same kind of stamina that doing a play does. - It just feels like
also in theater you have to become the character more intensely because you can't take a break, you can't take a bathroom break, and you're like, on stage, there's no, this is you. - Yeah but you have no
idea what's going on stage with the actors. I mean, I have literally
laughed through speeches that I had to give because my fellow actors were
putting carrots up their nose or broccoli in their ears or doing whatever they were
doing to make me laugh. - So they're just having fun? - They're having the time of their life. And by the way, Judi Dench
is the worst giggler of all. I mean, they had to bring
the curtain down on her and Maggie Smith because
they were laughing so hard they could not continue the play. - So even when you're doing
like a dramatic monologue, they're still fucking with you. - They're still fucking. (laughs) - Okay, that's great. Yeah, that's good to know. You also said an interesting line that improvisation helps you
learn about the character. Can you explain that? So like, through maybe playing
with the different ways of saying the words or the different ways to bring the words to life, you
get to learn about yourself, about the character you're playing. - It can be helpful but improv is... I'm such a big believer in the writing and in serving the writing and doing the words the writer wrote, that improv for me, unless
you're just doing like comedy and you know, like, I mean I love improv in comedy, it's brilliant. So much fun to watch people just come up with something right there. But, you know, that's where
you're looking for laughs and you're specifically in a little scene that's being created. But I think improv has had value, but I have not experienced
it as much in doing plays as I have sometimes in doing film where you'll start off rehearsing and a director may say, "Let's just go off book
and see what happens." And I've had moments in film
where someone went off book and it was terrifying. There was a scene I had
in "Glengarry Glen Ross" where the character I play
has fucked something up. He's just screwed something
up and Pacino is livid. And so we had the scene
where Al is walking like this and the camera is moving with him and he is shoeing me a new asshole. And in the middle of the take, Al starts talking about me. "Oh Kevin, you don't think
we know how you got this job? You don't think we know whose
dick you've been sucking on to get this part in this movie?" And now, I'm literally like, I don't know what the hell is happening,
but I'm reacting. We got to the end of that take. Al walked up to me and he
went, "Oh, that was so good. Oh my God, that was so good. Just so you know, the sound,
I asked them not to record, so you have no dialogue so it's just me. Oh, that was so good. You look like a car wreck." And I was like, "Yeah." And it was actually an
incredibly generous thing that he gave me so that I would react. - Oh wow. Did they use that shot? because you were in the shot?
- That's the take. It was my closeup. And yeah, that's the take. - That was an intense scene. I mean, what was it like, if we can just linger on that, just that intense scene with Al Pacino? - Well, he's the reason I got the movie. A lot of people might think
because Jack was in the film, that he had something to do with it. But actually I was doing a play called "Lost in Yonkers" on Broadway. And we had the same dresser
who worked with him, a girl named Laura who was
wonderful, Laura Beatty. And she told Al that he
should come and see this play because she wanted to see me in this play. I was playing this gangster,
fun, fun, fun part. So I didn't know Pacino came
on some night and saw this play and then like three days
later, I got a call to come in and audition for this
"Glengarry Glen Ross," which of course I knew as
a play, David Mamet's play. And then I auditioned,
Jamie Foley was the director who would eventually direct a bunch of "House of Cards," wonderful guy. And I got the part. Well, I didn't quite get the part. They were gonna bring together the actors that they thought they were
gonna give the parts to on a Saturday at Al's office. And they asked me if I would
come and do a read through and I said, "Who's gonna be there?" And they said, well, so and
so and so and so and so, and Jack Lemmon is flying in. And I said, "Don't tell Mr. Lemmon that I'm doing the read through. Is that possible?" And they were like, "Sure." So I'll never forget this. Jack was sitting in a chair in Pacino's office doing the
New York Times crossword puzzle as he did every day like this. And I walked in the door and
he went, "Oh, Jesus Christ. Is it possible you could
get a job without me? Jesus Christ, I'm so tired
of holding up your end of it. Oh my God, Jesus." So I got the job job because of Al Pacino. And, you know, it was really
one of the first major roles that I ever had in a film and, you know, to be
working with that group. - Yeah, that's like one of the
greatest ensemble cast ever. We got Al Pacino, Jack
Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris,
you, Jonathan Pryce. It's just incredible. And I have to say, I mean
maybe you can comment, you've talked about how much of a mentor and a friend Jack Lemmon has been. That's one of his greatest
performances ever. - Ever. - You have a scene at the end of the movie with him that was really powerful. It's like firing on all cylinders. You're playing disdain to perfection and he's playing
desperation to perfection. What a scene. What was that like? just like at the top of
your game, the two of you? - Well, by that time we had done "Long Day's Journey Into
Night" in the theater. We'd done a mini series called "The Murder of Mary Phagan" on NBC. We'd done a film called "Dad" that Gary David Goldberg
directed with Ted Danson. So this was the fourth time
we were working together and we knew each other. He'd become my father figure. And I don't know if you know that I originally met Jack Lemmon when I was very, very young. He was doing a production
at the Mark Taper Forum of a Sean O'Casey play
called "Juno and The Paycock" with Walter Matthau and Maureen Stapleton. And on a Saturday, in December of 1974, my junior high school drama
class went to a workshop. It was called How to Audition. And we did this workshop, many schools in southern
California were part of this drama association so we got these incredible experiences of being able to go see
professional productions and be involved in these
workshops or festivals. So I had to get up and do a monologue in front of Mr. Lemmon
when I was 13 years old. And he walked up to me at the end of that and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "That was
just actually terrific." He said, "No, I mean, everything
I've been talking about, you just did. Yeah, what what's your name?" I said, "Kevin." He said, "Well, lemme tell you something, when you get finished with high school, I'm sure you're gonna
go on and do theater, you should go to New York and you should study to be an actor 'cause this is what you're
meant to do with your life." - And he was like an idol and 12 years later, I
read in the New York Times that he was coming to
Broadway to do this production of a "Long Day's Journey Into
Night," a year and some months after I read this article and I was like, I'm gonna
play Jamie in that production. And I then, with a lot of opposition, because the casting directors
didn't wanna see me. They said that the director, Jonathan Miller wanted movie
actors to play the two sons. And ultimately, I found out that Jonathan Miller,
the director, was coming to New York to do a series of
lectures at Alice Tully Hall. And I went to try to figure
out how I could maybe meet him. And I was sitting in
that theater listening to this incredible lecture he was doing and sitting next to me
was an elderly woman, and I mean elderly, 80 something, and she was asleep, but sticking out of her handbag, which was on the floor was a invitation to a cocktail reception in
honor of Dr. Jonathan Miller. And so I thought, you know, she's tired, she's probably gonna go home. So I took that and walked
into this cocktail reception and ultimately went over to Dr. Miller, who was incredibly kind and said, "Sit down now. I'm always very curious what brings young people to my lectures." And I said to him, "Eugene
O'Neill brought me here." And he was like, "What? I've
always wanted to meet him. Where is he?" And I told him that I'd
been trying for seven months to get an audition for
a Long Day's Journey and that his American cast
directors were telling my agents that he wanted big American movie stars. And at that moment he turned and he saw one of those casting directors who was there that night, because I knew he was gonna be in New York starting auditions that week and she was staring daggers
at me and he just got it. And he said, "Someone have a pen?" And he took the little
paper, started writing. He said, "Listen, Kevin,
there are many situations in which casting directors
have a lot of say and a lot of power and a lot of leverage and then there are other situations where they just take director's messages and on this one they're
taking my messages. This is where I'm staying. Make sure your people get to me. We start auditions on Thursday." And on Thursday, I had an opportunity to come in and audition for this play that I've been working on and preparing. And at the end of it, I did four scenes. At the end of it, he said to me that unless someone else came in and blew him against the
wall, like I had just done as far as he was concerned,
I pretty much had the part but I couldn't tell my agents that yet 'cause I had to come back
and read with Mr. Lemmon. And so three months later in August of 1985, I
found myself in a room with Jack Lemmon again at 890 Broadway, which is where they rehearsed
a lot of the Broadway plays and we did four scenes together. And I was toppling over
him, I was pushing him, I was relentless. And I'll never forget, at the end of that, Lemmon came over to me, he
put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "That was
a touch of terrific. I never thought we'd find the rotten kid, but Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?" And I ended up spending the next year of my life with that man. - So it turns out he was right. - Yeah. - This world works in mysterious ways. It also speaks to the fact of the power of somebody you look up to
giving words of encouragement 'cause those can just reverberate
through your whole life and just like make the path clear. - We used to joke that
if every contract came with a Jack Lemmon clause, it would be a more beautiful world. - Beautifully said. Jack Lemmon is one of
