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      Kevin Spacey to Face Sexual Assault Charges in Britain

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      The actor said in a statement to “Good Morning America” that he will seek to prove his innocence against the charges.The actor Kevin Spacey said on Tuesday that he will voluntarily travel to Britain to face criminal sexual assault charges, allowing the authorities there to formally charge him without having to pursue extradition proceedings.Last week, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced that law enforcement had authorized the charges, of four counts of sexual assault against three men, as well as one charge of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” But Mr. Spacey, 62, cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales.A representative for Mr. Spacey told the ABC News show “Good Morning America” in a statement that he would travel to Britain to defend himself.“While I am disappointed with their decision to move forward, I will voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged and defend myself against these charges, which I am confident will prove my innocence,” the statement said.The charges concern three complainants. The alleged incidents date from March 2005, August 2008 and April 2013. During those years, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London. All the incidents occurred in London, except one from 2013, which occurred in Gloucestershire, England. The Metropolitan Police said that one of the men was now “in his 40s” and that the other two were now in their 30s, but did not provide their exact ages.A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service declined to comment on Tuesday.In his statement, Mr. Spacey also said, “I very much appreciate the Crown Prosecution Service’s statement in which they carefully reminded the media and the public that I am entitled to a fair trial, and innocent until proven otherwise.”The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey, a two-time Academy Award winner, of sexual misconduct was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old. Mr. Spacey is currently defending himself in a lawsuit filed by Mr. Rapp in New York.After Mr. Rapp’s allegations were made public in a BuzzFeed article, 20 people who worked with Mr. Spacey at the Old Vic theater in London, where he was artistic director for 11 years, accused him of inappropriate behavior. The theater, which said last week that it could not comment on ongoing criminal proceedings, commissioned an independent investigation, which Mr. Spacey did not take part in, and issued a report that concluded that “his stardom and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people, and in particular junior staff or young actors, from feeling that they could speak up or raise a hand for help.” More

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      The Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard Libel Case Is in the Jury’s Hands

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      After closing arguments, the judge asked a jury in Virginia to decide a defamation trial that focused as much on domestic abuse as damaged reputations.After 23 days of testimony that painted conflicting pictures of a tumultuous Hollywood marriage, lawyers for Johnny Depp and Amber Heard delivered their closing arguments on Friday, seeking to persuade the jury that their client had been the person who was abused and defamed.Mr. Depp’s lawyers asserted that their movie star client had been falsely disparaged in a Washington Post op-ed in which Ms. Heard referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”The accusations of spousal abuse that she was referencing, the lawyers argued, had ruined Mr. Depp’s life.“We ask you to give Mr. Depp his life back by telling the world that Mr. Depp is not the abuser Ms. Heard said he is,” a lawyer for Mr. Depp, Camille Vasquez, said, “and hold Ms. Heard accountable for her lies.”Ms. Heard’s lawyers countered that not only were the accusations and the op-ed entirely true, but during legal proceedings in 2020, the actress was unfairly maligned when a lawyer, who represented Mr. Depp at the time, called her abuse accusations a hoax.“In Mr. Depp’s world, you don’t leave Mr. Depp, and if you do, he will start a campaign of global humiliation against you,” argued a lawyer for Ms. Heard, Ben Rottenborn.Now, the case is in the hands of seven jurors who deliberated until Friday evening and left the Fairfax County Circuit Court with instructions to return on Tuesday.The trial has drawn widespread attention because the proceedings have been both televised and livestreamed through a pair of cameras in the courtroom, a rarity in Virginia. On one YouTube channel streaming the proceedings, called Law & Crime Network, more than one million users were reported to be watching.There has been stiff competition to fill the public seats in the courtroom, with observers — most of them fans of Mr. Depp — lining up in the middle of the night to secure a spot. On Friday morning, about 150 people waited in line to get into the courtroom, with hundreds more lining a nearby road, some of them dressed as Mr. Depp’s movie characters.Peyton Elmendorf, a 27-year-old Depp fan, said that when she first heard about Ms. Heard’s accusations, she had misgivings about defending the actor given the #MeToo movement. But now, after hearing other of the actor’s romantic partners speak positively about him, she said she felt confident voicing her support.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors has become a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship. What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are suing each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.Stan Culture in the Courtroom: The closely watched trial is a case study in what happens when complex claims are filtered through the lenses of extreme fandom. TikTok’s Hate Machine: The online commentary about the trial quickly turned into an internet-wide smear campaign against Ms. Heard. Dressing to Suggest: Both litigants appeared notably sober in their fashion choices. That is no coincidental thing.“I knew he didn’t do it,” she said.Outnumbered outside the courthouse, but unpersuaded, Dan Kim, 26, quietly held a sign nearby that said “I stand with Amber.” He called it “crystal clear” that Mr. Depp had abused Ms. Heard.Supporters of Mr. Depp outside the courthouse on Friday.Craig Hudson/Associated PressUltimately, the jury must consider the veracity and reputational impact of a narrow set of statements. But the six-week trial has encompassed testimony about a vast array of alleged incidents from Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard’s marriage.Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp of repeated physical abuse that she said often coincided with drug and alcohol use and began with his accusing her of infidelity. She has also alleged several instances of sexual assault — including an accusation that he assaulted her with a bottle in Australia in 2015.Amber Heard, talking to one of her lawyers during the proceedings on Friday.Pool Photo via Steve Helber/ReutersMr. Depp has denied ever hitting or sexually assaulting Ms. Heard and has portrayed her as the aggressor in the relationship, recalling violence from her throughout their relationship, as well as angry tirades and demeaning name-calling. Ms. Heard has denied hitting Mr. Depp except in defense of herself or her sister.Testimony about the incidents often involved sensational details: disputed affairs with celebrities, graffiti written in blood and a missing chunk of Mr. Depp’s finger that forced the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie to pause production.In laying out the highlights of their evidence, Mr. Depp’s lawyers reminded the jury of witnesses who said they did not see injuries on Ms. Heard around the times she reported having them, showed a photo of him with a “shiner” that he said she gave him and replayed audio of arguments between the estranged couple in which Ms. Heard admits to having hit Mr. Depp. In one audio clip, Ms. Heard can be heard saying, “I did start a physical fight,” challenging her claim that she only hit Mr. Depp as a defense. (Ms. Heard testified that in those instances, she hit him in response to his own aggression.)His team also pointed to instances where there were no medical records or photographs to corroborate her allegations of abuse.“The ‘mountain of evidence’ that Mr. Depp abused Ms. Heard is simply not there,” Ms. Vasquez argued. “What we have is a mountain of unproven allegations that are wild, over the top and implausible.”Ms. Heard’s lawyers described witnesses who said she had told them about the abuse. Mr. Rottenborn played a video of Mr. Depp angrily slamming kitchen cabinets and showed jurors a text in which the actor told Ms. Heard’s father he had gone “too far in our fight.” He then showed the jury a photo of Ms. Heard with a red mark on her face after, she said, Mr. Depp hurled a phone at her. Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, another of her lawyers, reminded the jury about a forensic psychologist who testified to reviewing a therapist’s notes — which were not entered into evidence — that reflect contemporaneous reports from Ms. Heard where she complained of sexual abuse.“A ruling against Amber here sends a message that no matter what you do, as an abuse victim, you always have to do more,” Mr. Rottenborn said. “No matter what you document, you always have to document more. No matter whom you tell, you always have to tell more people.”Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      Meet the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cast

