Two rooms, two atmospheres. Three months after being found not guilty in London of the sexual assaults of four young men who testified against him, comedian Kevin Spacey, star of House of Cards, is making a contrasting return to the forefront.
The actor was due to make his comeback to the cinema with a new film, Control, a thriller about the secret relationship between a British Minister of the Interior and a Prime Minister. The premiere of this feature film by Gene Fallaize, in which Kevin Spacey plays a small role, has just been canceled by a London cinema. The team, which discovered the actor’s name in the credits, said it was “scandalized” by his presence in the film, reports BFMTV.
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“Last night we learned that your film stars Kevin Spacey, and that it is his first film since his trial. My team and I are scandalized that our names appear alongside him at this event,” explained Greg Lynn, director of the Prince Charles cinema in London, where the screening was to take place.
At the same time, Kevin Spacey is still adored in England. After this “censorship” denounced by the actor’s lawyer, the screening was rescheduled in less than 24 hours in another London cinema in November.
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Even more, the actor received a long standing ovation on Monday October 16 during a conference at the University of Oxford, reports The Independent. Spacey was invited to play a few minutes of Shakespeare during an evening dedicated to “cancel culture” (or “cancel culture”, the act of boycotting personalities accused of legal setbacks, most often sexual violence). The actor performed a few lines from Timon of Athens, after a reading in tribute to Roger Scruton, philosopher and former adviser to the British government who died in 2020. The man was fired following accusations of racism reported by a journalist on X (ex-Twitter), then recalled after the latter admitted to being wrong.
Kevin Spacey was found not guilty in July of all nine charges against him. The actor was accused of several assaults which allegedly took place between 2001 and 2013. The most serious testimony was that of a young man who accused Spacey of having “drugged” him and having sex with him then that he was asleep.
For his part, the 64-year-old actor has always pleaded not guilty. During his acquittal, he said he was “very grateful” to the jury “who took the time to study all the evidence and the facts” before making a decision.
