In October 2017, Anthony Rapp alleged that House of Cards star Kevin Spacey had made inappropriate sexual advances towards him. The 50-year-old actor - now famous for his work on Star Trek Discovery - said he was only 14 when the said incident occurred. Spacey would have been 26.
As with most cases of sexual abuse in Hollywood, this first story opened the floodgates for many others to follow. Among those who claimed that Spacey had at least been sexually improper towards them are Overnight director Tony Montana and Harry Dreyfuss, son of seasoned actor, Richard Dreyfuss. Spacey first attempted to deflect from the accusations against him by coming out as gay, but this only brought even more backlash.
He has not featured in a major movie or TV show since 2018. This is all about to change, however, as he is set to appear in an upcoming Italian film called L'uomo che disegnò Dio (The Man Who Drew God).
Middle Finger To The Industry
The Man Who Drew God is a project by Italian director and producer, Franco Nero. The 79-year-old is known for movies like Camelot and Django. Besides his work behind the scenes, Nero is also an actor, who has appeared in The Lost City of Z, Django Unchained, John Wick 2 and an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, among others.
According to IMDb, the film L'uomo che disegnò Dio follows 'the rise and fall of a blind artist who has the extraordinary gift of making true-to-life portraits just by listening to human voices, and of becoming a TV-junk star.' The synopsis goes on to describe it as 'a fable on the need to rediscover the miraculous power of dignity in a world where media's noise has solved the problem of man's imperfection simply by removing the problem itself.'
The movie is quite a symbolic choice for Spacey to feature in as his first post-cancelation, considering how events turned out in his personal life. In a way, it is his way of showing a middle finger to the industry, and the rest of the world for canceling him in the first place.
Refuted The Accusations
It is not the first time that Spacey has tapped into his talent to try and fight back. In December 2018, he uploaded a three-minute video on his YouTube channel, titled Let Me Be Frank. Channeling his House of Cards character, Frank Underwood, he essentially went ahead and refuted all the accusations levied against him.
"I know what you want. Oh, sure, they may have tried to separate us. But what we have is too strong. It's too powerful," he kicked off the video, which has since been described as 'weird' and 'disturbing.' "Of course, some [have] believed everything," Spacey continued. "They're just dying to have me declare that everything said is true, and that I got what I deserved... But you wouldn't believe the worst without evidence, would you?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZveA-NAIDI
In the three years or so since the video went up, it has nearly 13 million views and about 290,000 likes. Spacey recorded the clip in the wake of his sacking from House of Cards about a month before. The streaming channel had been planning for the sixth season of the show when the allegations against the actor came out. They consequently announced that Season 6 would be the final one, comprising only eight episodes.
House Of Cards Came Tumbling Down
Being fired from one of the biggest shows of the decade was not the end of Spacey's troubles. At the time that the house of cards in his private life came tumbling down, he was also scheduled to feature in Ridley Scott's film, All The Money in the World, about the kidnapping of tycoon J. Paul Getty's grandson in 1973. All principal photography had already been wrapped up, and the picture was due for release on December 8, 2017.
Following the emergence of the stories about Spacey's past, director Scott and other execs made the radical decision to replace him in all his scenes in the film. The part was recast in favor of Christopher Plummer, who ended up earning the last Academy Award nomination of his life for the role, before he passed away in February this year.
A total of 22 scenes featuring Spacey were reshot, and the movie finally premiered at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater on December 18, 2017. It was a lot of work to execute, but Scott felt it had to be done. "You can't condone that kind of behavior in any shape or form," he told Entertainment Weekly at the time. Still, he admitted that he had otherwise been satisfied with Spacey's performance.