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      From trying not to vomit in flight to oiling up for a beach scene, the actors playing pilots got a crash course in the Tom Cruise school of action filmmaking.Thirty-six years after Iceman, Hollywood and Cougar took to the skies in “Top Gun,” a new team of colorfully nicknamed characters are suiting up in “Top Gun: Maverick.”This time, the aviators are recent graduates of the Navy’s elite fighter school, a.k.a. Top Gun, and they’re tasked with a near-impossible mission overseen by Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, the brash pilot played by Tom Cruise. Flying alongside Rooster, the son of the original film’s ill-fated Goose, are Hangman, Phoenix, Bob, Coyote, Fanboy and Payback, who must help destroy a foreign enemy’s uranium plant and get out alive. (Though the characters all have actual names, they’re introduced by their aviator call signs, and that’s how they’re known.)The intensive tutelage began offscreen: Cruise monitored the actors’ progress during a grueling five-month training program that culminated in the cast shooting their own action sequences from the back of real F/A-18 jets flown by Navy fighter pilots.Here’s a peek at the new generation of actors behind the call signs.Glen PowellThe actor initially auditioned for the role that went to Miles Teller.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 33“Maverick” role: HangmanWhere you’ve seen him before: “Set It Up,” “Hidden Figures,” “Scream Queens”‘Top Gun’: The Return of MaverickTom Cruise takes to the air once more in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the long-awaited sequel to a much-loved ’80s action blockbuster.Review: The central question posed by the movie has less to do with the need for combat pilots in the age of drones than with the relevance of movie stars, our critic writes.Tom Cruise: At a time when superheroes dominate the box office, the film industry is betting on the daredevil actor to bring grown-ups back to theaters.A New Class: Thirty-six years after Iceman, Hollywood and Cougar, a new team of colorfully nicknamed characters have suited up for the sequel.Filming Challenges: The aerial feats on show in “Top Gun: Maverick” look like the result of digital wizardry. They aren’t.Powell originally auditioned to play Rooster (then called Rascal) but lost out to Miles Teller. Then, when Powell was offered the role that would become Hangman, he turned it down for fear it would be a copy-and-paste take on Val Kilmer’s antagonistic Iceman in the 1986 film. Cruise persuaded Powell to sign on, and they worked together to make the character distinctly Powell’s own. Still, the cocky, confrontational pilot shares more than a few traits with Iceman — as does Powell with Kilmer. When Powell moved out of the San Diego hotel where he had stayed during filming, he bumped into Kilmer, who had just arrived to shoot his scene. “The last things that I moved out of my room were protein powder, weights and tequila,” Powell said. “I’m literally wheeling them on a luggage cart into the elevator, and as the doors are about to close, Val steps in. He looks at me. Then he looks at the luggage cart. And he just started dying laughing. He’s like, ‘This is ‘Top Gun’ right here.’”Monica BarbaroThough the actress could change her character’s call sign, she had good reason to stick with it.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 32“Maverick” role: PhoenixWhere you’ve seen her before: “The Good Cop,” “Chicago Justice,” “UnREAL”The military did not allow women to fly in combat until 1993, and in the first “Top Gun,” all of the Navy fighter pilot characters were men. Barbaro’s role in the sequel is a reflection of the service’s inclusive shift, and her filmed flights were all handled by female Navy fighter pilots. “When I found out I got the part, I was like, ‘Mom, I got it! And guess what? I get to play a pilot. I’m not a love interest!’” the Northern California native said. “We used the women that we got to fly with as role models for how we designed the character.” And while the actors were allowed to change their characters’ call signs, it quickly became clear during the cast’s downtime together that “Phoenix” was a good fit for Barbaro: “Let’s just say, we had one pretty wild night, and the next morning they were surprised that I arose from the ashes.”Greg Tarzan DavisHe was a schoolteacher not long before turning to acting.