Kevin Spacey Gears Up For First Public-Speaking Engagement In Five Years In Northern Italy: “I Haven’t Hidden Away, I Haven’t Gone To Live In A Cave”

Melanie Goodfellow
·3 min read
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Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has denied he has been keeping a low profile since a string of sexual misconduct accusations brought his stellar career to a halt in 2017, in a rare meeting with the press ahead of an awards ceremony in northern Italy on Monday evening.

“I live my life every day, I go to restaurants, I meet people, drive, play tennis, I’ve always managed to meet generous, genuine, compassionate people,” Spacey told Italian news agency Ansa.

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“I haven’t hidden away, I haven’t gone to live in a cave,” he said.

Spacey was speaking ahead of a special honorary event organized by Italy’s National Cinema Museum in the northern city of Turin on Monday.

Deadline’s request to speak to Spacey was turned down but the actor agreed to speak to a handful of Italian outlets including local news agency Ansa.

The actor is due to give a public masterclass, moderated by the museum’s director Domenico De Gaetano and then receive the institution’s Stella della Mole Award for lifetime achievement. Past recipients of the award include Isabella Rossellini, Monica Bellucci as well as directors Xavier Dolan and Dario Argento.

Spacey will then present a special screening of Sam Mendes’ American Beauty for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 2000.

The event comes just three days after Spacey pleaded not guilty to seven new charges relating to sexual assaults in the UK, appearing via video-link at the court hearing taking place at Southwark Crown Court in London.

A June 6, 2023 date has been set for a trial at which he will also be tried on another five previously processed sexual assault charges.

In October, Spacey was found not liable in a $40m lawsuit brought by Anthony Rapp, whose decision to go public with sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar winner in 2017 resulted in other accusers coming forward.

Commenting on his decision to participate in the event in Turin, Spacey denied it amounted to a return to public life.

“What you see in the media is not real life, I’m not coming back to public life because I never left it,” he told Ansa.

The actor appears to have a special relationship with the city of Turin, which was the location for his post-2017 return to the set in Italian director and actor Franco Nero’s detective tale The Man Who Drew God.

The city, which is best known internationally as the birthplace of the Fiat automobile company as well as the home of the Juventus soccer squad and the religious relic of the Shroud Of Turin, has given the actor a warm welcome over the weekend.

The city’s other soccer team Torino invited the actor to a Serie A match on Sunday and offered him his own personalized soccer jersey as a gift.

Italian Under-Secretary for Culture Vittorio Sgarbi has also spoken out in favor of the honorary event and Spacey.

“Because of everything that happened, he lost his reputation and his career was interrupted,” Sgarbi told Turin’s city broadsheet La Stampa. “All this for having been accused of being a sexual maniac, something that no court has ever judged as true.”

Sgarbi is expected to be at the event on Monday evening alongside a host of other VIP guests.

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