Who's ready to work with Kevin Spacey?
Kate Wilson and Jason P. Frank consider whether the acquitted actor will be welcomed back in the world of film
Last week, Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of nine charges against him involving four men.
The Oscar winner has been out of the public eye since he was first accused of sexual misconduct back in 2017. Since then, more than 30 people have come forward to accuse Spacey of inappropriate sexual behaviour dating back to the 1980s.
This verdict marks the second time he's been legally cleared of wrongdoing, following a civil case from 2022 that also ruled in his favour. Now, he's talking about getting back to work.
Vulture culture critic Jason P. Frank and film producer Kate Wilson join guest host Amil Niazi to talk about what Kevin Spacey's comeback could look like, and what the film industry has — or hasn't — learned from the saga.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.
Amil: Jason, it's been six years since these allegations came out. I remember the reaction professionally was very swift. He lost his starring role on House of Cards and other big movies. But now he's been cleared in two separate trials. What impact if any are these going to have on his reputation in Hollywood?
Jason: I mean, he's been out of the limelight for a really long time now; six years is a really long time to be away from Hollywood. I'm curious if there are directors, if there are casting people, if there are producers who are excited to work with him anymore. They haven't worked with him in a while. I think there is a grossness around Kevin Spacey right now that maybe hasn't even affected some of his peers who have been accused of sexual assaults. What you want to attribute that to is up to you, but I don't think his reputation is necessarily unsullied, even though he has been acquitted of all of his crimes.
Amil: Kate, you're in London where he was just acquitted. What were your thoughts on this trial?
Kate: I think it's important to remember that this is a criminal trial. That jury found that they could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That's very different from whether or not they think, as a civil trial would on the balance of probability, that he was guilty of these behaviours. What we have to do as an industry and as a society is figure out what our burden of proof is. Do we need people to be held to the criminal standard in order for them to not get jobs and not have the type of opportunities Kevin Spacey's had? I think as an industry, we need to set a standard that sets a really high expectation of these people that have absolutely huge influence over the entirety of society. So until we set that standard, it's going to be very hard for us to enforce consequences when people fall beneath that standard. But in my opinion, it should be a very high standard. The fact that he's been found criminally non-liable for these behaviours is neither here nor there. We shouldn't let that distract us.
Amil: Right. It's complicated because some people would say, "If I'm found innocent, then I should be allowed back to work." But you raise a really interesting point. Last month before the trial, Kevin Spacey gave an interview to a German magazine where he said, "In ten years, this trial won't mean anything. My work will live longer than I will, and that's what will be remembered. There are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London." Jason, he seems pretty emphatic that he will work again, but who do you think he's talking about there? Who are these people that are lining up to work with Kevin Spacey?
Jason: Well, he's already been working in Europe throughout these trials, so if I were to predict, I would imagine that they are based in Europe. I don't think that there are American directors who are particularly excited about working with him. I think he still has the stench of this. I also think it's worth noting that terribly and horribly, he came out as a way of defending himself against these sexual assault allegations when they first came out, when Anthony Rapp first came forward — which is a terrible, horrible thing to do, and associates queerness with sexual assault. That makes my skin crawl.
But I also think it's worth noting that he's come out now, and there aren't actors, really, of Kevin Spacey's stature who are gay in America, who are American. That doesn't really happen. So do I think that that is also affecting this? I have to imagine it would be. There's a grossness around him with sexual assault, and then a continued grossness around him sexually with his — well, I don't want to call it queerness, but his homosexuality — that I think is also there, that will be affecting American directors as well. I think that those combined perceptions of him are going to make it very, very difficult for him to work in Hollywood, and I think that's a good thing.
Kate: I totally agree with everything you're saying, Jason…. But I think in terms of where he works, he has already made a film in the U.K. He has been working during this process. Let's not forget that he was actually working on All the Money in the World when this all hit; he was then removed from All the Money in the World before that was released. And I think it's worth noting that a Johnny Depp film opened the Cannes Film Festival this year. Venice is coming up. We have films from Luc Besson. We have a film from Roman Polanski.… Polanski entered into a plea agreement and is guilty of the crime of sexual intercourse with a minor. However, Luc Besson was not found guilty. Johnny Depp was not found guilty in a criminal sense.
European filmmakers, producers and financiers are still employing these directors — so there will be opportunities for him to work, absolutely. It is whether or not those kinds of Hollywood blockbusters would take the risk with him. And what I would say to that is, when we talk about the standard and the idea of innocence when proven guilty: from a civil standard, we mustn't create negligent places of work where people are at risk. And if there is any foreseeable risk of harm to people working on a production with Kevin Spacey, we must take steps to make sure that people are safe.
Amil: I want to talk about the European film industry for a second, because as you mentioned, people like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Johnny Depp may be out of the North American spotlight, but they are finding steady work across the pond, so to speak. Kate, what's different about the industry there than in North America?
Kate: I think we can go from the micro-individual experience to the macro here, in so far as on a micro level, there is more of a culture of the "auteur" within Europe. And so the individual that has the huge talent, that can kind of do no wrong, is much more — particularly within the field of cinema — highly regarded. And there is less of a problem separating the art from the artist in European culture than there is in the U.S., which has much more of an evolving culture and moves much more quickly in terms of … what's acceptable.
I think from a macro perspective, a lot of that has to do with the youth of North America and the fact that [the United States is] a young country. There isn't this kind of inherited wealth of history that kind of propels these decisions and propels culture forwards, where many, many of the people within the historic context — say, particularly of France — are not great people, but they're revered people nonetheless. There's no problem within European culture continuing to revere someone who's behaved poorly.
Jason: What I'd add here is that Hollywood as a system is extremely capitalist; it's extremely money-focused. The minute that the perception becomes something that could make the film a liability, it becomes much more likely that they will kick someone out. Harvey Weinstein was an open secret in Hollywood for years and years, and they didn't care. But the minute the allegations came out and his presence was going to be a liability to these films financially, that's when they got rid of him. And so I would say that Hollywood, because it's so capitalist, sees these people as potential liabilities.
Ezra Miller's The Flash came out earlier this year, and they have obviously been accused of terrible things, including assault. But the potentiality for money was still so large that they released the film anyway. But I don't think Ezra Miller will be featured in more Hollywood films going forward…. So anything that is going to potentially make more money, even if it means releasing something that has a sexual abuser's name on it, they will do. But I also think that because they don't have this separating-the-art-from-the-artist-type perspective, necessarily, as much as Europe does, they only care about the perception of popular culture.
Kate: That's really, really interesting. I would totally agree. In Hollywood, film is a purely commercial medium. In the U.K. we have a subsidized film sector, so it kind of sits in the middle ground versus France, for example, [where it] is a very heavily subsidized cultural medium. And so when you see these auteurs that are behaving badly, it's kind of the romanticization of that artist that sits outside of the norm. You want them to be the exception to the rule; you want them to behave in a way that's not okay with the social mores of the day, because that's how they'll make great art. You've got Picasso as the huge example of the greatest artist who behaved terribly towards everybody who was in his purview — and that's part of what puts him in that pantheon of the greatest artists, is his bad behaviour.
You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel produced by Stuart Berman.
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