More than a year after retreating from public life amid accusations of sexual misconduct, Kevin Spacey has reemerged via what looks like a tongue-in-cheek piece of House of Cards fan fiction. The video appeared the same afternoon that the Boston Globe reported that Spacey is due to be arraigned in January on a felony charge for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenager in Nantucket in 2016.
On December 24, the two-time Oscar winner posted a video to YouTube: a three-minute monologue called “Let Me Be Frank,” in which Spacey apparently reinhabits House of Cardss nefarious Frank Underwood. Spacey played the character for five seasons on Netflixs celebrated drama, until a sexual misconduct scandal drove the streaming service to suspend production on the series before firing Spacey and filming its sixth (and final) season without its former star.
“I know what you want,” Spacey-as-Underwood begins. “Oh sure, they may have tried to separate us—but what we have is too strong, is too powerful. . . I shocked you with my honesty, but mostly, I challenged you and made you think. And you trusted me, even though you knew you shouldnt. So were not done, no matter what anyone says. And besides, I know what you want. You want me back.”
In the video, Spacey obviously apes the fourth-wall-breaking, direct-camera addresses that Underwood famously employed on the series. He also refers directly to events that occurred on House of Cards—his character being impeached without a trial after stealing the presidency, for example, and eventually being killed offscreen after Spacey was fired.
But it does not take a great leap to imagine that in this clip, Spacey is also consciously drawing parallels between the scandals that brought down Underwood and the accusations that led to his dismissal from House of Cards and All the Money in the World, the Ridley Scott movie that famously replaced Spacey with Christopher Plummer in a series of breakneck reshoots after the allegations broke last fall.
“If you and I have learned nothing else these past years, its that in life and art, nothing should be off the table,” Spacey says at one point in the video. “We werent afraid, not of what we said and not of what we did, and were still not afraid. Because I can promise you this: if I didnt pay the price for the things we both know I did do, Im certainly not going to pay the price for the things that I didnt do.”
Spaceys quick retreat from the spotlight began in October 2017, when actor Anthony Rapp told Buzzfeed that Spacey had allegedly put Rapp on his bed and climbed on top of him in 1986, when Rapp was just 14. In his response, Spacey did not deny that the incident had happened, but did say that he did not remember the encounter unfolding as Rapp said it had. “If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior,” Spacey wrote at the time. “I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior.”
Spacey was subsequently accused of sexual misconduct by more men, including an anonymous massage therapist and a teenage boy who said that Spacey bought alcohol for him before allegedly groping him in 2016. The Boston Globe reported December 24 that Spacey will be arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery in Nantucket on January 7. A public show-cause hearing for the case was held December 20, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael OKeefe told the Globe Monday.
In the YouTube video, Spacey-as-Underwood shares a few thoughts about guilt and due process:
“Of course, some believed everything and have just been waiting with baited breath to hear me confess it all. Theyre just dying to have me declare that everything said is true, and that I got what I deserved. Wouldnt that be easy, if it was all so simple? Only you and I both know its not that simple, not in politics and not in life. But you wouldnt believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldnt rush to judgments without facts, would you? Did you? No, not you. Youre smarter than that.”
Netflix told V.F. that it has no comment on the clip, and Spaceys attorney did not immediately respond when asked to comment on the Globe report.
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Hillary BusisHillary Busis is the Hollywood editor at VanityFair.com. Previously, she was an editor at Mashable and at Entertainment Weekly. She lives in Brooklyn, just like everyone else.
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