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 28“Maverick” role: CoyoteWhere you’ve seen him before: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Good Trouble,” “Chicago P.D.”Not long before landing “Maverick,” Davis was an elementary schoolteacher in his home state of Louisiana. “I’m a big believer in following your dreams. I would preach that to my students,” Davis said. “But I realized I wasn’t doing that — because my dream was to be an actor. So I decided to give it a shot.” In a role reversal, Davis, who has gone by Tarzan since his own “wild” youth, said he felt like a kid throughout production, enthralled by the aviation toys and tasked with learning new things. While “Maverick” was in postproduction, he got a call from Christopher McQuarrie, the writer-director of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”; the frequent Cruise collaborator was asking him to join the cast, no audition required. “I put the phone on mute and jumped up and down and screamed,” Davis said. “That was my first offer, and having an offer is an actor’s dream.”Lewis PullmanThe back story for his character’s call sign didn’t make it into the movie.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 29“Maverick” role: BobWhere you’ve seen him before: “Outer Range,” “Bad Times at the El Royale,” “Catch-22”Of all the call signs, Pullman’s “Bob” (also his character’s first name) is the most mysteriously straightforward. “Bob is reclusive and quiet and a hard nut to crack,” Pullman said. “One of the original drafts had this moment where he kind of earned his stripes, and Hangman says, ‘I think I know what Bob stands for: Big Ol’ Balls.’ They didn’t end up using that, but it gave me a reference for Bob’s trajectory. He starts out as this unassuming guy, who then finds his strength.” Pullman needed strength of his own when Cruise walked into the first table read. Despite being the son of the actor Bill Pullman, Lewis was star-struck. “Tom basically ripped through the doors. His motorcycle in the background. He’s got his helmet on. The sun is glistening. He takes his helmet off, and his hair is perfect,” he said. “Tom is like Cary Grant and Buzz Aldrin and Buster Keaton and Evel Knievel all woven into one man.”Jay EllisAs a boy, the actor saw the original “Top Gun” with his father on an Air Force base.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 40“Maverick” role: PaybackWhere you’ve seen him before: “Insecure,” “Escape Room,” “The Game”Ellis distinctly recalls the day his father, who was then a mechanic in the Air Force, took him to see the first “Top Gun” in a theater on base in Austin, Texas. “I remember just looking up at the screen thinking, ‘I want to do that. Whatever those guys are up there doing, I want to be a part of that somehow,’” he said. Rather than enlist, Ellis became an actor. Fast forward three decades, and he found himself shooting “Maverick” and paying homage to the original’s beach volleyball scene with a game of beach football as the camera panned over the cast’s glistening muscles for a sun-dappled montage. “We probably went through five different types of oil because the makeup team was trying to figure out what wouldn’t soak into everyone’s skin so quickly,” Ellis said. “We started out with baby oil, then we moved on to argan oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. We switched to glycerin at one point. They were spraying us down with Evian bottles. It made for a very slippery game.”Danny RamirezHe thought he wouldn’t have to worry about his fear of flying. He was wrong.Paramount PicturesAge: 29“Maverick” role: FanboyWhere you’ve seen him before: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “On My Block,” “Assassination Nation”Before signing on, the actors had to check a box attesting they weren’t afraid of flying. “I lied,” Ramirez said with a laugh. “I was like, What’s the worst that could happen? It’s a Tom Cruise movie, that means he’ll be the one doing the stunts.” Without his usual commercial-flight routine of wine and noise-canceling headphones, Ramirez found himself struggling not to vomit as his F/A-18 rolled and dove through the air. The actors each had their own tricks to cope with motion sickness: Davis relied on Dramamine. Pullman preferred a preflight diet of rice and fresh ginger. For Ramirez, slowly building tolerance in incrementally smaller and faster planes was key. Adding to the degree of difficulty: They not only had to deliver their lines, but also set up the shots and adjust the cameras themselves once in the air. “I was like, ‘Are we going to get some kind of camera operator credit or what?’” he said. “Having to line up another jet going 500 miles an hour to stay within the frame was an experience I’m probably never going to have again.” More

