Kevin Spacey

Interview By: Harry Kaplowitz
HarryKaplowitz@TheCinemaSource.com

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Playing a villain is nothing new to Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey. He's played 'characters on the darker side,' as he calls them, in 1994's Swimming With Sharks, 1995's Seven and most notably in Bryan Singer's 1995 film, The Usual Suspects.

Now, Spacey is re-teaming with Singer to play iconic comic book villain Lex Luthor in Superman Returns, which opens nationwide on Wednesday. For Spacey, the chance to work with Singer again was something he jumped at, citing the director's ability to guide his actors to great performances.

'He was always then, and he remains to be to this day, one of the handful of directors that I've worked with that is so specific about the way he sees something ' whether it's a character or a scene or because he has people living in his head like an editor and a composer and all these people are in his brain ' he is able to make it so clear to you what he's going for, why he's going for it,' the 46-year-old actor said. 'And I think, to a large degree, that's because he's always been interested in character, no matter what genre it is.'

Spacey said that he accepted the role of Luthor without even reading the script because he trusted Singer completely.

'When I'm in that position of trust, then you go anywhere a director wants you to go,' Spacey said confidently.

'(Singer) is the same guy he was 10 years ago. And it may well be that he's got more money to play with and more toys to experiment with, but it was like a day hadn't gone by.'

And for Spacey, the big boost came with Singer's ability to direct him personally.

'I think I'm a better actor when I'm directed than when I'm not,' he said. 'When I have to cover someone else's inability, I don't think I'm as good, and I love it when a director can just carve me and say, 'Now, that's not right ' don't do that.''

But playing a villain hasn't changed for Spacey, who has close to two decades of theater experience under his belt. He said that in playing a villain, the less rationalizing is done, the better.

'I don't look at any character that I play and I don't genrify them. Because everyone's saying, 'What's it like to play a villain'' Well I understand the question and I understand from the viewer's point of view why you easily categorize, but as an actor, you just don't do that,' he said. 'You try to approach it from the point of view that this is a character who's motivated by what, and what kind of character is it, and yes the character is doing some good things and doing some bad things, but I never sit back in a position of judgment ' I allow the audience to do that.'

Spacey also said that he avoids trying to stereotype is characters, especially Luthor, because he believes there's a nuance to the role beyond the black-versus-white, good-versus-evil mentality.

'In my experience in film where I have played characters on the darker side or have been characterized as villainous or evil, I always just go, 'Well, it's lazy because people aren't that way. People do good things and they do bad things, and yes, I know it's a cartoon and it's a comic book and it's iconic and all that, but from the perspective of what you're trying to do in a performance is that you are trying to humanize a character so that it isn't just that,'' he explained.

Spacey also said that his theater experience came in handy while working on the set of Superman Returns, which co-stars Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden and Parker Posey.

'What theater teaches you is about arc and about a character and even a story. I think you learn and understand about story arc as well as character arc,' he said. 'And I think that every time I do a play, the experience of being able to get up either everyday for rehearsal or every night for performance and play a full character from A-to-Z in two and a half hours teaches you, when you walk onto a film set, how to prepare for those little things that will help tell the story.

'And I think it is the theater experience that I'm able to apply to film so that I look at the whole script and that I'm able to see how a character might arc, and ultimately, it's the way you think about it,' he concluded.

But Spacey cited the differences in playing a character onstage as opposed to onscreen, mainly the difference in exploring all of a characters' subtleties within the given frame of a performance.

'Movies are strange experiences. You never ever ever ever ever get to play the whole part ' you play little bits, little snippets, but you never get to play the whole thing like you do in the theater,' he said. 'So I think my brain tries to adapt to that and I think of it that way, so that when I show up on this strange day where we're shooting this scene before we shoot that one, I think it's been very helpful for me.'

As for his caped co-star, Spacey felt that the studio went in the right direction by casting an unknown actor in the part of Superman, likening it to a similar experience he had with Singer in the casting of The Usual Suspects.

'I always thought that the role of Superman should be played by an almost total unknown,' he said. 'I always thought that was the smartest choice, because I remember when I met Tim Burton about 11 years ago when he was going to make the movie, and at that time, they were talking about famous actors playing the role and I always thought it was a little like when Bryan was doing The Usual Suspects and he was offered more money in the budget if he would re-cast me with a famous actor and Bryan was like, 'No, the actor that plays Verbal can't be well-known, you cannot have a persona.' And I've always felt the same thing about his role.

'So, I think it was the right choice. Brandon is a very good actor. I think he's approached it incredibly well and I think Bryan's shaped it incredibly well,' Spacey commented. 'I think he's about as prepared as one can be with two feet on the ground for what's about to happen to him, just in terms of being known. But in terms of the wise, old actor giving the young newbie some advice, he's gonna do fine.'

But with Superman Returns being the first film in the series in close to 20 years, Spacey says that there's still a little bit of magic that made the Richard Donner-directed original such a fan favorite.

'I can't say that (Superman) had a great influence on me as an artist, but it was great fun and I have enormous respect for Richard Donner, and I think that's one of the things I knew going into this project with Bryan, that he and the writers really, really have an enormous respect for the genre and for the fan base for the Donner films,' he said. 'And I think ' although I have yet to see the whole thing ' that there is a sense of an homage, at least stylistically.'

Spacey, as usual, isn't putting too much thought into future projects, with only one in the works. He is currently attached to David Dobkin's new film, Joe Claus, co-starring Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughn. Joe Claus looks to hit theaters sometime in 2007.