the greatest actors ever. What do you think makes him so damn good? - Wow. I think he truly set out in his life to accomplish what his father
said to him on his deathbed. His father was by the way,
called the Donut King in Boston and not in the entertainment
business at all. He literally owned a donut company. And when he was passing away, Jack said, "The last thing
my father said to me was, 'Go out there and spread
a little sunshine.'" And I truly think that's
what Jack loved to do. I remember this and I don't know if this will answer your question, but I think it's revealing
about what he's able to do and what he was able to do and how that ultimately
influenced what I was able to do. Sam Mendes had never directed a film before "American Beauty." And so what he did was he took
the best elements of theater and applied them to the process. So we rehearsed it like
a play in a sound stage where everything was laid out
like it would be in a play and this couch will be here. And he'd sent me a couple of tapes. He'd sent me a two cassette tapes, one that he'd like to call pre-Lester before he begins to move in the direction and then post-Lester and they
just were different songs. And then he said to me one day, and I think always
thought this was brilliant of Sam to use Lemmon, knowing
what Lemmon meant to me. He said, "When was the last time you watched 'The Apartment?'" And I said, "I don't know. I mean, I love that movie so much." He goes, "I want you to watch
it again and then let's talk." So I went and I watched the movie again and we sat down and Sam said, "What Lemmon does in
that film is incredible because there is never
a moment in the movie where we see him change. He just evolves. And he becomes the man he becomes because of the experiences that he has through the course of the film. But there's this remarkable
consistency in who he becomes and that's what I need
you to do as Lester. I don't want the audience
to ever see him change. I want him to evolve." And so we did some... I mean, first of all it
was just a great direction. And then second of all, we did some things that people don't know we did to aid that gradual shift
of that man's character. First of all, I had to
be in the best shape from the beginning of the movie 'cause we didn't shoot it in sequence. So I was in this crazy shape. I had this wonderful
trainer named Mike Tosher, who just was incredible. But so what we did was, in order to then show
this gradual shift was I had three different hair pieces, I had three different kinds of costumes of different colors and sizes, and I had different makeup. So in the beginning I was wearing a kind of drab, dull, slightly, you
know, uninspired hairpiece and my makeup was kind of gray and boring. And I was a little bit, there were times when I was
like, too much like this and Sam would go, "Kevin,
you look like Walter Matthau. Would you please stand up a little bit?" We're sort of midway
through at this point. And then at a certain
point the wig changed and it had little highlights
in it, a little more color, a little more, the makeup became a little, the suits got a little tighter. And then finally a third wig
that was golden highlights and sunshine and you know,
rosy cheeks and tight fit. And these are what we
call theatrical tricks. You know, this is how you... An audience doesn't even
know it's happening, but it is this gradual... And I just always felt that that was such a brilliant way because he knew what I felt about Jack. And when you watch "The
Apartment," it is extraordinary that he doesn't ever change. And in fact I thanked Jack when I won the Oscar and I did my thank you speech and I walked off stage and I remember I had to
sit down for a moment because I didn't want
to go to the press room because I wanted to see
if Sam was gonna win. And so I was waiting and my phone rang and it was Lemmon. He said, "You're a son of a bitch." I said, "What?" He goes, "First of all, congratulations and thanks for thanking me 'cause, you know, God knows you couldn't
have done it without me." He said, "Second of all," he said, "Do you know how long it took me to
win from supporting actor? I won it for "Mister Roberts" and it took me like 10,
12 years to win the Oscar. You did it in four, you son of a bitch." - Yeah, "The Apartment," I
mean, it's widely considered one of the greatest movies ever. People sometimes refer to it as a comedy, which is an interesting
kind of classification. I suppose that's a lesson about comedy that the best comedy is the
one that's basically a tragedy. - Well, I mean, some people think "Clockwork Orange" is a comedy, and I'm not saying there
aren't some good laughs in "Clockwork Orange" but
yeah, you know, it's... - I mean, yeah. What's that line between
comedy and tragedy for you? - Well, if it's a line, it's a line I cross all the time because I've tried always to find the humor unexpected sometimes, maybe inappropriate
sometimes, maybe shocking. But I've tried in I think almost every
dramatic role I've had to have a sense of humor and to be able to bring that along with everything else that is serious. Because frankly, that's how we deal with stuff in life, you know. - I think Sam Mendes actually said in the Now documentary, something like, "With great theater, with
great stories, you find humor on the journey to the heart of darkness," something like this. Very poetic, it stood out to me but it's true. - I'm sorry I can't be that poetic. I'm very sorry. - But it's true. I mean, the people I've interacted with in this world that have
been to a war zone, and the ones who have lost the most and have suffered the
most are usually the ones who are able to make jokes the quickest. And the jokes are often dark and absurd and cross every single line. No political correctness, all of that. - Sure. Well, I mean, you know, it's like the great
"Mary Tyler Moore Show" where they can't stop giggling
at at the clown's funeral. I mean, it's just one of
the great episodes ever. You know, giggling at a funeral is as bad as farting at a funeral. And, you know, I'm sure
that there's some people who have done both. - Oh man, so you mentioned
"American Beauty" and the idea of not
changing, but evolving. That's really interesting because that movie is about
like finding yourself. It's a philosophically profound movie. It's about various characters in their own ways,
finding their own identity in a world where a materialistic system that wants you to be like everyone else. And so, I mean, Lester
really transforms himself throughout the movie. And you're saying the challenge there is to still be the same
human being fundamentally. - Yeah, and I also think
that the film was powerful because you had three very honest and genuine portrayal of young people. And then you had Lester
behaving like a young person, doing things that were unexpected. And I think that the honesty with which it dealt with those issues that those teenagers were going through, and the honesty with which it dealt with what Lester was going
through, I think are some of the reasons why the film
had the response that it did from so many people. I mean, I used to get stopped and someone would say to me, "When I first saw 'American
Beauty,' I was married, and the second time I saw it, I wasn't." And I was like, "Well, we weren't trying to increase the divorce rate. You know, it wasn't our intention." But it is interesting how so many people have those kinds of crazy fantasies. And what I admired so much about who Lester was as a person,
why I wanted to play him is because in the end, he
makes the right decision. - I think a lot of people live
lives of quiet desperation in a job they don't like, in a marriage they're unhappy in and to see somebody living that life and then saying fuck it
in every way possible, and not just in a cynical way, but in a way that opens
them, opens Lester up to see the beauty in the world. That's, you know, the
beauty in "American Beauty." - Well, and you know, you may
have to blackmail your boss to get there, but, you know. - And in that, there's
a bunch of humor also in the anger and in the absurdity of sort of taking a stand
against the conformity of life, there's this humor. And I read somewhere that
the scene, the dinner scene, which is kind of play like where Lester slams the plate against the wall was improvised by you, the slamming of the
plate against the wall. - No, absolutely. - [Lex] The internet lies once again. - Absolutely written and directed. Yeah, can't take credit for that. - The plate, okay. Well, that was a genius interaction there. There's something about the dinner table and losing your shit at the dinner table, having a fight and losing your shit at the dinner table. Where else? Like "Yellowstone" was another situation where it's a family at the dinner table and then one of them says, "Fuck it, I'm not eating this anymore and I'm going to create a scene." - [Kevin] Right. - It's a beautiful kind of
environment for dramatic scenes. - Or Nicholson in "The Shining." I mean, there's some
family scenes gone awry in that movie. - The contrast between
you and Annette Bening in that scene creates
the genius of that scene. So how much of acting is the
dance between two actors? - Well, with Annette, I just
adored working with her. And we were the two actors that Sam wanted from the very beginning, much against the will of the higher ups who wanted other actors
to play those roles. But I've known Annette since we did a screen test
together for Milos Forman for a film he did of the "Les
Liaisons dangereuses" movie. It was a different film from that one, but it was the same story. And I've always thought,
she's just remarkable. And I think that the work
she did in that film, the relationship that
we were able to build, for me, the saddest
part of that success was that she didn't win the Oscar and I felt she should have. - What kind of interesting
direction did you get from Sam Mendes in how you
approach playing Lester in how to take on the different scenes? There's a lot of just
brilliant scenes in that movie. - Well, I'll share with you a story that most people don't know, which is our first two
days of shooting were in Smiley's, the place where I get a job in a fast food place. - [Lex] Yeah, it's a burger joint. Yeah. - And I guess it was
like maybe the third day or the fourth day of
shooting, we'd now done that and I said to Sam, "So
how are the dailies? You know, how do they look?" He goes, "Which ones?" I said, "Well, the first smileys." He goes, "Oh, they're shit." And I went, "Yeah, no, how are they?" He goes, "No, they're shit. I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate the costumes, I hate the location. I hate that you're inside.