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      Remembering Ray Liotta in ‘Goodfellas’

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      His performance as Henry Hill includes many touches that weren’t in the script. But the producer didn’t want to cast him originally.There’s a moment early in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster classic “Goodfellas” that always tugs at my heartstrings. Scorsese’s movie is brutal and cleareyed and unsentimental, yes. But Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, the viewer’s docent into the criminal world, injects a note of tenderness that’s all the more effective for coming out of the mouth of a slick sociopath. (The movie is based on the true-crime book “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi; the real Hill attained some celebrity in the wake of the picture’s release.)It’s during the voice-over when Henry recalls as a boy envying the wiseguys who hung out at the pizza parlor and taxi stand across the street from his home. The guy who runs the pizza joint is Tuddy Cicero, brother of the mob underboss Paulie Cicero, for whom Henry will be working soon. Narrator Henry says the gangster’s full name and pauses. Then, in an exhalation that has low but strong notes of love and nostalgia, he adds, “Tuddy.”Now mind you, Tuddy is eventually revealed to be as ruthless and coldblooded a gangster as they come. It is he who puts the bullet in the back of the head of Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) at the fraudulent ceremony at which Tommy is to become a “made man.” But here is Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, clearly still besotted with a childhood idol and the life he shared with the man. Liotta, who died this week at 67, fills Scorsese’s movie with dozens of equally revelatory touches.When I was researching “Made Men: The Story of ‘Goodfellas,’” my 2020 book about the film, I asked about that moment in the movie several times. The pause and the repetition of Tuddy’s name was not in the script drafts I saw. It was Liotta’s own touch. No one I spoke with remembered whether Liotta suggested it during the voice-over recordings or just added it himself. In any event, it works. Maybe too well, for people who believe that depiction is endorsement. In a movie that relentlessly examines the lure and transgressive thrill of amorality, Liotta’s depiction of Hill is the hook that draws the viewer in.If you saw Hill on television or listened to any of his appearances on Howard Stern, you were likely to get the impression that Henry Hill was what your grandmother might call a schnook. While he did commit acts of violence both gang-related and domestic, he wasn’t intimidating. Edward McDonald, the prosecutor who got Hill and family into the witness protection program, and who plays himself in “Goodfellas,” told me that Hill was more a mob court jester than any kind of master criminal.But Scorsese’s movie isn’t just about real-life gangsters — it’s also about how we mythologize them. “Movie stars with muscle” is how Hill characterizes his crew. And Liotta was a perfect Henry, able to turn on a dime from dry charm to deadly rage. In one of the movie’s famed tracking shots, when Henry escorts his future wife, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), into New York’s Copacabana nightclub by way of a side entrance, Liotta concocted all the bits of charming business a guy like Henry would use: tip a doorman here, shout out to a cook there, steer your date by the elbow lightly, act like it’s just what you’re due when the waiter flies out from the wings and sets a personal table at the side of the stage. Liotta got suggestions from Hill himself — and more from audiotapes of Hill speaking with Pileggi. But the research Liotta did into Hill’s world, and the inner work he did, was crucial.The part came at a point when he might have been headed for a career as a character actor. He was unforgettable in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild,” as an ex-boyfriend of Melanie Griffith’s whose possessiveness explodes in still-shocking violence. And in “Field of Dreams” he played a reincarnation of the disgraced ballplayer Shoeless Joe Jackson. Sometimes the crinkle in his eye reminded the viewer of the man’s corruption, but his portrayal was mostly of an awe-struck love of the game he could now play forever in a Midwestern cornfield turned ballpark.When “Goodfellas” was announced, more than one of its eventual cast members told me that it was the movie every New York and Los Angeles actor wanted in on. And Liotta was no exception. Everyone liked him for the part save the producer Irwin Winkler. He did not see the actor’s charm. In his book “A Life in Movies,” Winkler recalls Liotta coming to his table at a Santa Monica restaurant and asking for a word. “In a 10-minute conversation he (with charm and confidence) sold me on why he should play Henry Hill,” the producer wrote. When I interviewed Winkler, he said, rather sheepishly, “You heard the story of me not wanting Ray?” I told Winkler I had and said, “I can’t see anyone else doing it.” Winkler responded “Nor can I.”As it happened, I was not able to interview Liotta himself for my book. Early talks with his publicist were promising. It was possible that I could get some time with him when he was in New York promoting “Marriage Story” at the New York Film Festival; then it wasn’t. We were both represented by the same agency; no dice. He was in a film on which a few close friends of mine were crew members. Can’t go there. And as I worked on the book, I heard several accounts of an intense, serious actor who, upon deciding he wasn’t going to do something, kept to that.He had spoken about “Goodfellas” in other interviews, including an oral history that ran in GQ in 2010. The shoot had its challenges: He suffered the death of his mother halfway through and felt at least slightly shut out by male castmates like Robert De Niro and Pesci. Going through De Niro’s papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, I came across a thank-you card from Liotta, and inside was a handwritten note: “Bob, Now I can tell you how much of a trip it was to work with you. You’re the best. Hope we can do it again. But I really mean Do it!” Liotta’s eagerness is palpable. The two did work together again, in “Copland.”But “Goodfellas” was irreproducible. Because it did show off his range, and it is a landmark film. Liotta’s signature role is one any actor would hope to be remembered by.Glenn Kenny is a critic and the author of “Made Men: The Story of ‘Goodfellas.’” More

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      Kevin Spacey Facing Sexual Assault Charges in Britain

