Kevin Spacey

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 Wooten 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’s 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 outraged 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 are you doing?” And I said, “Fine,” and he said, “Listen, do you remember that film you came in for, Se7en?” And I said, “Yeah, 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 imposing to say, can I read it again? Because 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’d just shot, the fourth one. And if any of those films broke through or did well, if it was going to 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 going to figure out who you’re playing.

So people didn’t know that you play the serial killer in the movie, and the serial killer shows up more than halfway through the movie.

Very latest.

And when you say billing, is like the posters, the VHS cover.

That’s right.

Everything. You’re gone.

Exactly.

You’re not there.

Not there. And so New Cinema told me to go fuck myself, that they absolutely could use my picture and my image, 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, because 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, it’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 remember he kept saying to me, “Remember, you are in control. 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 you 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 is, it’s an example of what makes tragedy so difficult. 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 … 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 the, “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 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 … because look, very often actors, we come in on the set, and we’ve thought about the scene, and we’ve worked out, “I’ve got this prop, and I’m going to do this thing with a can, and I’m going to-“. All these things, “All the tea, I’m going to do a thing with the thing,” and David is the 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 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 am doing this 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, ‘Could you do, 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. 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 going to be acting,” and Cukor said, “Exactly, Jack. Exactly.” Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman

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, 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 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 screaming, and in pain, and tormented, while you’re very subtly smiling.