I hate the way you acted. I hate everything but the script. So I've gone back to the studio and asked them if we can
reshoot the first two days." And it was like, "Sam, this
is your very first movie. You're going back to Steven Spielberg and saying I need to reshoot
the first two days entirely?" And he went, "Yeah." And that's exactly what we did. A couple of weeks later they decided that it was now a drive-through, because Annette and Peter
Gallagher used to come into the place and
ordered from the counter. Now, Sam had decided it
has to be a drive-through. You have to be in the
window of the drive-through, change the costumes and we
re-shot those first two days. And Sam said it was actually a moment of incredible confidence because he said the worst thing that could possibly
have happened, happened in my first two days. And after that I was like,
I know what I'm doing and I knew I had to reshoot it and it was absolutely right. - And I guess that's what a
great director must do, is have the guts in that moment
to reshoot everything. I mean, that's a pretty gutsy move. - I got two other little things to share with you about Sam, about the way he is. You wouldn't know it but the original script opened
and closed with a trial. Ricky was accused of Lester's murder and the movie was bookended by this trial. - It's a very different movie, - Which they shot the
entire trial for weeks. And I used to fly in my dreams, you know, those opening
shots over the neighborhood. I used to come into those shots in my bathrobe, flying, and
then when I hit the ground and the newspaper was thrown
at me by the newspaper guy and I caught it, the alarm would go off and I wake up in bed. I spent five days being hung by wires and filming these sequences
of flying through my dreams. And Sam said to me, "Yeah, the
flying sequences are all gone and the trial is gone." And I was like, "What? What
are you talking about?" And here's my other little
favorite story about Sam and when we were shooting in the valley, one of those places I flew,
this was an indoor set, Sam said to me in the morning, "Hey, at lunch I just
wanna record a guide track of all the dialogue, all of your narration 'cause they just needed
an editing as a guide." And I said, "Sure." So I remember we came
outside in this hallway where I had a dressing room in this little studio we were in and Sam had like a cassette tape recorder and like a little microphone and we put it on the floor
and he pushed record. And I read the entire narration and I never did it again. That's the narration in the movie, because Sam said when he listened to it, I wasn't trying to do anything. He said, "You had no idea
where these things were going, where they were gonna be placed,
what they were gonna mean. You just read it so innocently,
so purely, so directly that I knew if I brought you into a studio and put headphones on you and had you do it again,
it would change the ease with which you'd done it." And so they just fixed all of the problems that they had with this little cassette. And that is the way I did it and the only time I did it
was in this little hallway. - And once again, a great
performance lies in doing less. The innocence and the purity of Lester. - He knew I would've come into
the studio and fucked it up. - Yeah, what do you think about the notion of beauty that permeates
"American Beauty?" What do you think that
theme is with the roses, with the rose petals, the characters that are living this
mundane existence slowly opening their eyes up to
what is beautiful in life? - See, it's funny, I
don't think of the roses and I don't think of
her body in the poster, and I don't think of those
things as the beauty. I think of the bag. I think that there are things we miss that are right in front of us that are truly beautiful. - The little things, the simple things. - Yeah and in fact, I'll
even tell you something that I always thought was so incredible. When we shot the scenes in the office where Lester worked the job he hated, there was a bulletin
board behind me on a wall. And someone who was watching
a cut or early dailies who was in the marketing department saw that someone had cut out
a little piece of paper and stuck it and it said, "Look closer." And they presented that to Sam as the idea of that could go on the poster. The idea of looking closer
was such a brilliant idea, but I mean, it wasn't in the script, it was just on a wall behind me and someone happened to
zoom in on it and see it and thought that's what
this movie's about. This movie's about taking
the time to look closer. And I think that in
itself is just beautiful. - Mortality also permeates the film. You know, it starts with acknowledging that death is on the way that Lester's time is finite. You ever think about your own death? - Yeah, yeah. - [Lex] Scared of it? - When I was at my lowest
point, yes, it scared me. - What does that fear look like? What's the nature of the fear? What are you afraid of? - That there's no way out. That there's no answer. That nothing makes sense. - See, the interesting thing about Lester is facing the same fear, he seemed to be somehow liberated
and accepted everything and then saw the beauty of it. - Because he got there. He was given the opportunity
to reinvent himself and to try things he'd never tried, to ask questions he'd never asked, to trust his instincts and to become the best version
of himself he could become. And so Dick Van Dyke who has become an
extraordinary friend of mine, Dick is 98 years old, and he says, you know, "If I'd known I was gonna live this long, I would've taken better care of myself." When I spend time with him, I'm just moved by every day. You know, he gets up and he goes, "It's a good day. I woke up." And I learn a lot about... I have a different feeling about death now than I did seven years ago. And I am on the path to
being able to be in a place where I've resolved the
things I needed to resolve and won't probably get to
all of it in my lifetime, but I certainly would like
to be at a place where if I were to drop dead tomorrow, it would've been an amazing life. - So Lester got there. It sounds like Dick Van Dyke got there. You're trying to get there. - Sure. - You said you feared
death at your lowest point. What was the lowest point? - It was November 1st, 2017, and then Thanksgiving
day of that same year. - So let's talk about it. Let's
talk about this dark time. Let's talk about the sexual
allegations against you that led to you being canceled by, well, the entire world
for the last seven years. I would like to personally
understand the sins, the bad things you did, and
the bad things you didn't do. So I also should say that the
thing I hope to do here is to give respect to due process, innocent until proven guilty that the mass hysteria
machine of the internet and clickbait journalism doesn't do. So here's what I understand. They were criminal and civil
trials brought against you, including the one that started it all when Anthony Rapp sued
you for $40 million. In these trials, you were
acquitted, found not guilty, and not liable. Is that right?
