Two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey spoke about his upcoming film, Shrink, which debuts in theaters on July 24th. In Shrink, Spacey portrays a therapist who counsels Hollywood stars, has-beens, and uber-agents. Spacey has starred in films such as American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, and L.A. Confidential. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theater Company in London, England. He also co-founded Triggerstreet.com--a platform for emerging filmmakers--in 2002.
Can you see yourself in the character of Henry Carter, a troubled psychiatrist? Do you share any similarities with him?
I don't, really. I suppose the only similarity I can sort of understand is that the job of an actor is sometimes to be a psychiatrist--to investigate motive and to try to understand what a character's going through, why a character makes the choices he makes. Because sometimes a character will make choices that I personally find really difficult, or slightly inconceivable. There's a certain investigative quality to what a psychologist does and to what an actor does, in terms of trying to understand feeling. And I certainly know in my experience with psychologists, particularly when my mother was ill, how incredibly helpful they were for me to understand what I and my family were going to potentially face emotionally as we dealt with a patient who was terminally ill. So I have enormous respect for that unearthing, and that investigatory part of what psychiatrists do.
Are you in therapy? Have you ever been in therapy?
No, I've never been in therapy.
Do you think maybe therapy can help actors? To figure out character motivations?
Well, I know people who go to therapy--sort of like Woody Allen, they go religiously. I know other people who only used therapists for specific issues. Like, "I'm going to go figure out what this is all about." After they figure it out, they don't go again. And I suppose if an actor is in therapy, then whether it ends up being helpful for them as an actor, I don't know.
Perhaps self-knowledge can help one become a better actor. Do you think that might be true?
Self-knowledge is a valuable aspect to it, but perhaps it's more important to put yourself in someone else's shoes. The job of acting is quite important because if you are habitually forced to examine life from someone else's perspective, it makes it that much more difficult to be prejudiced. That much more difficult to be uncaring and unconcerned with other people, because you're sort of forced to look at things in a way you wouldn't personally look at them. I've always felt that acting is a very humanizing experience.
You've said you view yourself as a stage actor first, and a film actor second. Did you enjoy poking fun at Hollywood in Shrink?
Well, you know it doesn't take a heck of a lot to poke fun at Hollywood. It's an easy target. But we tried to approach it not necessarily as some sort of inside joke. I've experienced films like Swimming with Sharks which was a very insider perspective on movies. To a certain degree it is about the narcissism that can surround the industry--not the town, but the industry. And I think the film does sort of poke at that a little bit--although hopefully in a way where people who aren't part of the industry, or even give two hoots about Hollywood per se, can appreciate or identify with.
Why do you think you're so skilled at playing characters who aren't exactly what they seem? In The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, for example, these characters are very multi-faceted, and you portray them well.
I couldn't really answer that, I play so many different kinds of roles in theater. The films I've done, in terms of those kinds of complex characters, that are complicitous, or who start as one thing and end up as another... I find it sort of interesting that those are the kind of parts that people tend to remember, or really enjoy more than others. I have to believe it's because we're all that way. I have to believe it's not just, "Oh, we think you play these parts really, really well because they're so completely different than from how we are as people." I have to believe that human beings are that way. And what makes a character stand out is when those things are revealed, as opposed to when those things aren't present.
What do you think you might be doing right now if you weren't an actor?
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