Playboy Interview Kevin Spacey
Playboy Interview: Kevin Spacey
11/17/14, 4:02 AM
Playboy Interview: Kevin Spacey
October 1999
A candid conversation with the unusual suspect about his days as a stand-up comic, why money doesn’t matter and how the media use and abuse celebrities.
With his baseball cap pulled down low, Kevin Spacey flies through Manhattan traffic on a motor scooter, weaving through bumper-to-bumper taxis, buses and limousines. Most actors of his stature (Spacey’s peers and critics consider him one of America’s best) would be in one of those limos, but Spacey prefers the tiny bike. He says, “People are so surprised how quickly it moves, they stare at the scooter and don’t notice me”
That’s how Spacey likes it. He has built a career playing often mysterious characters, from the maddeningly elusive and evil Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (a movie that still has fans guessing) to the corrupt cop in LA Confidential to John Doe in Seven. His John Doe character was a classic Spacey career move—he refused any billing in order to keep audiences guessing about the unfolding plot. He has also managed to keep an air of mystery around his personal life preferring to talk about his work when he’s doing interviews.
Spacey has paid the price for rejecting the highly public life of a movie star. The worst came in 1997 when he agreed to be interviewed for a story in Esquire. Trumpeted with the cover headline KEVIN SPACEY
HAS A SECRET, the magazine article, in the guise of reporting the rumor that Spacey is gay, implied that he is indeed gay. The writer, Tom Junod, offered no facts to support the innuendo—though he did introduce the piece with the news that even his 80-year-old mother has heard the rumor that Spacey is gay. Junod wrote, “Spacey came out of his closet last spring…when he got rid of his beard, when he had no more use for his disguises, when he relaxed by drinking a few vodka and tonics and then stood up for what he was, or at least for who he had become.” True enough, except for
11/17/14, 4:02 AM
Playboy Interview: Kevin Spacey
October 1999
A candid conversation with the unusual suspect about his days as a stand-up comic, why money doesn’t matter and how the media use and abuse celebrities.
With his baseball cap pulled down low, Kevin Spacey flies through Manhattan traffic on a motor scooter, weaving through bumper-to-bumper taxis, buses and limousines. Most actors of his stature (Spacey’s peers and critics consider him one of America’s best) would be in one of those limos, but Spacey prefers the tiny bike. He says, “People are so surprised how quickly it moves, they stare at the scooter and don’t notice me”
That’s how Spacey likes it. He has built a career playing often mysterious characters, from the maddeningly elusive and evil Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (a movie that still has fans guessing) to the corrupt cop in LA Confidential to John Doe in Seven. His John Doe character was a classic Spacey career move—he refused any billing in order to keep audiences guessing about the unfolding plot. He has also managed to keep an air of mystery around his personal life preferring to talk about his work when he’s doing interviews.
Spacey has paid the price for rejecting the highly public life of a movie star. The worst came in 1997 when he agreed to be interviewed for a story in Esquire. Trumpeted with the cover headline KEVIN SPACEY
HAS A SECRET, the magazine article, in the guise of reporting the rumor that Spacey is gay, implied that he is indeed gay. The writer, Tom Junod, offered no facts to support the innuendo—though he did introduce the piece with the news that even his 80-year-old mother has heard the rumor that Spacey is gay. Junod wrote, “Spacey came out of his closet last spring…when he got rid of his beard, when he had no more use for his disguises, when he relaxed by drinking a few vodka and tonics and then stood up for what he was, or at least for who he had become.” True enough, except for