- Yes. - I think that's really important, again, in terms of due process. And I read a lot and I watched a lot in preparation
for this, on this point, including, of course, the
recently detailed interviews you did with Dan Wootton and then Allison Pearson of the Telegraph and those are all focused on this topic, and they go in detail
where you respond in detail to many of the allegations. If people are interested in the details, they can listen to those. So based on that, and
everything I looked at, as I understand, you never
prevented anyone from leaving if they wanted to, sort
of in a sexual context, for example, by blocking the door. Is that right? - That's correct. Yeah. - You always respected the
explicit no from people, again in the sexual context. Is that right? - That is correct. - You've never done anything sexual with an underage person, right? - Never. - And also, as it's sometimes done in Hollywood, let me ask this. You've never explicitly offered
to exchange sexual favors for career advancement, correct? - Correct. - In terms of bad
behavior, what did you do? What was the worst of it,
and how often did you do it? - I have heard, and now quite often, that everybody has a Kevin Spacey story and what that tells me is
that I hit on a lot of guys. - How often did you cross the line and what does that mean to you? - I did a lot of horsing
around and a lot of things that at the time I thought
were sort of playful and fun and I have learned since were not. And I have had to recognize
that I crossed some boundaries and I did some things that were wrong, and I made some mistakes and that's in my past. I mean, I've been working so hard over these last seven years to have the conversations
I needed to have, to listen to people, to understand things from
a different perspective than the one that I had and to say, I will never
behave that way again for the rest of my life. - Just to clarify, I think
you are often too pushy with the flirting, and that manifests itself in multiple ways but just to make clear, you never prevented anyone
from leaving if they wanted to. You always took the
explicit no from people as an answer, "No, stop,"
you took that for the answer. You've never done anything
sexual with an underage person, and you've never explicitly offered to exchange sexual favors
for career advancement. These are some of the sort of accusations that have been made. And in the court of law, multiple
times have been shown not to be true. - But I have had a sexual
life and I've fallen in love, and I've been so admiring
of people that... I mean, I'm so romantic. I'm such a romantic person that there's this whole side of me that hasn't been talked
about, isn't being discussed but that's who I know, that's the person I know. It's been very upsetting to hear that some people have said, I mean, I don't have a
violent bone in my body, but to hear people describe things as having been very aggressive is incredibly difficult for me. And I'm deeply sorry that
I ever offended anyone or hurt anyone in any way. It is crushing to me, and
I have to work very hard to show and to prove that I
have learned, I got the memo and I will never, ever, ever
behave in those ways again. - From everything I've
seen in public interactions with you, people love you. Colleagues love you, coworkers love you. There's a flirtatiousness. Another word for that is chemistry. There's a chemistry between
the people you work with. - And by the way, not
to take anything away from my accountability for things I did, where I got it wrong, I crossed the line, I pushed some boundaries. I accept all of that but I live in an industry in which flirtation,
attraction, people meeting in the workspace and ending
up marrying each other and having children and so it is a space and a place where these notions of family,
these notions of attraction, these notions of... It's always complicated if you
meet someone in the workspace and find yourselves
attracted to each other. You have to be mindful of that. And you have to be very mindful that you don't ever want anyone to feel that their job is in jeopardy, or you would punish them in some way if they no longer wanted to be with you. So those are important
things to just acknowledge. - Another complexity to
this, as I've seen, is that there's just a huge number of actors that look up to you, a
huge number of people in the industry that look
up to you and love you. I've seen just from this documentary, just a lot of people just
love being around you, learning from you what it means to create great theater,
great film, great stories. And so that adds to the complexity. I wouldn't say it's a power dynamic like a boss-employee relationship. It's a admiration dynamic that is easy to miss and
easy to take advantage of. Is that something you understand? - Yes, and I also understand
that there are people who met me and spent a very
brief period of time with me, but presume I was now
going to be their mentor and then behaved in a way
that I was unaware of, that they were either
participating or flirting along or encouraging me without
me having any idea that at the end of the day,
they were expecting something. So these are about relationships, and these are about two people. These are about people making decisions, people making choices and I accept my accountability in that. But there are a number of
things that I've been accused of that just simply did not happen. And I can't say, and I don't think it would
be right for me to say, well, you know, everything that's ever been I've
been accused of is true because we've now proved
that it isn't and it wasn't. But I'm perfectly willing to
accept that I had behaviors that were wrong and that
I shouldn't have done and I am regretful for. - I think that's also speaks
to a dark side of fame. The sense I got is that
there are some people, potentially a lot of people
trying to make friends with you in order to get roles, in order to advance their career. So not you using them, but
they trying to use you. What's that like? How do you know if somebody
likes you for you, for Kevin, or likes you for... Like you said you're a
romantic, you see a person and you're like, I like this person, and they seem to like you. How do you know if they like you for you? - Well, to some degree, I
would say that I have been able to trust my instincts on that and now that I've, most
of the time been right. But obviously in the last number of years, not just with people who've accused me, but just also people in
my own industry, you know, to realize that, oh, I
thought we had a friendship, but I guess that was about an inch thick and not what I thought it was. But look, you know, one
shouldn't be surprised by that. I have to also say, you know,
you said a little while ago that the world had canceled me and I have to disagree with you. I have to disagree because for seven years I've been stopped by people, sometimes every day,
sometimes multiple times a day and the conversations
that I have with people, the generosity that they share,
the kindness that they show and how much they wanna know
when I'm getting back to work, tells me that while there
may be a very loud minority, there is a quieter majority. - In the industry, have you been betrayed? In life? And how do you not
let that make you cynical? - I think betrayal is a
really interesting word, but I think if you're going
to be betrayed, it has to be by those who truly know you and I can tell you that
I have not been betrayed. - That's a beautiful way to put it. For the times, you crossed the line, do you take responsibility
for the wrongs you've done? - Yes. - Are you sorry to the people
you may have hurt emotionally? - Yes. And I have spoken to many of them. - [Lex] Privately. - Privately, which is where
amends should be made. - Were they able to start
finding forgiveness? - Absolutely. Some of the most moving
conversations that I have had when I was determined to take accountability
have been those people who have said, "Thank you so much and I think I can forgive you now." - If you got a chance to
talk to the Kevin Spacey of 30 to 40 years ago,
what would you tell him to change about his ways and how would you do it? What would be your approach? Would you be nice about it? Would you smack him around? - I think if I were to go back that far, I probably would've found a way to not have been as concerned
about revealing my sexuality and hiding that for as long as I did. I think that had a lot
to do with confusion and a lot to do with mistrust, both my own and other people's. - For most of your life, you were not open with the public about being gay. What was the hardest thing about keeping who you love a secret? - That I didn't find the
right moment of celebration to be able to share that. - That must be a thing that weighs on you to not be able to fully,
yeah, celebrate your love. - You know, Ian McKellen said,
he was 49 when he came out. 27 years, he'd been a
professional actor being in the closet. And he said he felt it was
like he was living a part of his life not being truthful and that he felt that it affected his work when he did come out, because he no longer felt
like he had anything to hide. And I absolutely believe that that is what my experience has
been and will continue to be. I am sorry about the way I came out, but Evan and I had already
had the conversation. I had already decided to come out. And so it wasn't like, oh,
I was forced to come out, but it was something I decided to do. And by the way, much
against Evan's advice, I came out in that statement and he wishes that I had not done so. - Yeah, you made a statement when the initial accusation happened that could be up there as one of the worst social
