Imagine you’re on holiday in Europe, you’re having a lovely time, you decide to take in a museum, and then out of nowhere, BOOM, there’s fucken Kevin Spacey, reading a poem at you at full volume. This was the grim scenario that confronted tourists in Rome this week, when the disgraced actor showed up at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme to recite some verse.
Several months on from the infamous video in which he defended himself in character as Frank Underwood, Spacey emerged to read Gabriele Tinti‘s poem ‘The Boxer‘ to a smattering of invited guests and baffled onlookers. The poet himself chose Spacey to read the work next to a bronze statue called ‘Boxer At Rest‘. He later Tweeted a photo of the two of them, complete with a Getty Images watermark:
With the one and only @kevinspacey! The Museum said it was an honor to have Mr. Spacey here with us to celebrate the magnificent statue of the boxer!! #Romeloveskevinspacey #kevinspaceyarttheboxer #kevinspacey #gabrieletinti #art pic.twitter.com/EbGWRcuGi8
— gabriele tinti (@gabrieletinti) August 3, 2019
The poem is about a battered and bloodied boxer beside the ring after a fight. It includes the passage: “I shook the country, made the arenas vibrate, tore my opponents to shreds. I lit up the darkness, collected insults, compelled applause. Not everyone knew how to do this. None of you. On the other hand life is not frightening for those who have never taken a risk.”
An eyewitness described the mood in the room as “surprised” when the fifty or so people present heard the actor’s voice ring out.
Gabriele Tinti said in a statement that he chose Kevin Spacey to read the work because “he is the one of the greatest actors alive.” He added: “It was an honor for me that he agreed to read my lines; having managed to entrust them precisely to him and thus be able to hear them resound in his voice was a real privilege.”
Spacey was fired from House Of Cards in 2017, after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of making sexual advances towards him as a minor. This week’s dramatic reading marked his first public appearance since Massachusetts prosecutors dropped a case in which he was accused of groping young a man in a bar. He is still the subject of ongoing investigations in Los Angeles and the UK.