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      British prosecutors said that they had authorized criminal charges against Mr. Spacey, 62, for four counts of sexual assault. He cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales. LONDON — The British authorities have authorized criminal charges against Kevin Spacey on four counts of sexual assault against three men, the country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced in a news release on Thursday.Rosemary Ainslie, head of the service’s special crime division, said in the release that the service had also authorized one charge against Mr. Spacey, 62, of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”The authorization of charges followed a review of the evidence collected by London’s police force. Mr. Spacey cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales, a spokesman for the service said in a telephone interview. The spokesman declined to comment on whether the service would pursue extradition proceedings if that did not occur. The news release said the charges concerned three complainants. The incidents dated from March 2005, August 2008 and April 2013, it added — a time when Mr. Spacey was artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London. All the incidents occurred in London, except one from 2013, which occurred in Gloucestershire, England. The Metropolitan Police said that one of the men was now “in his 40s” and that the other two were now in their 30s, but did not provide their exact ages.Representatives for Mr. Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey of sexual misconduct was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old.Soon after that a former television anchor came forward to accuse Mr. Spacey of sexually assaulting her son, and then 20 people who worked with Mr. Spacey at the Old Vic theater in London, where he was artistic director for 11 years, accused him of inappropriate behavior. The theater commissioned an independent investigation, which Mr. Spacey did not take part in, and issued a report that concluded that “his stardom and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people, and in particular junior staff or young actors, from feeling that they could speak up or raise a hand for help.”The report said that the theater had not been able to independently verify the allegations. But some actors and members of the staff did go public. One actor, Roberto Cavazos, wrote on Facebook that he “had a couple of nasty encounters with Spacey that were close to being called harassment” at the theater. “It seems that it only took a male under 30 to make Mr. Spacey feel free to touch us,” Mr. Cavazos wrote.The Old Vic said in a statement that it could not comment on ongoing criminal proceedings. In 2018, Mr. Spacey was charged with the sexual assault of the television anchor’s 18-year-old son in Nantucket, Mass. Prosecutors dropped the case when the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to continue testifying.A massage therapist sued Mr. Spacey in California in 2019, accusing him of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly ahead of the trial and the case was dismissed when his estate dropped the lawsuit.Mr. Spacey is a two-time Academy Award winner. He won the best actor Oscar in 2000 for his work in “American Beauty,” and in 1996 he won best supporting actor for “The Usual Suspects.” He was also a prominent stage actor, winning a Tony Award in 1991 as a featured actor in “Lost in Yonkers,” and he was the host of the Tony Awards in 2017. But he had a rapid fall from grace after the accusations by Mr. Rapp, who has an ongoing lawsuit against him, which were followed by more accusations. After Mr. Rapp’s allegations were first published in BuzzFeed, Mr. Spacey released a statement saying that he did not recall the episode but apologized for what he said “would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In court papers, Mr. Spacey denied Mr. Rapp’s allegations that when Mr. Rapp was underage, Mr. Spacey had grabbed his buttocks and lifted him onto a bed.Mr. Spacey appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday for a hearing about the proper venue for Mr. Rapp’s lawsuit. As he left the courthouse, Mr. Spacey declined to acknowledge reporters’ questions about the developments in Britain, according to The New York Post. Mr. Spacey leaving the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday, where there was a hearing about a civil lawsuit he is facing.John Minchillo/Associated PressTV and film producers started dropping Mr. Spacey from projects after Mr. Rapp went public and more allegations followed, including from the Netflix political drama “House of Cards,” which finished its run without the actor. But more recently, he has found roles in smaller films, including an Italian feature and an American thriller.In January, Croatian newspapers reported that Mr. Spacey was shooting a movie in the country in which he played Franjo Tudjman, the onetime Communist general who led Croatia to independence. This month, Deadline reported that he had signed up for a historical drama called “1242 — Gateway to the West” scheduled to start shooting in Hungary and Mongolia in October. The movie would tell the story of one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons. It was being sold at the Cannes Film Festival, Deadline added. His new American thriller was also being sold at Cannes, according to Rolling Stone.Alex Marshall More

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      A Darker ‘Borgen’ Returns, and Heads to Greenland