media posts of all time. (Kevin chuckles) So it's like two for one. - Don't hold back now. Come on. Really tell me how you feel. - The first part, you kind
of implicitly admitted to doing something bad,
which was later shown and proved completely
to never have happened. It was a lie. - No, I basically said
that I didn't remember what this person,
Anthony Rapp was claiming from 31 years before. I had no memory of it but if it had happened, if this embarrassing moment had happened, then I would owe him an apology. That was what I said. And then I said, and while I'm
at it, I think I'll come out. And, you know, it was definitely not the greatest coming out party ever. I will admit that. - Well, from the public perception, the first part of that... So first of all, the second
part is a horrible way to come out. Yes, we all agree. And then the first part
from the public viewpoint, they see guilt in that which also is tragic because at least that
particular accusation, and it's a very dramatic one, it's a $40 million
lawsuit, it's a big deal and an underage person
was shown to be false. - Well, but you're melding
two things together. The lawsuit didn't happen until 2020 and then it didn't get
to court until 2022. We're back in 2017 when it
was just an accusation he made in Buzzfeed Magazine. Look, I was backed into a corner. When someone says, "You were so drunk, you won't remember this thing happened," what's your first instinct? Is your first instinct to
say, this person's a liar? Or is your first instinct
to go, "What? I was what? 31 years at a party I don't
even remember throwing?" Obviously a lot of investigation
happened after that in which we were then able
to prove in that court case, that it had never occurred. But at the moment, I was sort of being told I couldn't push back, you have to be kind, you can't... I think, you know, even to me
now, none of it sounds right but I don't know that I
could have said anything that would've been
satisfactory to anybody. - Okay, well there is a
almost convincing explanation for the worst social
media post of all time. I almost accept it. - I'm really surprised. I guess you haven't read
a lot of media posts 'cause I can't believe
that's the actual worst one. - It's beautifully bad. That's how bad that social media post is. As you mentioned, Liam Neeson and Sharon Stone came out in support of you recently, speaking
to your character. A lot of people who know you and some of whom I know who have worked with you
privately show support for you, but are afraid to speak up publicly. What do you make of that? I mean, to me personally,
this just makes me sad because it perhaps that's
the nature of the industry that it's difficult to do that but I just wish there would be a little bit
more courage in the world. - I don't think it's about the industry. I think it's about our time. I think it's the time that we're in and people are very afraid. - Just afraid, just a
general fear of (indistinct). - No, they're literally afraid that they're gonna get canceled if they stand up for someone who has been. And I think it's, I mean, you know, we've seen
this many times in history. This is not the first time it's happened. - So as you said, your darkest moment in 2017 when all of this went down, one of the things that
happened is you were no longer in the "House of Cards"
for the last season. Now let's go to the
beginning of that show. - [Kevin] Okay. - One of the greatest
TV series of all time. A dark, fascinating
character in Frank Underwood. A ruthless, cunning,
borderline evil politician. What are some interesting aspects to the process you went through
becoming Frank Underwood? Maybe, "Richard III," there's
a lot of elements there in your performance that may be inspired that character. Is that fair or no? - I'll give you one very
interesting, specific education that I got in doing "Richard III" and closing that show
at BAM in March of 2012 and two months later started
shooting House of Cards. There is something called direct address. In Shakespeare, you have
Hamlet talks to the world but when Shakespeare wrote "Richard III," it was the first time he created something called direct address, which is the character looks directly at each person close by. It is a different kind of sharing than when a character's doing
a monologue opening of "Henry IV." And while there are
some people who believe that direct address was invented in Ferris Bueller, it wasn't. It was Shakespeare who invented it. So I had just had this
experience every night in theaters all over the world,
seeing how people reacted to becoming a co-conspirator, because that's what it's about. And what I tried to do and what Fincher really helped me with in those beginning days was
how to look in that camera and imagine I was talking
to my best friend. - Because you're sharing
the secret of the darkness of how this game is played
with that best friend. - Yeah and there were many times when I suppose the writers
thought I was crazy, where I would see a script and I would see like this moment where this direct address would happen, I'd say all this stuff when we do a read through of the script, I go, "I don't think I
need to say any of that." And they were like, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, the
audience knows all of that. All I have to do is look. They know exactly what's going on. I don't need to say a thing." So I was often cutting dialogue because it just wasn't needed because that relationship
between that I'd learned, that I'd experienced
doing "Richard III" was so extraordinary where I
literally watched people, they were like, oh, I'm in on the thing and this is so awesome and then suddenly, wait,
he killed the kids. He killed those kids in the tower. Oh, maybe it's not so. And you literally would watch them start to reverse their, having
had such a great time with "Richard III" in the
first, you know, three acts and I thought, this is
gonna happen in this show if this intimacy can actually land. And I think just think there
was some brilliant writing and we always attempted
to do it in one take. No matter how long something
was, we would try to do it in one take, the direct addresses. So there was never a cut. When we went out on locations, we started to then find ways to cut it and make it slightly broader. - That's interesting
'cause you're doing a bunch with both "Richard III" and
Frank Underwood, a bunch of dark, borderline, evil things. And then I guess the idea is you're going to be losing the audience and then you win them back
over with the addresses. - That's the remarkable thing
is against their instincts and their better sense of what they should and should not do, they still rallied around Frank Underwood. - And I saw even with the
documentary, the glimmers of that with "Richard III," I mean,
you were seducing the audience. Like there was such a chemistry between you and the audience on stage. Why is that?
- Yeah, well in that production,
that's absolutely true. Also, Richard is one of the weirder, weird, I mean by weird is an
early play of Shakespeare's. And he's basically never off stage. I mean, I remember when we
did the first run through, I had no idea what the next scene was every time I came off stage, I had no idea what was next. They literally had to
drag me from one place to another scene. "Now it's the scene with Hasting. Now it's the scene..." But I now understand
these wonderful stories that you can read in old
books about Shakespeare's time that actors grabbed
Shakespeare around the cuff and punched him and threw him against wall and said, "You ever write
a part like this again, I'm gonna kill you." And that's why in later plays, he started to have a pageant happen,
and then a wedding happen and the main character
was off stage resting because the actor had said,
"You can't do this to us. There's no breaks." And it's true. This very
few breaks in "Richard III." You're on stage most of the time. - The comedic aspect of "Richard
III" and Frank Underwood, is that a component that helps
bring out the full complexity of the darkness that is Frank Underwood? - I certainly can't take credit for Shakespeare having written
something that is funny or Beau Willimon and his team
to have written something that is fundamentally funny. It just depends on how I interpret it. You know, that's one of the great things and why we love... You know, in a year's time, we can see five different Hamlets, we can see four Richard IIIs, we can see two Richard IIs. That's part of the thrill
that we don't own these parts. We borrow them and we interpret them. And what Ian McKellen might do with a role could be
completely different from what I might do because of the way we perceive it. And also very often in
terms of going for humor, it's very often a director will say, why don't you say that
with a bit of irony? Why don't you try that with
a bit of blah blah blah? - Yeah, there's often that
that like a wry smile. The line that jumps to me when you're talking about Claire in the early, maybe first episode even, "I love that woman more
than sharks love blood." I mean, I guess there's a lot
of ways to read that line, but the way you read it had both humor, had legitimate affection, had all the ambition and narcissism, all of that mixed up together. - I also think that one
should just acknowledge that where he was from. There is something that
happens when you do an accent. And in fact, sometimes
when I would say to Beau or one of the other writers,
"This is really good and I love the idea, but it
rhythmically doesn't help. I need at least two more words to rhythmically make
