by Paul Fischer
by
Paul Fischer
Two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey has that uncanny ability to hide behind every
screen portrayal, 
that
we rarely get a repeat of a Spacey performance. His latest film, K-Pax,
gives us a greater insight into his diversity as an actor. In the film, Spacey
plays a mysterious man, Prot, who may or not be an alien from a planet called
K-Pax. Largely set in a mental hospital in New York City, skeptical psychiatrist
Jeff Bridges tries to unravel the truth. SPOILER WARNING: We've blanked
out portions of answers that reveal certain surprises in the K-Pax story,
just in case you're reading before seeing the film. Swipe your cursor over the
blank spaces to see the text.
CrankyCritic®: Did you and Jeff Bridges (who
starred as an alien in the once upon a time Starman) ever compare notes
about playing aliens?
Kevin Spacey: I kid Jeff to this moment that he now has the "Karen
Allen part". In the beginning of rehearsals we had a lot of talk about all
the movies that have been done that deal with this subject, including Starman,
partly because we talked about tone. Some movies that deal with the idea of an
alien subject they're very, comedically broad. In the case of Starman,
Jeff was playing a character that's embodying a human's body. So it was almost
like he didn't know how to move and it was all mechanical and was an incredible
physical performance. In our movie, we wanted Prot to be eccentric on a certain
level but we didn't want it to go so far or be so broad in terms of its comedy,
that the film couldn't make the turn it has to make about an hour and forty-five
minutes into the movie. So it had to feel real. We did discuss that film
and his performance. And in what we were trying to do in this movie in terms of
finding the right tone.
CrankyCritic®: It's clearly important for
the audience to believe that Prot is an alien, even as Jeff's character pushes
the view that your character is mentally deranged. How did you, as an actor, keep
the two perceptions apart . . . or did you pick one over the other?
Kevin Spacey: It's a funny thing. I do have an absolute and complete belief
in both stories because I had to. In order for the ambiguity to work for an audience
I had to put the movie on two separate tracks: I had to
have an absolutely complete story for Prot -- who he was, how long he's been on
earth, what his planet was like, what was he doing on earth, what he's writing
in that book. All of that had to be absolutely real to me, and it was. I also
had to have a complete back-story, an absolute life for [the human] Robert Porter.
The two of those ideas had to be able to coexist so that they both could be possible.
CrankyCritic®: How did you do it?
Kevin
Spacey: That's the trick! That took some doing. There was a lot more in the
book that was very helpful to me. From that you make decisions about how to make
these things coexist. So if this is true and completely true, then this
can also be completely true and the two can coexist. If you're able to successfully
navigate that in your preparation, then you take these two ideas and hand them
to the director. You put yourself in the hands of a skilled director who's able
to balance the mystery for the audience. I can't do that. My job, as the actor,
is to give the audience both possibilities and try to convincingly play both possibilities.
(Director) Iain Softley is the person who's balancing it. I trust his direction.
In particular, the scenes that were the most dangerous were the hypnosis scenes.
From making the choice to revert to
several different versions of a childlike voice, to the attitude that the young
Robert Porter had, sort of an arrogant sort of thing. What interested me about
those sessions were -- and I had a lot discussions with people who were working
with us -- usually when you put somebody under hypnosis, if they are a delusional
character or if they're suffering from some sort of anxiety or multiple personality,
you get to the core person. What fascinated me about all of those sessions was
Prot never ceases being Prot. He was always Prot. That, to me, is what allowed
us to get through those sessions with a certain trajectory. Even though he took
on the personality of another person and talked about this other person, he was
never not Prot. Always from K-PAX. If they'd gotten to Robert Porter,
then I think the movie would have been over. Then it would have been saying, "he's
pretending to be this other person".
CrankyCritic®: Was the book also ambiguous?
Kevin Spacey: The book went into a lot more detail, which was helpful to
track both sides of the story. Gene's written a follow up called The Return
of Prot.
CrankyCritic®: Did you study tapes of people
under hypnosis?
Kevin Spacey: I looked at a number of tapes and had a lot of discussion
with a number of our consultants about what the process is like and what have
your experiences been, have you seen anything like this. I went to a lot of mental
facilities and met patients and the first question I would ask the staff was,
Is there anybody here who thinks they're from outer space? They'd say, Oh, yeah.
Like 12 or 13 people.
CrankyCritic®:
Did you talk to any of them?
Kevin Spacey: Yeah. They have tin foil on their buttons and on their ears
because you get better reception.
CrankyCritic®: Do you believe that there's
life on other planets?
Kevin Spacey: Sure. I do. There must be. When you just think about how
much life there is on earth. I don't think there are little green men but I do
believe that we can't be the only thriving intelligent life in the universe. It's
too vast.
