Kevin Spacey Is Living in the Past

The days get shorter, a cold chill moves through the air, string lights sparkle in your neighborhood, a faint waft of pine floats your way, and inexplicably Kevin Spacey appears to do an odd bit of press. For whatever reason, the actor has a tendency to pop up around the holidays, typically in an ominous social-media video (like his “Let Me Be Frank” series), but this year, he is promoting a one-man music and storytelling show called Kevin Spacey: Songs & Stories that he has been trying to tour but has only been able to mount in Cyprus for an audience of “mostly real-estate developers.” The nature of the show — where Spacey regales the audience with old standards and stories from his childhood — is steeped in nostalgia, which is just about the only way to approach Spacey’s celebrity eight years after he was first accused of sexual assault by more than 50 men. The more he continues to receive accolades (even if they’re almost exclusively European ones), the more convinced Spacey becomes of his continued relevance.

Though Spacey was acquitted on nine sexual-assault charges in the United Kingdom two years ago, Hollywood has more or less rebuffed the actor, forcing him into vaguely Mediterranean markets where he’s a staple in crime films. Despite that, however, Spacey told The Telegraph that he’s convinced “extremely powerful people” want to put him back to work. “So, my feeling is if Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino call tomorrow, it will be over. I will be incredibly honored and delighted when that level of talent picks up the phone. And I believe it’s going to happen,” Spacey explained. He’s probably right that a call from either of those directors could change his fate, but it’s telling that the phone has yet to ring.

Unwavering self-confidence notwithstanding, things don’t seem to be going so great for him. He told The Telegraph that he doesn’t “live anywhere,” and though he hoped to put up his show in Athens and Tel Aviv, the former show fell through because of his interest in performing in the latter city. “I would love to play Athens when they are more accepting of the fact that they should not be in the position of telling someone where they can and cannot perform,” he said. Maybe Spacey will connect with Tarantino if and when he makes it down to Tel Aviv, rather than wait for the director to call him. Just as Spacey has built a show around indulging in music and stories from the past, his points of reference for his fame include both blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and beloved actor Jack Lemmon — two legendary men who have been dead a long time. Hindsight, however, is everything: Spacey sees himself as a figure of the past with the misfortune to live in the present.