this work in his accent because it just doesn't scan." And that's not, I am a big pentameter. I'm not talking about that. There is that as well in Shakespeare but there was some times when it's too many lines,
it's not enough lines in order for me to make this work for the way he speaks, the way he sounds and what that accent does to emphasis. - How much of that character
in terms of the musicality of the way he speaks is Bill Clinton? - Not really at all. I mean, you know, look, Bill Clinton, he had a way of talking, you
know, that he was very slow and he felt your pain, you know, but Frank Underwood was
a deeper, more direct and less poetic in the way that Clinton would talk. I'll tell you this Clinton
story that you'll like. So we decide to do a performance
of "The Iceman Cometh" for the Democratic Party on Broadway. And the president is gonna come, he's gonna see this four
and a half hour play and then we're gonna do
this event afterward. And I dunno, a couple weeks before we're gonna do this event, someone at the White House calls and says, "Listen, it's very
unusual to get the president for like six and a half hours so we're suggesting
that the president come and see the first act and then he goes." And I knew what was happening. Now, first of all,
Clinton knows this play. He knows what this play's about. And, you know, as gently as I could said, "Well, if the president is thinking of leaving at intermission, then I'm afraid we're gonna
have to cancel the event. There's just no way that..." So anyway, then, "Oh no, it's fine." Now I know what was happening. What was happening was that
someone had read the play and they were quite concerned and I'll tell you why 'cause the play is about this character that I portrayed named Hickey. And in the course of the
play, as things get more and more revealed, you
realize that this man that I'm playing has been a philander and he's cheated on his wife quite a lot. And by the end of the play,
he is arrested and taken off because he ended up ending his wife's life because she forgave him too much and he couldn't live with it. So now imagine this, there's 2000 people at the Brooks Atkinson Theater watching President Clinton watching this play. And at the end of the night
we take our curtain call, they bring out the presidential podium, Bill Clinton stands up there and he says, "Well, I suppose
we should all thank Kevin and this extraordinary company of actors for giving us all saw way
too much to think about." (both laugh) And the audience fell over in laughter. And then he gave a great speech. And I thought that was a
pretty good way to handle that. - Well, in that way, him and Frank Underwood would
share like a charisma. There's certain presidents that just have, politicians that just have this charisma you can't stop listening to them. Some of it is the accent, but some of it's some other magical thing. - When I was starting to do research, I wanted to meet with
the whip, Kevin McCarthy, and he wouldn't meet with me until I called his office back and said, "Tell him
I'm playing a Democrat, and not a Republican," and then he met with me. - [Lex] Nice. - And he was helpful. He
took me to whip meetings. - Politicians. So you worked with David Fincher there. He was the executive producer, but he also directed
the first two episodes. - [Kevin] Yeah. - High level, what was it
like working with him again? In which ways do you
think he helped guide you and the show to become the
great show that it was? - I give him a huge amount of the credit. And not just for what he established, but the fact that every director after stayed within that world. I think that's why the series had a very
consistent feeling to it. It was like watching a very long movie. The style, where the
camera went, what it did, what it didn't do, how we
used this, how we used that, how we didn't do this, there were things that he
laid the foundation for that we managed to maintain pretty much until Beau Willimon left the show and they got rid of Fincher and I was sort of the last man standing in terms of fighting against... Netflix had never had any
creative control at all. We had complete creative control, but over time they started
to get themselves involved because look, this is
what happens to networks. You know, they'd never made
a television show before ever and then four years
later, they were the best. And so, you know, then you're gonna get
suggestions about casting and about writing and
about music and scenes. And so there was a
considerable amount of pushback that I had to do when they
started to get involved in ways that I thought was affecting
the quality of the show. - What were those battles like? I heard that there was
a battle with the execs. Like you mentioned early on
about your name not being on the billing for "Se7en." I heard that there's battles
about the ending of "Se7en," which was really, well, it's pretty dark. So what's that battle like? How often does that happen and
how do you win that battle? Because it feels like there's a line where the networks or the
execs are really afraid of crossing that line into this strange, uncomfortable place. And then the great directors
and great actors kind of flirt with that line. - It can happen in different ways. I mean, I remember one argument we had was we had specifically shot a scene so that there would be
no score in that scene so that there was no music. It was just two people talking. And then we end up seeing a cut where they've decided to put music in. And it is against everything that scene's supposed to be about. And you have to go and say, "Guys, this was intentional.
We did not want a score. And now you've added score because what, you think it's too quiet? You think our audience can't listen to two people talk for
two and a half minutes. If this show has proved anything, it's proved that people have patience and they're willing to
watch an entire season over a weekend." So there are those kind of
arguments that can happen. And you know, they're different arguments on different levels and they sometimes have to do with, I mean look, go back to
"The Godfather," they wanted to fire Pacino 'cause they
didn't see anything happening. They saw nothing happening so
they wanted to fire Pacino. And then finally Coppola
thought, I'll shoot the scene where he kills the police commissioner and they'll do that scene now. And that was the first scene where they went, yeah, actually there's something going on there. So Pacino kept the role. - You think that Godfather
is when Pacino was like the Pacino we know was born? Or is that more like just the character that really over the top
in "Scent of a Woman?" There's like stages, I suppose. - Yeah, of course. Look, I think that we can't forget that Pacino is also an
animal of the theater. You know, he does a lot of plays and he started off doing plays and, you know, movies were, you know, "The Panic in Needle Park" was his first. And yeah, I think that period of time when he was doing some incredible
parts, incredible movies. When I did a series called
"Wise Guy," I got cast on a Thursday and I flew up
to Vancouver on a Saturday and I started shooting on Monday. And all I had time to do was watch "The
Godfather" and "Serpico" and then I went to work. - Would you say, ridiculous question, Godfather, greatest film of all time? Gun to your head. - Certainly, yes. But also, look, I'm allowed
to change my opinion. I can next week say it's
"Lawrence of Arabia" or a week after that, I can
say "Sullivan's Travels." I mean that's the wonderful
thing about movies and particularly great movies,
is when you see them again, it's like seeing them for the first time And you pick up things that
you didn't see the last time. - And for that day you fall
in love with that movie, you might even say to a friend that that is the
greatest movie of all time. - And also I think it's the degree with which directors are daring. I mean, Kubrick decided to cast one actor to play three major roles
in "Dr. Strangelove." I mean, who has the
balls to do that today? - I was gonna mention when
we were talking about "Se7en" that if you're looking at the greatest performances,
portrayals of murderers, so obviously, like I mentioned Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of
the Lambs," that's up there. "Se7en" to me is like competing for first place with
"Silence of the Lambs." But then there's a different one with Kubrick and Jack Nicholson, right? "The Shining." And there, as opposed to a murderer who's always been a murderer, here's a person like an "American
Beauty" who becomes that, who descends into madness. I read also that Jack Nicholson
improvised, "Here's Johnny" in that scene. - I believe that. - That's a very different performance than yours in "Se7en." What do you make of that performance? - Nicholson's always been
such an incredible actor because he has absolutely no shame about being demonstrative and over the top and he also has no
problem playing characters who are deeply flawed and
he's interested in that. I have a pretty good
Nicholson story though that nobody knows. - You also have a pretty
good Nicholson impression, but what's the story? - The story was told to me by
a sound man, Dennis Maitland, who's a great, great, great guy. He said he was very excited because he got on "Prizzi's Honor," which was Jack Nicholson,
Anjelica Houston, directed by John Huston. And he said, "I was so excited. It was my first day on the movie, and I get told to go into
Mr. Nicholson's trailer and mic him up for the first scene. So I knock on the trailer door and I hear, 'Yes,' and, 'Come on in.' And I come inside and Mr.