CrankyCritic®: Do you think any of them have
come here?
Kevin Spacey: I believe that on many occasions I've worked with them.
CrankyCritic®: What about the observations
Prot makes about humanity, especially in the light of recent events?
Kevin Spacey: If they are, we didn't intend it to be. What will happen
and what is happening. I can drive down a street and hear a song I've heard a
million times and suddenly the lyrics take on a meaning that they didn't have
before Sept. 11. What I like most about the way Prot looks at the world is that
he just accepts people as they are. He doesn't look at them as patients or statistics.
We tend to in this country and in this world think, there's a politician,
there's a sports star. There's an actor. There's a journalist. The human
being part of that equation very often gets . . . it's dismissive. Prot just accepts
people and asks them incredibly logical questions. Sometimes it's the person who's
the most logical who we call crazy.
CrankyCritic®: You performed John Lennon's
Mind Games at the recent New York benefit. Do you plan to pursue singing?
Kevin Spacey: That was an incredible evening. I wanted to do something
that would be surprising and uplifting because New York really needed something.
We all felt what was originally intended as a celebration of John Lennon on what
would have been his 61st birthday; the fact that he was taken from us on the streets
of NY, and that he was a New Yorker just seemed right that we expand the evening
to be a benefit. They taught me that song on Saturday and like a madman I walked
out there and sang in front of Yoko.
CrankyCritic®: What did she say to you?
Kevin Spacey: She was very pleased. She was incredibly kind because that
song meant a lot to her because it wasn't a hit for John and she said John always
said that it should have been.
CrankyCritic®: You were the breakout guy at
this benefit.
Kevin Spacey: It probably was the surprise of it. I've been singing my
whole life. When I started out in theater, I did more musicals than anything else.
It's always been a part of my life and slowly I'm getting to a place where music
is important to me. I don't envision myself going on the road, necessarily. Unless
you're really going to do it and stop acting and commit yourself to it. First
of all, the music world is going to say, oh, does he need more? He's not happy
with what he's got? From a musical context, it would be right. That will show
its face at the right time.
CrankyCritic®: Have you thought about doing
musical theater?
Kevin Spacey: Over the years I looked at musicals and wanted to find one
that's original. I've been offered things that have been revivals. But I want
to do something that's brand new.
CrankyCritic®: Your bio says you were kicked
out of school and mentions something about a tree house incident.
Kevin Spacey: This is the first thing you learn: if you say it once, it
gets repeated and then it actually expands. I read things that I was a bad kid
and I was this terror.
CrankyCritic®: How much of this is exaggerated
and how much is true?
Kevin Spacey: A lot of it is exaggerated. I did get kicked out of military
school because I got into a fight. I wasn't happy in military school. It was after
that that this guidance counselor recommended that I go into theater I had a lot
of 
energy.
I was 13 years old and immediately found the theater I wasn't a bad kid like getting
arrested.
CrankyCritic®: The tree house thing's not true?
Kevin Spacey: It's not true. I must have said something about my sister
having something in the back yard that we knocked down and it turned into we burned
down a tree house. At a certain point I decided I'm not going to respond to those
things. There's a whole industry that has nothing to do with you. The most interesting
one was, recently, I met the family of Spencer Tracy and they said to me,
"Is it true that you changed your name because of Spencer Tracy. You (combined)
Spencer with Tracey and made Spacey?" I said, I read that on the Internet
too. It's actually in bios on certain sites. Nothing could be further from the
truth. My great grandfather's name was Spacey. It's a Welsh name. It's my middle
name and I've been using it my whole life.
CrankyCritic®: Who were your mentors?
Kevin Spacey: When I was 14 years old I met Jack Lemmon for the
first time. I went to this seminar and he signed an autograph for me, which I
still have to this day. I stood next to him and asked him questions about being
an actor. He talked to me for like 15 minutes and told me what I ought to do:
go to New York and study. He was so warm and encouraging and 11 years later I
got an audition for a play that he was starring in. I ended up working with him
for a full year doing that play and we ended up doing four things together. He
became sort of a second father to me, particularly when my father passed away.
You don't need any lesson in the world about how to treat other human beings or
about professionalism then to be in the presence of Jack Lemmon.
CrankyCritic®: You have to tell me about eating
those bananas in K-Pax.
Kevin Spacey: It always was in the script that Prot ate every ounce of
produce. He thought all of it was good. The scene was always written that way.
When it came to shoot the scene, they made some fake bananas. They just looked
wrong. I knew on film they wouldn't work, so I said to the prop guys just go to
the store and get bananas and wash them and let's do it.
CrankyCritic®: What do they taste like?
Kevin Spacey: Bitter. And I had to eat a lot of them. It was an amazing
potassium high.