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      ILULISSAT, Greenland — From the top floor of a hotel here the view of Disko Bay, a vast inlet in western Greenland dotted with icebergs, was captivating.But as the Danish actor Sidse Babett Knudsen stared out the window at what appeared to be a frozen ghost city glinting in the early September sun, she looked more pained than enthralled. Knudsen was in Greenland to shoot scenes for a new season of “Borgen,” the acclaimed series that seemingly came to an end nearly a decade ago.In the intervening years, her character Birgitte Nyborg, Denmark’s first female prime minister, has undergone some changes that were making Knudsen uneasy. “She goes bad places,” the actor said of the revived Birgitte. “Which intellectually is interesting, but is actually a bit hard to do because I feel this incredible responsibility to take care of her.”Sidse Babett Knudsen was initially wary of reviving her beloved “Borgen” character, Birgitte Nyborg.Mike Kollöffel/NetflixThat dilemma of beloved characters going bad places is at the heart of the fourth season of “Borgen,” which, after a long hiatus and a February debut on Danish public television, begins streaming on Netflix on June 2. In its fundamentals, the show is unchanged: It still navigates a surprisingly engaging path through politics’ thicket, and it still focuses on the double bind that women in positions of power face in their public and private lives.But now the stakes are higher: instead of episodic stories of interparty sparring, this “Borgen” follows a single plotline across the entire season: Large reserves of oil are discovered in Greenland, and geopolitical tensions erupt around issues of sovereignty, climate change and decolonization. And all this among characters who themselves have grown not merely older, but darker: less “West Wing,” more “House of Cards.”When “Borgen” aired what seemed like its final episode on Danish television in 2013, the show was already on its way to becoming an international hit; eventually syndicated in 70 countries, it would launch Hollywood careers for several of its stars, including Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen and Pilou Asbaek.Knudsen’s immensely likable portrayal of a political idealist who was both a determined leader and a vulnerable woman (the first episode famously had her struggling to fit into the suit she planned to wear to an important debate) may even have helped audiences accept the idea of a female prime minister; Denmark elected its first, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a year after “Borgen” debuted in 2010. But it also turned Birgitte into a feminist icon globally. “I was in London once,” Knudsen said. “And a woman came up to me and told me that she had something on her refrigerator that said, ‘What would Birgitte Nyborg do?’”Filming in Greenland took place in August and September 2021, and the production had to contend with many logistical difficulties.Mike Kolloffel/NetflixFor all its popularity, the show was never intended to last more than its original three seasons, and Knudsen was initially reluctant, she said, to do a fourth, believing fans would inevitably be disappointed. She was won over by the trajectory for the new season presented by the show’s creator and screenwriter, Adam Price, and her affection for her character.Several other key actors, including Hjort Sorensen, who plays the journalist Katrine Fonsmark, also came back. “What’s brilliant,” Hjort Sorensen said, “is that 10 years have passed, both in real time and for the characters. So when I read the first script, it felt like finding old friends on Facebook: Oh, this is what you’ve been doing!”In the new season, Katrine returns to journalism and becomes head of a newsroom, only to discover that the traits that served her well earlier in her career — her relentlessness and uncompromising nature — make her an unsympathetic boss. “I definitely struggled with my vanity on her behalf,” Hjort Sorensen said. But she also welcomed the chance to explore a character who’s come to understand with age “that the world is less black and white.”Birgitte, now the foreign minister, also compromises on her ideals. “She’s faced with a choice: Are you going to leave the scene gracefully, or are you going to remain in the game?” Price said. “Knowing that remaining in the game means that your hands will be very dirty.” The real action of this “Borgen” happens on the massive, ice-covered island of Greenland, 5,000 miles from Copenhagen. When oil is discovered there, it falls to Birgitte to not only navigate the competing interests of the United States, China and Russia but, even more trickily, to negotiate with the Greenlandic government over its extraction.Everything the production needed for filming was shipped to Greenland by boat from Denmark.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesGreenland is an autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, from which it receives an annual grant.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThe harbor in Ilulissat, a town of less than 5,000 people.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times“Borgen” has always winked at real-life political events, and here, too, the corollaries resonate. An autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has power over several policy areas, but still depends heavily on the Danish government for its operating expenses; an annual grant of more than $600 million comprises about 20 percent of Greenlandic gross domestic product. On the show and in real life, the discovery of valuable natural resources in Greenland could offer a path for ending the country’s dependence on Denmark.Focusing the new season on that arc brought immense challenges. The logistics were daunting: Filming took place in August and September 2021, when Greenland’s strict coronavirus policies had reduced the already sparse number of international flights. Greenland has no roads to connect its settlements, and everything needed for the several weeks of shooting in Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest city, and Nuuk, the capital, had to be shipped from Copenhagen by boat. This included a full-sized prop submarine and the crates of chemical hand warmers that would keep the team from freezing on set.Even more delicate was the task of representing a country and a people still very much in the process of decolonization. “We have this huge history together,” Price said of the tensions that drew him to the season’s story line. “There’s so much guilt, and there’s so much an undercurrent of anger.”But as a Danish production making a story about Greenlanders, “Borgen” ran the risk of replicating historical patterns. “We are so used to being represented by others,” Nivi Pedersen, an actor who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series and is also a documentary filmmaker, said. “And we are only just now starting to tell our own stories, both inward to ourselves and out to the rest of the world.”Nivi Pedersen, who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series, said Greenlanders are “only just now starting to tell our own stories.”Mike Kollöffel/NetflixPrice admits that in early drafts, “some of the Greenlandic characters bordered on cliché, because I didn’t know better.” He tried to counteract that with deep research and by giving Greenland “as many voices as possible in the show,” he said. In addition to hiring the novelist Niviaq Korneliussen to handle the translation of the Greenlandic dialogue, the directorial team was influenced by a research trip organized by the prominent local businessman Svend Hardenberg, who said he tried to introduce the team to the real Greenland.While production was underway, the show’s Greenlandic actors expressed concern in interviews that certain cultural elements they considered important for authenticity — the local accents that would make a character’s origins immediately obvious to other Greenlanders; the deeply-ingrained codes that would keep another from making a public outburst — were not being accurately represented. And since the show premiered, reviews in the Greenlandic press have been mixed. “It quickly becomes a caricatured depiction of a beautiful land with noble people who are submissive,” wrote the newspaper Sermitsiaq.But both Danes and Greenlanders involved in the production expect the season to open their audience’s eyes in important ways. “I think it will have an impact on how others see the relationship between Danes and Greenlanders, and maybe on how the Danes perceive themselves,” Hardenberg said. “That’s the wonderful thing about a vehicle like ‘Borgen,’” Price agreed. “We can actually inform and entertain at the same time.”Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesCarsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesIlulissat looks out over Disko Bay, where the icebergs can look like a frozen ghost city.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThat the new season does so in tones darker than previous ones feels like an honest reflection of the last decade. Months after her time in Ilulissat, Knudsen was no longer wondering if she had made the right decision in returning to “Borgen.” Like the others, she felt hopeful that the show would help raise awareness about Denmark’s relationship with Greenland, and she said she felt permanently altered by her encounters with those spectacular icebergs in Disko Bay.Asked what she thought that woman in London would feel about Birgitte now, who the actor portrays again with skillful nuance, Knudsen smiled with the adorable wrinkling of her nose for which her character is known.“There might not be so much advice on her refrigerator from Birgitte Nyborg,” she said. “But I hope she finds the journey interesting.” More

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      in Television

      Jurnee Smollett: ‘The Past Few Years Have Been Heartbreaking’

