Outside Edge
It’s not a story you hear every day: two-time Academy Award-winning actor abandons Hollywood fame and returns to his theatre roots. Then again, Kevin Spacey is not your everyday actor, nor is London’s Old Vic your everyday theatre
TEXT BRET LOVE
We need to talk about Kevin
Just a few years after he won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in American Beauty, Kevin Spacey put his lucrative film career on the back burner when, in 2003, he accepted a 10-year appointment as artistic director of the newly formed Old Vic Theatre Company. His goal was to restore the fortunes of the historic theatre once associated with such acting greats as Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness and John Gielgud.
But returning to the stage does not mean that the 48-year-old thespian has decided to take it easy. When he’s not making critically acclaimed turns in sell-out shows such as David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, he’s back in Hollywood to work on films like Superman Returns (which reunited him with The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer) and the recently released 21. So we felt duly honoured when he made the time to sit down with JetAway in Las Vegas for this recent interview.
How have your duties as the Old Vic’s artistic director changed the way you approach your film career?
My priorities changed many years back when I made the decision that I wanted to start this theatre company. While I spent 10 years being driven by a personal ambition to have a film career, I got to a point where that was no longer of interest to me.
I love movies and without them I couldn’t be in the position I’m in and doing what I’m able to do on behalf of the theatre. But I’m now doing exactly what I want to be doing and don’t feel like I’m trapped in the cog of the wheel any more.
What has the Old Vic experience taught you about acting?
What I’ve learned is how to create a story arc over the course of two hours. If you haven’t had that theatre experience, it’s much harder in a film to figure out how to create an arc in a very crazy shooting schedule.
In the theatre you learn in front of an audience, because they’re going to tell you very quickly whether you’re holding their attention or not, and whether they’re following the story.
Bryan Singer recently said he’s moving forward with a Superman Returns sequel. Will you be coming back for that?
I signed a deal to do a second film, but the truth is that you probably know more than I do about it. Bryan and I spoke last spring and my suspicion is that, if they are moving forward, it wouldn’t start shooting until 2009 and would be released in 2010. I just don’t think they’re ready yet.
What are your goals for your last five years with the Old Vic?
To leave the theatre company in a position where I’ve raised enough money for them that whoever takes over my role as artistic director won’t have to spend as much time fundraising as I’ve had to.
A lot of people don’t understand that I didn’t step into a role that existed. For 30 years, the Old Vic was a booking house – a theatre you could rent. There was no theatre company, no education programme, no outreach programme, so we’ve been trying to build a theatre company that will survive in a commercial world, even though we are a charity.
But when you have a thousand-seat theatre and no subsidy from the government, it takes a lot to raise that money. So I hope to be able to leave money to cover the running costs of the company, to convince some of the government agencies that our outreach work deserves to be subsidised, and to raise the money to renovate the building to 21st century standards, which is a £30m campaign.
Sir Peter Hall’s production of Bernard Shaw’s classic, Pygmalion, is playing at the Old Vic until 2 August.
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