The scandal surrounding Kevin Spacey deepens, with stories of sexual misconduct from the disgraced actor’s past continuing to surface. Despite being one of Hollywood’s fabled “open secrets,” Spacey’s behaviour is only being aired in public for the first time this year, meaning there’s (sadly) plenty of ground that needs to be covered.
One such story comes from former co-star Gabriel Byrne, who appeared alongside Spacey in the 1995 classic The Usual Suspects.
The film – which we feel the need to point out was directed by Bryan Singer, would you even believe – received widespread critical acclaim and wound up landing Spacey an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
But production of the film, according to Byrne, was mysteriously halted for a few days mid-shoot. At the time the cast was in the dark about the reason why, but Byrne stated that, over time, they realised that the brakes were put on due to Spacey being accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour towards a young actor.
Byrne spoke the The Sunday Times and detailed the production shutdown on the film, while making a stark re-assessment of his prior reactions to hearing stories about Spacey’s conduct.
I did not know honestly then the extent of his violence. I mean, he was kind of a joke in that people would say, ‘That’s Kevin,’ but nobody really understood the depth of his predations.
It was only years later that we began to understand that [filming] was closed down for a particular reason and that was because of inappropriate sexual behaviour by Spacey.
That Spacey not only was allowed to remain working, but went on to be rewarded with an Oscar for his efforts on this film, beggars belief.
The sexual misconduct scandals sweeping Hollywood are not only flushing out predatory men, but forcing others to rethink how they’ve reacted to hearing stories in the past.
That can only be a good thing. A tragically long overdue thing. But a good thing nonetheless.