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      The “Lovecraft Country” star has faced setbacks but emerged with new projects, including the Netflix movie “Spiderhead.”Jurnee Smollett learned she had received a best actress Emmy nomination for her starring role on the HBO series “Lovecraft Country” when she was in the hair and makeup trailer for another project, the coming Netflix film “Lou.”“I started screaming,” she recalled. “I was screaming, and crying.”That joy was tempered somewhat when she heard that her first Emmy nomination — one of 18 for the critically acclaimed series — was also the first time two Black leads from the same drama series had been nominated in the same year. “I thought, it can’t be,” she said. “We’re still making firsts, in 2021? It was sobering, I’m not going to lie.”That first season of “Lovecraft Country,” a horror drama which featured monsters of all sorts, from tentacled demons to racist cops, looked to be the start of something big — until it wasn’t. A much-anticipated second season never came to pass. Meanwhile, Smollett’s life, going back to the death of her father in 2015 after years of estrangement, has been beset by sadness and setbacks.“The past few years have been heartbreaking,” she admitted.But Smollett never stopped working, even in the midst of the pandemic. Among her forthcoming projects are “Lou,” a female-led thriller co-starring Allison Janney, and “The Burial,” a courtroom dramedy in which Smollett and Jamie Foxx square off as rival attorneys. She’s also preparing to reprise her role as Black Canary, the chanteuse superhero with pipes of steel she played in the 2020 film “Birds of Prey.”Courtney B. Vance, left, and Jonathan Majors with Jurnee Smollett in “Lovecraft Country.”Eli Joshua Ade/HBOAnd then there’s “Spiderhead,” a sci-fi thriller based on a 2010 short story by George Saunders, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” In the film, which premieres June 17, Steve Abnesti, the overseer of an eerily cushy island prison, is conducting drug-fueled psychological experiments on his charges, which include Jeff, a convict serving time for involuntary manslaughter, and Lizzy, a fellow convict who harbors her own dark secret.Chris Hemsworth (the “Thor” franchise) plays the unctuous overseer, while Miles Teller (“Whiplash”) and Smollett play his two primary lab rats. “For a drama like this, a character-driven film where you’re really only talking about three characters, you need to have some heavy hitters,” said the director, Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Teller in the upcoming “Top Gun: Maverick.”“Spiderhead” was shot in Australia in 2020, during the pandemic. Like the controversial Milgram experiment of the early 1960s, in which subjects were ordered by lab coat-wearing “scientists” to administer what they thought were painful electric shocks to other study participants, Jeff and Lizzy are urged to administer drugs with names like Verbaluce (instant verbosity!) and Darkenfloxx (pain beyond imagining!) to each other — you know, for science. (Smooth soundtrack jams from Chuck Mangione and the Doobie Brothers accompany the action.)“Jurnee and Miles make a good on-screen couple for this because they can both play damaged,” Kosinski said.The movie forced Smollett to question what she herself might do under similar circumstances. Would she administer excruciatingly painful drugs to somebody, say, Miles Teller, if someone like Chris Hemsworth asked her to? “I believe, in the comfort of my home, that I would say no,” she said.In a video interview this month, Smollett, 35, looked back on an acting career that has spanned three decades, from sitcoms to feature films, with detours on the stage. “I’ve done this so long,” she said with a laugh. She talked about everything from childhood crushes (“Paul Newman, Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes”) to motherhood (“It’s true what they say, that it’s your heart living outside of your body”), to how she got her name.That name. Her parents, Smollett explained, both had names starting with J, so they decided all six of their children should, too. Smollett’s brother Jojo thinks “Jurnee” might be a play on Sojourner Truth, the 19th-century abolitionist, but Smollett’s mother has a different story.“My mom was in labor for two hours, and I fell asleep in the middle of coming down the birth canal,” Jurnee Smollett said. “And my mom kept saying, ‘This little girl’s a trip.’ I guess I wasn’t ready to come out, and so she said I took her on a journey.”Smollett’s earliest memories have been on sets and stages. At 3, she played Debbie Allen’s daughter — and Diahann Carroll’s granddaughter — on a pilot for an unsold series, “Sunday in Paris.” At 4, she was cast as Denise Frazer, Michelle Tanner’s pal, on the long-running sitcom “Full House.” The young actress resisted the persistent siren call of the Disney Channel.“I was blessed because I wasn’t a child star,” Smollett said. “I was a kid who acted.”Smollett with Miles Teller in “Spiderhead.”NetflixFilm roles soon followed. In 1996, she appeared in the first of them, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Jack,” alongside Robin Williams. “Robin Williams taught me how to improv when I was 8 years old,” she said. At 11, she was starring alongside Samuel L. Jackson in “Eve’s Bayou,” which also featured Carroll — Smollett’s second role with the pioneering actress before she had even hit her teens. “We were old pals by then,” she said.Over the years, she has shared the stage of the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles with Cicely Tyson in a 2014 revival of “The Trip to Bountiful,” and played Angela Bassett’s daughter (the 2001 TV movie “Ruby’s Bucket of Blood”) and Denzel Washington’s pupil (“The Great Debaters”). That 2007 drama “was like taking a master class,” she said.In 2018, Smollett was cast in “Lovecraft Country.” For her role as Leti Lewis, a young Black woman traveling through segregated 1950s America, Smollett drew inspiration from her maternal grandmother, who died before Smollett was born but whom the actress described as “always this mystical figure in our household.”“One of my teachers pointed out to me this idea of blood memory,” she said. “Having that Black and Jewish ancestry, I come from survivors. It’s part of our DNA. My grandmother was a survivor, and her spirit is what I called upon when I approached Leti.”Family has played a major role in Smollett’s life over the past several years. In 2015, her father, whom she had been estranged from for most of her life, died, only two years after reconnecting with Smollett and the rest of her family. “We reunited at my sister’s wedding,” she said. “It was the first time I had seen him in years. It was such a healing moment for my entire family.”Four years later, her brother Jussie Smollett told police he had been the victim of a racist attack and was later charged with filing a false police report; in the end, her brother was sentenced to 150 days in county jail. Smollett declined to talk about the situation, but “it’s no secret how heartbroken my family is,” she said.“I am so close to Jussie,” she added. “I love that man so much. He’s always been there for me, as all my siblings have. If I didn’t have my family, if I didn’t have my mom and my siblings, I don’t know where I’d be.”And then in 2020, as the pandemic set in, Smollett filed for divorce from her husband, the musician Josiah Bell, after nearly 10 years of marriage. The two had a child together, Hunter, now 5. When asked what it’s like being a mom, Smollett clarified, “A single working mom!”She explained: “It’s the biggest blessing and the biggest challenge, simultaneously. But I’m lucky I’m in a situation in which, as a working mom, I’m able to bring him with me wherever I go. I know not all moms have that benefit.”In the coming years, Smollett hopes to be doing more producing. “‘Lou’ was the first film I produced, and I definitely see myself stepping more into that role,” she said. “I hope to usher more unique voices and filmmakers who are creating inclusive stories, centering folks who aren’t normally centered in these types of stories.”Even so, Smollett isn’t giving up acting any time soon. “I’m very excited about the slate of films we have coming down the pipeline,” she said. “They’re dream roles.”Those include the Black Canary movie, which is being written by the “Lovecraft Country” creator Misha Green. “Jurnee shows up on the day, and she has thought about 900 different ways to approach her character,” said Green, who also worked with the actress on the series “Underground.”Yet even as Smollett looks forward, she’s trying to appreciate the present, if even just a bit. “I’m trying to find a balance between enjoying the now, because that’s something I struggle with, and always looking to the future,” she said. “I’m always like, OK, been there, done that. What’s next?” More

