Kevin Spacey, Accused Sexual Harasser, Creeps Back Into Film With Major Role in Historical Drama
Kevin Spacey has booked another movie role as the actor — who was accused of sexual harassment and unwanted advances by multiple men — continues to creep back into the film industry.
As Deadline reports, Spacey is set to star in the historical drama, 1242, which is a joint U.K., Hungarian, and Mongolian production. Spacey will play Cardinal Cesareani, a representative of the Pope who arrives at the Hungarian fort of Esztergom just as Genghis Khan’s grandson, Batu, prepares to launch a final assault that could potentially pave the way for an invasion of Europe.
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Filming is set to begin this October in Mongolia, with veteran Hungarian filmmaker Péter Soós as director. Along with Spacey, the movie will also star Eric Roberts and Christopher Lambert. Representatives for the film’s other stars did not immediately return requests for comment. Although Deadline notes that Terence Stamp was cast in the film, his representatives told Rolling Stone he is not involved in any way.
While 1242 is arguably Spacey’s biggest film role since accusations against him emerged in 2017, it’s far from his first. Last year, he worked with Italian director Franco Nero on The Man Who Drew God, which is about a blind artist who draws people from their voice and is wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child (Nero played the main part, while Spacey was cast in a small role as a police detective; Faye Dunaway also starred in the movie). As of yet, there’s no official release date for The Man Who Drew God.
Furthermore, Spacey was reportedly working on a movie called Peter Five Eight last year. The film is directed by Michael Zaiko Hall, although there are currently no details about the plot or the size of Spacey’s role in the film.
Spacey is currently facing a lawsuit filed by Anthony Rapp, who was the first person to publicly accuse Spacey of sexual misconduct in 2017. Rapp first sued Spacey in Sept. 2020, alleging that Spacey assaulted him in a Manhattan apartment after befriending him when they both worked on Broadway. Rapp claimed a visibly intoxicated Spacey picked him up, placed him on a bed, climbed on top of him, and made sexual advances before Rapp was able to get away. Spacey has denied the allegations.
Spacey has faced some other legal actions as well, although not many have come to fruition. In 2019, he pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault and battery stemming from a 2016 incident in which he allegedly stuck his hand down an 18-year-old man’s pants and grabbed his genitals; those charges, however, were dropped after the alleged victim nixed a civil suit. Another lawsuit, filed by a John Doe, was put on hold after the death of the alleged victim in Sept. 2019.
(A few months after Doe’s death, another Spacey accuser, the author and former Norwegian Royal, Ari Behn, died by suicide at the age of 47. Behn had not been pursuing any legal action against Spacey.)
Rolling Stone has reached out to Rapp and others who have accused Space of sexual assault or misconduct for comment regarding the 1242 casting news.
After the accusation against Spacey came out in 2017, it seemed his film career was over and he’d be relegated to sharing strange holiday video messages from his home each year. In the wake of the allegations, Spacey was digitally replaced by Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World, Netflix cut him from House of Cards, and the Gore Vidal biopic he starred in was put on ice.
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