14 DAY TRIAL // Kevin Spacey is one of the most appreciated and highly paid actors in both TV and film but, thanks to his having moved to London over a decade ago, he manages to keep his private life separate from his work. It is perhaps this that still makes the Enquirer 1997 cover story alleging that he is gay still a hot topic today.
For those that don’t remember or have never heard, Esquire journalist Tom Junod wrote in the 1997 cover story of Spacey that everyone in his circle of friends in New York and even his own mother knew that he was gay.
The piece used rumor as fact to insinuate that this was the reason why Spacey was so media-shy and so adamant that people only asked him questions about his work in interviews. Spacey’s reaction to the story when it came out was to call it a witch hunt. His talent agency instructed all their famous clients to stop collaborating with the magazine in the future.
Even though that was many years ago, the actor is still not over the offense that was done to him. Neither is he any more ready to talk about his personal life, as his new interview with The Hollywood Reporter confirms.
The piece describes the actor as a very affable man, if somewhat startling through his unpredictability, who “shuts off” the moment he’s asked a more personal question. Spacey might be famous for his acting jobs but he clearly has no intention of becoming a celebrity, drawing the line at how much of his real life gets out in the press.
“Let's let people live their lives and do it the way they want to do it. All the chips will fall in the end, and we'll all be judged by a much higher power than Entertainment Weekly can,” Spacey says. And, with that, the topic is off the table.
You have to admire men and women who are in showbiz and still manage to keep their personal lives private, as they were always meant to be. In an age in which social media is bringing everyone closer and in which music, film and TV shows are plugged through interviews on personal topics, professionals like Spacey are rare.
He, very much like Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale and January Jones, to name just three that come to mind, considers that good acting ultimately means making audiences believe that the acted characters are real, and you obviously can get that if you have every little detail about you out there in the press or online. If you do do that and you sell out this piece of yourself, audiences will never be able to believe your character because they will be thinking about you all the time.
DiCaprio once called his reticence to oversharing, keeping himself a “blank canvas,” on which he can paint whichever character he wants. Spacey clearly knows the power of said canvas, because it’s made him one of the most respected actors on the scene.
It goes without saying that, if you’re a fan of this brilliant thespian, the full THR piece is a must-read.