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      in Theater

      Kenneth Welsh, Memorable as a Villain on ‘Twin Peaks,’ Dies at 80

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      In a long career onstage (including Broadway), in movies and on television, he ranged across genres, from sketch comedy to science fiction.Kenneth Welsh, a prolific Canadian stage and screen actor who was best known for his portrayal of the murderous, unhinged villain Windom Earle on the hit early-1990s television series “Twin Peaks,” died on May 5 at his home in Sanford, Ontario. He was 80.His longtime agent, Pam Winter, said the cause was cancer.Mr. Welsh appeared in 10 episodes of “Twin Peaks” in its second season, playing Earle, the vengeful, maniacal adversary and former F.B.I. partner of the protagonist, Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan).The series, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, follows Cooper as he investigates the murder of the high school student Laura Palmer in the seemingly sleepy town of Twin Peaks, Wash.Earle featured in some of the darker, more sadistic scenes and story lines in a series that was known for bending genres, mixing horror and surrealism with soapy and sometimes comic elements.In the years following its cancellation by ABC in 1991 and its cliffhanger ending, “Twin Peaks” developed a cult following and spawned a prequel film, “Fire Walk With Me” (1992) and returned for limited-series that premiered on Showtime in 2017. Welsh’s character did not appear in either project.Mr. Welsh was cast in the role after visiting the set in Washington State and meeting with Robert Engels, one of the show’s producers, and Mr. Frost.Mr. Engels “knew that I was a little eccentric, and he knew that as an actor I would go this way and that way,” Mr. Welsh said in an interview for the entertainment website 25YL, adding: “He just kind of knew that I was crazy and that I was perfect for Windom. I guess?”Mr. Welsh said it was he who successfully pitched the idea of having Earle wear different disguises as he stalked Cooper and various other characters.Mr. Welsh and Stockard Channing in the 1997 Lincoln Center production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMr. Welsh thrived playing off-kilter characters, like Larry Loomis, the Sovereign Protector of the Order of the Lynx, a dying fraternal order at the center of “Lodge 49,” a short-lived comedy-drama series seen on AMC in 2018 and 2019.But in his more than 240 movie and television roles, he ranged widely across genres, including sketch comedy (Amazon’s recent revival of “The Kids in the Hall”), science fiction (“Star Trek: Discovery” in 2020), family fare (“Eloise at the Plaza,” a 2003 Disney TV movie) and historical dramas; he played President Harry S. Truman twice, in the television movies “Hiroshima” (1995) and “Haven” (2001), and Thomas Edison in the 1998 TV movie “Edison: The Wizard of Light,” for which he received an Emmy nomination.His notable film notable roles included the vice president of the United States in Roland Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004), about the onset of an ecological catastrophe, and the father of Katharine Hepburn (played by Cate Blanchett) in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning “The Aviator” (2004).Mr. Welsh won five Canadian Screen Awards, four for his television work and one for his supporting role in the 1995 film “Margaret’s Museum,” a drama set in a coal-mining town on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In 2003 he was named a member of the Order of Canada.Kenneth Welsh was born on March 30, 1942, in Edmonton, Alberta, to Clifford and Lillian (Sawchuk) Welsh. His father worked for the Canadian National Railway for more than 35 years, and his mother worked at a dress shop.Kenneth was the inaugural class president at Bonnie Doon Composite High School in Edmonton. He attended the University of Alberta, where he majored in drama, and then the National Theater School of Canada, graduating in 1965.He went on to rack up many credits on the stage, including, early on, in Shakespearean productions at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Notably, he starred with Kathy Bates in the original Off Broadway production of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune” in 1987 and was seen on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” (1984), directed by Mike Nichols, and at Lincoln Center in a production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” (1997), with Glenn Close.His last stage performance was in Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood” at the Coal Mine Theater in Toronto in 2021.Drawing on his encyclopedic memory of Shakespeare’s works, Mr. Welsh was a creator, with the composer Ray Leslee, of “Stand Up Shakespeare,” a “motley musical,” as it billed itself, that opened Off Broadway in 1987. The production, also directed by Mr. Nichols, involved audience members, who would suggest Shakespeare characters, scenes or plays for Mr. Welsh to recite from memory. In the following decades he would sporadically revive “Stand Up Shakespeare” as a signature piece in various locations in the United States and Canada.Mr. Welsh, right in a 2007 episode of the science fiction series “Stargate: Atlantis” with, from left, Joe Flanigan and David Hewlett. He ranged widely across genres in his long career.Sci Fi ChannelMr. Welsh’s marriages to Corinne Farago and Donna Haley ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Lynne McIlvride, a visual artist, and a son, Devon, a musician, from his first marriage.In the final phase of his career, Mr. Welsh shifted his attention to independent projects and young filmmakers. His last film was “Midnight at the Paradise,” a drama directed by Vanessa Matsui, now in postproduction. Alongside Alan Hawco and Liane Balaban, he played the key supporting role of a movie critic nearing the end of his life.On set, Ms. Matsui said, Mr. Welsh captivated his colleagues.“He was always telling the cast and crew funny stories from his life, and he blew us all away with his performance and grace,” she said in an email. “I’ll never forget shooting this one scene with him and Allan Hawco, and you could hear a pin drop because the crew was just so drawn in by his performance. It was one of those special, intangible moments on set where you knew you just captured magic.” More