Kevin Spacey interview: The British ask me ‘when are you going back to work? This has gone too far’

Kevin Spacey has accused money men of blocking his acting career in the face of public support, in his first newspaper interview since being cleared of all wrongdoing by the courts.

Spacey, considered one of the finest actors of his generation, also questions why the film industry’s liberal elite continue to turn their backs on him. He says it is an oddity that only people with Right-wing views have “shown me enormous support”, six years after being effectively cancelled.

Two-time Oscar winner Spacey accuses Channel 4 of launching an unfair attack with Spacey Unmasked, a new two-part documentary. Publicity around the documentary has threatened to derail new projects with which he has been involved.

The actor, who spent a decade running the Old Vic theatre in London, accuses the channel of “despicable” behaviour in not giving him enough time to respond to allegations.

He has since unearthed email exchanges with an actor on his hit show House of Cards, whom he was alleged to have “inappropriately touched”.

The actor – who gave his name only as Daniel and appeared in one episode of the documentary – said of the experience: “It felt like I was staring at a soulless monster.” But in 2016, two years later, he sent Spacey topless photographs of himself in response to a request from the star.

Spacey also hints that he would like to revive his most famous television character, Frank Underwood, the fictional US president in House of Cards, from which the actor was sacked after allegations were first levelled against him.

Speaking via video link from his home in Baltimore, Spacey, 64, tells The Telegraph:  “There is no doubt this has been a challenging couple of weeks, but I am incredibly excited about a number of projects I would be so honoured to bring to life.

“I have been so pleased directors, producers and fellow actors have absolutely said ‘yes’ – but someone in some office in some distribution company or network has said ‘no, we can’t buy a film with Kevin Spacey in it’.

“An individual I have never met is deciding for the public – except in a couple of cases – that some people might be upset. You can Google anybody’s name and somebody will have a problem with them.”

He questions why Channel 4 aired its documentary, which was screened over two nights this week and contained lurid allegations about his behaviour.

Spacey says: “I do think the British public are more mature than Channel 4, and I believe every time I have come back to London we are stopped by so many people who are so kind and say such generous things. And if there was a theme to what they are talking about it is this: ‘When are you going back to work? This has gone too far.’”

He suggests he is learning from past mistakes but also points out he is well aware that standards of acceptable behaviour have changed in recent years.

“They are acting like I didn’t get the memo,” says Spacey, who won Oscars for American Beauty and The Usual Suspects. “But I got the memo for some of my fooling around, jokes and innuendos. In the context of a play or a film set, everybody is laughing and having a great time. Are they only laughing because it’s me?

“Of course I got the memo for things that were normal or commonplace, and one has to appreciate society has changed.”

Spacey’s comments raise questions about cancel culture, with the actor mostly unable to work for seven years after Anthony Rapp alleged that he had made an unwanted sexual advance towards him when he was 14 and they were starring in a Broadway play.

In 2022, a jury in a New York court sided with Spacey and concluded that he had not sexually abused Rapp, throwing out a civil lawsuit that had sought $40 million in damages.

Spacey was also found not guilty, in a London criminal court last summer, of sex assault allegations a year after he was charged.

He questions Channel 4’s decision to make its documentary, given that he was cleared. “With respect to Channel 4’s decision to do this, it is clear in 2022 they thought I am going to be guilty and will be in jail. But then of course something happened on the way to the forum and I was found not guilty and they thought ‘what are we going to do?’,” he says.

He says the documentary makers then “changed tack” and decided that “it’s important to have a conversation about your inappropriate behaviour”, adding: “Even they have claimed none of it is criminal. They gave us no fair amount of time to investigate [these latest claims].

“For some of these, I don’t even know if I was in the country. That is disappointing. They have tried to turn it into something. It is despicable journalism.”

He says he was given seven days’ notice, which he argues was inadequate time to mount a defence against claims including one going back to when he was a teenager in high school.

“If we had only been given seven days before the [criminal] trial started, I wouldn’t have been able to find the information we found as evidence and facts that the jury listened to and immediately made their decision [to find him not guilty],” he says.“I can only say to you that the seven days we were given we have already found things in the limited time I have to look at the claims.”

By way of example, at his trial, Spacey was accused of molesting another man on an occasion when he was able to prove that he had not been in the UK.

Spacey has had a number of acting offers, but his team has said some of those may now be in jeopardy as a consequence of the documentary. The actor is now able to talk more freely, having been advised by lawyers not to speak publicly outside court appearances. For the first time in seven years, he can talk to the press.

He has done a lot of soul-searching in those seven years. “I have been working on myself on an awful lot of personal work and things I was never comfortable talking about,” he explains. “I’ve asked myself questions, having had an opportunity to gain insight in a way I had never had before.

“It is my intention and my belief I will come out the other side more compassionate and more loving and a better human being than I was when this all started.

“I have been talking to a lot of people who reached out. They said it was like seeing a weight come off my shoulders. They were gratified to see me so open and honest. I will be waking up every day to make sure I am putting forward the best version of myself that is possible, every single day.”

He shies away from blaming the Metropolitan Police and prosecutors for bringing charges. Jurors at the end of his London trial had shaken the hand of Evan Lowenstein, his manager, before being introduced to Spacey – an almost unheard-of spectacle in a British court.

“I have responded to things that have come and I have done it as professionally as I possibly can. I have not blamed anyone,” says Spacey.

“I cannot tell you what their [the police’s] motivations were. I was very happy to go into a courtroom and prove my innocence. I don’t think the world is out to get me. I think there are specific individuals operating in a world of fear who have reached conclusions about who I am as a human being. I have learned. I am pleased I have so many friends, so many colleagues who are supporting me.”

Spacey declines to discuss the roles he is being offered – “I don’t want to be in a position of announcing something I am doing” – but says he believes he can get his acting career back on track.

“People will have their own decisions to make,” he adds. “I am clearly pleased we have been getting the kind of offers we have been getting, and I believe those offers will continue.”

He has put a brave face on the missed years of a stellar career, grateful to his friend Douglas Murray, the author and conservative political commentator, who had invited him to an Oxford lecture on cancel culture at which Spacey performed a five-minute scene from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. “I loved it and felt honoured to be there,” he says.

He has made a handful of films since allegations first surfaced, including a low-budget British movie in which he had a voice-only role.

But he insists he was not short of things to do while in exile. “I have worked on lots of things and I have not been sitting idly, and I have not allowed myself to feel sorry for myself,” he says. “I am trying to bring logic back to the table.”

He wonders why the film industry was not more welcoming, saying: “I find it confusing that I am in an industry in which a great number of its most celebrated individuals spend a tremendous amount of time talking about how important redemption is and extend a remarkable path for people who served in prison and did their time.

“We see so many people talk with so much empathy about how these individuals should be given a path back, and isn’t it ironic and strange that the same path doesn’t seem available if you are in the industry itself. I don’t know what the liberals have done. But the people on the Right have shown me an enormous amount of support and offered me that path. Maybe somebody on the Left could write a really interesting expose of all this.”

He is doing community work in Baltimore – he is not obliged to say what – but adds: “I have always been somebody who has been attracted to helping other people, and will continue to do that for the rest of my days. I am not going to tell you [what that is].”

On bringing back his scheming House of Cards president, Spacey won’t rule it out. “All I can say is a lot of people who have stopped us in the street really hope Frank Underwood comes back one day,” he says.

And with that, the video link is switched off and Kevin Spacey disappears from view.