Nicholson is changing out of his regular clothes and he's gonna put on his costume. And so I'm setting up the
mic and I'm getting ready and I said to Mr. Nicholson, 'I just wanted to tell
you I'm extremely excited to be working with you again. It's a great pleasure.'" And Jack goes, "Did we
work together before?" And he says, "Yes, we did." And he said, "What film
did we do together?" He says, "We did 'Missouri Breaks.'" Nicholson goes, "Oh my
God, 'Missouri Breaks.' Jesus Christ, we were out
of our minds on that film. Holy shit, Jesus Christ. It's a wonder I'm alive. My God, there was so much drugs going on and we were stoned out of our minds. Holy shit." And just then he folds the pants that he's just taken off over his arm and eighth of coke drops out on the floor. (Lex laughs) Dennis looks at it, Nicholson looks at it, Jack goes, "Haven't worn these pants since 'Missouri Breaks.'" (Lex laughs) - Man, I love that guy.
Unapologetically himself. - Oh yeah. - Your impression of him, like at the AFI, it was just great. - [Kevin] Well, that was for Mike Nichols. - [Lex] Oh yeah, he had a
big impact in your career. Huge, really important.
- [Kevin] Right. - Can you talk about him? Like what role did he play in your life? - I think it was, yeah, it was 1984. I went into audition for the national tour of a play called "The Real Thing," which Jeremy Irons and Glenn
Close were doing on Broadway that Mr. Nichols had directed. So I went in to read for this character, Brodie, who was a Scottish character. And I did the audition and Mike Nichols comes down
the aisle of the theater and he's asking me questions about where'd you go to school and
what have you been doing? I just come back from
doing a bunch of years of regional theater and different theaters so I was in New York and meeting Mike Nichols
was just incredible. So Mr. Nichols went, "Have you seen the other play that I directed up the
block called 'Hurlyburly?'" And I said, "No, I haven't." He says, "Why not?" I said, "I can't afford
a Broadway ticket." He said, "We can arrange that. I'd like you to go see that play and then I'd like you to come in next week and audition for that." And I was like, "Oh, okay." So I went to see "Hurlyburly." William Hurt, Harvey Keitel, Chris Walken, Candace Bergen,
Cynthia Nixon, Jerry Stiller, and I watched this play. It's a David Rabe play about Hollywood. This is crazy. I mean, Bill Hurt was like unbelievable. And it was extraordinary,
Chris Walken, these guys. So Harvey Keitel, Walken came in later, Harvey Keitel is playing this part. And I come in and I audition for it and Nichols says, "I want you to understudy Harvey Keitel. I want you to understudy Phil." And I'm like, "Phil?" I mean, Harvey you could
tell is like in his forties. He looks like he can beat the shit out of everybody on stage. I'm this like 24-year-old. And Nichols said, "It's
all about attitude. If you believe you can beat the shit out of everybody on stage,
the audience will too." I said, "Okay." So I then started to learn Phil. And the way it works when
you're in understudy, unless you're a name, they
don't let you rehearse on the stage. You just rehearse in a rehearsal room. But I used to sneak onto
the stage and rehearse and try to figure out where
the props were and yada yada. Anyway, one day I get a call, "You're going on today as Phil," so I went on. Nichols is told by Peter Lawrence, who's the stage manager,
"Spacey's going on as Phil." So Nichols comes down and watches the second act. Comes backstage, he says,
"That was really good. How soon could you learn Mickey?" Mickey was the role that
Ron Silver was playing that Chris Walken also played. I said, "I don't know,
maybe a couple weeks." He goes, "Learn Mickey too." So I learned Mickey, and then one day, I'm told, "You're going on tomorrow
night as Mickey." Nichols comes, sees the second
act, comes backstage, says, "That was really good. I
mean, that was really funny. How soon can you learn Eddie?" And so I became like the
pinch hitter on "Hurlyburly." I learned all the male parts,
including Jerry Stiller's, although I never went on
as Jerry Stiller's part. And then I left the play and I guess about two months
later, I get this phone call from Mike Nichols. He's like, "Kevin, how are you?" And I'm like, "I'm fine.
What can I do for you?" He says, "Well, I'm gonna
make a film this summer with Mandy and Meryl, and there's a role I'd like you to come in and audition for." So I went in, auditioned, cast me as this mugger on a subway. Then there's this whole
upheaval that happens because he then doesn't
continue with Mandy Patinkin. Mandy leaves the movie
and he asks Jack Nicholson to come in and replace Mandy Patinkin. So now I had no scenes with him, but I'm in a movie with Jack
Nicholson and Meryl Streep and my first scene in this movie, which I shot on my
birthday July 26th of '85, I got to wink at Meryl
Streep in this scene. And I was so nervous, I
literally couldn't wink. Nichols had to like calm
me down and help me wink. But that became my very first film. And he was incredible and he let me come and watch when they were shooting
scenes I wasn't in. And I remember ending up one
day in the makeup trailer on the same day we were
working Jack and me, we had no scene together,
but I remember him coming in and they put him down in the chair and they put cucumbers,
frozen cucumbers on his eyes and did his neck and then they raised
him up and did his face and then I remember
Nicholson went like this, looked in the mirror and he went, "Another day, another $50,000," and walked outta the trailer. - What was Christopher Walken like? He's a theater guy too. - Oh yeah, he started out
as a cours boy, dancer. - Well, I could see that.
- Yeah. - The guy knows how to move.
- Well, it was fun. I've known Walken a long time and I did a Saturday Night Live where we did these Star Wars auditions. So I did Chris Walken as Hans Solo.
- So good. - And I'll never forget this. I was in Los Angeles
about two weeks after, and I was at Chateau Marmont. There's some party
happening at Chateau Marmont and I saw Chris Walken
come out onto the balcony and I was like, "Oh, it's Chris Walken." And he walked up to it and he went, "Kevin, I saw your little sketch. It was funny. Ha ha." - Oh man, it was a really good sketch. And that guy, there are certain people that are truly unique and unapologetic, continue being that
throughout their whole career, the way they talk, the
musicality of how they talk, how they are, their
way of being, he's that and it somehow works. - His watch. - I mean, he works in so
many different contexts. He plays like a mobster in "True Romance" and it's like genius. That's genius but he could be anything. He could be soft, he could
be a badass, all of it and he's always Christopher Walken, but somehow works for all
these different characters. So I guess we were talking about "House of Cards" like two hours ago before we took a tangent upon a tangent, but there's a moment in episode one where President Walker broke
his promise to Frank Underwood that he would make him
a secretary of state. Was this when the monster
in Frank was born, or was the monster always there? Sort of, for you, looking
at that character, was there an idealistic notion to him that there's
loyalty and that broken? Or did he always know that this whole world
is about manipulation and do anything to get power? - Well, I mean, it might've been the first moment an audience
saw him be betrayed, but it certainly was not the first betrayal he'd experienced. And once you start to get to know him and learn about his life
and learn about his father, and learn about his, you know, friends and learn about their relationship and learn what he was
like, even as a cadet, I think you start to
realize that this is a man who has very strong beliefs about loyalty. And so it wasn't the first, it was just the first moment that in terms of the storyline
that's being built. Knight Takes King was the name
of our production company. - Yeah, what do you think motivated him at that moment and throughout the show? Was it all about power and also legacy? Or was there some small
part underneath it all where he wanted to actually
do good in the world? - No, I think power is an afterthought. What he loved more than
anything was being able to predict how human beings would react. He was a behavioral psychologist and he could know, like
he was 17 moves ahead in the chess game. He could know if he did
this at this moment, that eventually this would happen. He was able to be predictive
and was usually right. He knew just how far he
needed to push someone to get them to do what
he needed them to do in order to make the next step work. - You've played a bunch
of evil characters. - Well, you call 'em evil. But the reason I say that, and I don't mean to be snarky about it, but the reason I say it that way is because I never judge the people I play. And the people that I have played or that any actor has played don't necessarily view
themselves as this label. It's easy to say, but that's not the way I can think. I cannot judge a character I
play and then play them well. I have to be free of judgment. I have to just play them and let the cards drop where they may, and let an audience judge. I mean, the fact that you use
that word is perfectly fine. That's your, you know... But it's like people asking me, you know, "Was I really from "CapEx or not?' You know, it just entirely
depends on your perspective. - Do roles like that, like "Se7en," like Frank Underwood, like Lester from "American Beauty," do they change you
psychologically as a person? So walking around in the
skin of these characters, these complex characters with very different moral systems. - I absolutely believe
that wandering around in someone else's ideas,
in someone else's clothes, in someone else's shoes
teaches you enormous empathy. And that goes to the heart of not judging. And I have found that I
have been so moved by, I mean, look, yes, you've
identified the darker characters, but I play Clarence Darrow three times. I've played a play
called National Anthems. I've done movies like "Recount." I've done films like "The Ref." I've done films that in which that doesn't exist in any of those characters, those qualities.
