Jurors to decide what will happen to actor Kevin Spacey have been sworn in at a London court where the Oscar winner is accused of raping four men two decades ago.
The outcome of the case could send Spacey to prison or revive his career.
The two-time Academy Award winner was dressed in a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and pink tie as he walked boldly into the courtroom and was called by his full name. He was asked if he was Kevin Spacey Fowler.
“I am,” he said as he stood behind the window at the port.
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Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges including sexual assault, indecent assault and inducing sexual intercourse without consent.
“I’m sure the defendant will be happy to know that many of you will know his name or have seen his films,” Justice Mark Wall said as Spacey nodded and smiled at the jury in the middle of the dock with a dozen reporters taking notes. .
Frank Augstein/AP
The outcome of the case could send Spacey to prison or revive his career.
The original 14 jurors, including two alternates, were named without objection from the prosecution or defense. The remaining 13 were pardoned.
The judges were dressed in a mix of business and casual attire. Two women wore dresses and two men wore suits and ties. A man wore a black denim jacket and a bearded man had a Superman t-shirt tucked inside.
Spacey stood with his hands behind his back as nine men and five women were sworn in as jurors to hear evidence in a trial expected to last four weeks at Southwark Crown Court.
Opening statements are scheduled for Friday.
Frank Augstein/AP
Jurors to decide what will happen to actor Kevin Spacey have been sworn in at a London court where the Oscar winner is accused of raping four men two decades ago.
Spacey, who is free on bail and has homes in London and the US, arrived at the court by taxi with his manager, Evan Lowenstein, about two hours before the trial began. He smiled and waved as he passed photographers and video reporters.
Spacey has said that the acquittal could begin his longest career since the star won his first Academy Award for his role in The Usual Suspects in 1995.
“There are people right now who are willing to hire me when I’m cleared of these charges in London,” Spacey said in a rare interview published this month in Germany’s Zeit magazine. “
The cases involving men now in their 30s or 40s date from 2001 to 2013 – including a decade when he lived in Britain and served as artistic director at the Old Vic Theater until 2015.
Spacey’s downfall came amid the #MeToo movement in the United States when allegations led to him being signed up for Netflix’s political drama House of Cards, in which he played the lead character Frank Underwood, a tyrannical and corrupt Congressman who becomes President. They were cut from the finished film All the Money in the World, and the scenes were reshot by Christopher Plummer.
Spacey became one of the most popular actors of the 1990s, starring in films including Glengarry Glen Ross and LA Confidential. He won his second Oscar, for best actor, for the 1999 film American Beauty.
Frank Augstein/AP
Spacey is accused of raping four men over two decades ago.
Spacey recently had his first movie role in several years, appearing in 2022 in Italian director Franco Nero’s The Man Who Drawn God, and playing Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in the biopic Once Upon a Time in Croatia. He also stars in the unreleased US film Peter Five Eight.
The National Cinema Museum in Turin presented him with a lifetime achievement award in January. He also taught an advanced class and started a commercial for American Beauty called Spacey’s first talk show in five years.
Spacey saluted the organizers for their “strong defense of artistic excellence” and for having “le palle” – the Italian word for male body parts similar to courage – calling out to him.
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