- [Lex] "Pay It Forward." - "Pay It Forward." And so it is incredible to be able to embrace those things that I admire and that are like me and those things that I don't
admire and aren't like me, but I have to put them on an equal footing and say, I have to just
play them as best I can and not decide to wield judgment over them. - [Lex] Without judgment. - Without judgment. - In "Gulag Archipelago," Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
famously writes about the line between good and evil, and that it runs through
the heart of every man. So the full paragraph there, when he talks about the line, "During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place. Sometimes it is squeezed
one way by exuberant evil, and sometimes it shifts
to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under
various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times, he's close to being a devil, at times to sainthood, but his name doesn't change. And to that name we ascribe
the whole lot, good and evil." What do you think about this note that we're all capable of good and evil, and throughout life, that line moves and shifts throughout the
day, throughout every hour? - Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I've been focused on
very succinctly is the idea that every day is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to make better decisions, to learn and to grow. And I also think that, look, I grew up not knowing
if my parents loved me, particularly my father. I never had a sense that I was loved and that stayed with me my whole life. And when I think back at who my father was and more succinctly who he became, it was a gradual and slow and sad development. When I've gone back, and now I've looked at
diaries my father kept, and albums he kept, particularly when he was a medic in the US army, served our country with distinction. When the war was over and they went to Germany,
the things my father said, the things that he wrote, the
things that he believed were as patriotic as any American
soldier who had ever served. But then when he came back to America and he had a dream of being a journalist, or his big hope was that he was gonna be the
great American novelist. He wanted to be a creative novelist and so he sat in his office and he wrote for 45 years and never published anything. And somewhere along the way, in order to make money, he became what they call a
technical procedure writer which the best way to describe that is that if you built the F-16 aircraft, my father would've written the manual to tell you how to do it. I mean, as boring, as technical, as tedious as you can imagine. And so somewhere in the sixties and into the seventies, my father fell in with groups of people and individuals, pretend intellectuals, who started to give him reasons why he was not successful as a white Aryan man in the United States. And over time, my father
became a white supremacist. And I cannot tell you the amount of times as a young boy that my
father would sit me down and lecture me for hours and hours and hours about his fucked up ideas of America, of prejudice,
of white supremacy. And thank God for my sister who said, "Don't listen to a thing he says. He's out of his mind." And even though I was young, I knew everything he was
saying was against people and I loved people. I had so many wonderful friends. My best friend Mike, who is still my close friend to this day, I was afraid to bring him to my house because I was afraid that my father would
find out he was Jewish or that my father would
leave his office door open and someone would see his Nazi flag or his pictures of Hitler or Nazi books or what he might say. So when I found theater in the eighth grade and debate club and choir
and festivals and plays and everything I could
do to participate in that wouldn't make me have
to come back home, I did. I've had to reconcile who he became, because the gap between that man who was in the US Army as a medic and the man he became, I
could never fill that gap, but I've forgiven him. But then at the same time,
I've had to look at my mother and say, she made excuses for him. "Oh, he just needs to
get it off his chest. Oh, it doesn't matter. Just let him say." So while on the outside, I would say, oh yeah, my mother loved me, but she didn't protect me. So was all the stuff that she expressed and all of the attention and all the love that I felt, was that because I became successful and I was able to fulfill an emptiness that she'd lived with
her whole life with him? I don't know but I've had to ask myself those questions over these last years, to try to reconcile that for myself. - And the thing you wanted from them and for them is less hate and more love. Did your dad say he loves you? - I don't have any memory of that. I was in a program and they were showing us an experiment that they'd done with psychologists and mothers and fathers and their children and the children were
anywhere between six months and a year sitting in a little crib. And the exercise was this. Parents are playing with
the baby right there, toys, yada yada, baby's laughing and then the psychologist
would say, "Stop" and the parent would go like this. And you would then watch for the next two and a half,
three minutes this child trying to get their parents' attention in any possible way. And I remember when I was sitting in this theater watching this, I saw myself. That was me screaming and reaching out and trying to get my parents' attention. That was me. And that was not something
I'd ever remembered before, but I knew what that
baby was going through. - Is there some elements of politics and maybe the private sector that are captured by by
the "House of Cards?" Like how true to life do you think that is from everything you've
seen about politics, from everything you've
seen about the politicians of this particular elections? - I heard so many different reactions from politicians about "House of Cards.' Some would say, "Oh, it's
not like that at all." And then others would say, "It's closer to the truth
than anyone wants to admit," and I think I fall down
on the side of that idea. - I have to interview some world leaders, some big politicians. In your understanding of trying
to become Frank Underwood, what advice would you give in
interviewing Frank Underwood? (both laugh) How to get him to say
anything that's at all honest. - Well, in Frank's case, all
you have to do is tell him to look into the camera
and he'll tell you. He'll tell you what you wanna hear.
- That's your secret. Unfortunately, we don't get that look into the mind of a person the way we do with Frank Underwood in real life, sadly. - Well, but you could. Say to somebody, you like
the series, "House of Cards." You know, I'd love for you
to just look into the camera and tell us what's really going on, what you really feel
about blah, blah, blah. - That's a good technique. I'll try that with
Zelenskyy and with Putin. What do you hope your
legacy as an actor is and as a human being? - People ask me now, what's your favorite
performance you've ever given? And my answer is, I haven't given it yet. So there's a lot more that I wanna be challenged
by, be inspired by. There's a lot that I don't know. There's a lot I have to learn and that is very exciting
place to feel that I'm in. You know, it's been interesting 'cause, you know, we're
going back, we're talking and, you know, it's nice to
go back every now and then, but I'm focused on what's next. - Do you hope the world forgives you? - People go to church
every week to be forgiven, and I believe that forgiveness, and I believe that redemption
are beautiful things. I mean, look, don't forget,
I live in an industry in which there is a tremendous amount of conversation about
redemption from a lot of people who are very serious people
in very serious positions, who believe in it. I mean, that guy finally got outta prison that was wrongly accused, that guy who served his
time and got out of prison. We see so many people saying, "Let's find a path for that person. Let's help that person rejoin society." But there is an odd situation if you're in the entertainment industry, you're not offered that kind of a path. And I hope that the fear that people are experiencing
will eventually subside and common sense will
get back to the table. - If it does, do you think you have another Oscar worthy performance in you? - Listen, if it would
piss off Jack Lemmon again for me to win a third time,
I absolutely think so, yeah. - Well, you have to mention him again. You know, Ernest Hemingway once said that the world is a fine
place and worth fighting for, and I agree with him on both counts. Kevin, thank you so
much for talking today. - Thank you. - Thanks for listening to this conversation with Kevin Spacey. To support this podcast,
please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with
some words from Meryl Streep. "Acting is not about
being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different and then finding myself in there." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.