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    Despite Acquittal, Kevin Spacey Faces Uphill Battle for Hollywood Roles

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    The actor, who was cleared of sexual assault charges in Britain this week, has parts in two small upcoming films. Yet his tarnished public perception makes starry roles unlikely.The two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey said last month that he was ready to return to acting after years in the wilderness following sexual assault allegations.“I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” Mr. Spacey told a German magazine, referring to accusations that he had assaulted four men. “The second that happens, they’re ready to move forward.”Mr. Spacey was right in several ways: A British jury found him not guilty of nine counts of sexual assault this week, nearly a year after a federal jury in Manhattan cleared him of battery in a civil case filed by the actor Anthony Rapp. And he has two small projects awaiting release, with directors who could not be more publicly supportive.But the starry Hollywood roles, like Mr. Spacey’s conniving politician in “House of Cards” and droll advertising executive in “American Beauty,” may not come back anytime soon, if at all.Despite Mr. Spacey’s legal successes, his public perception is tarnished and a turnoff to studios and streaming services desperate to avoid controversy, said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.“He’s in real trouble,” said Mr. Galloway, who previously served as executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter. “On the 0-to-10 scale, this is like a minus one.”During Mr. Spacey’s trial in Britain, he testified about the damage to his career after the public accusations began to emerge in 2017. “There was a rush to judgment and before the first question was asked or answered, I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything,” he said.Within months of the initial allegation, Mr. Spacey’s character was killed off in the final season of “House of Cards,” his scenes as J. Paul Getty in “All the Money in the World” were reshot with a different actor, and Netflix scrapped the film “Gore,” in which he played the writer Gore Vidal.Beyond two recently filmed parts listed on IMDb, a movie database, it is unclear whether Mr. Spacey is attached to any new projects. His team did not respond to a request for comment, and Mr. Spacey did not provide career insight after being acquitted this week. “I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process,” he said from the courthouse steps.Mike Paul, a public relations expert who specializes in reputation and crisis management, said that considering the nature of the accusations Mr. Spacey faced, he must avoid “pouring gasoline back on issues that you don’t want gasoline on.” Hollywood, he said, wants to see a time of reflection and quiet analysis.The best bet, Mr. Galloway said, is for Mr. Spacey to develop projects for his production company, Trigger Street, or to pursue indie projects that value his acting prowess or consider the publicity a boon.Mr. Spacey’s two known upcoming roles are in minor movies: “Control,” a British film in which he plays a hacker who takes over a politician’s smart car (his part is voice only), and “Peter Five Eight,” a comedic thriller in which he plays a shadowy stranger who arrives in a small mountainside community.Spacey plays a shadowy stranger in the upcoming comedic thriller “Peter Five Eight.”Ascent Films Forever Safe ProductionsMichael Zaiko Hall, the writer and director of “Peter Five Eight,” said in an email that the film, which does not have an official release date, represented a return to the smaller independent films with which Mr. Spacey started his career.“We have here a double Oscar winner with legendary screen presence whose name has just been cleared,” Mr. Hall said. “I imagine there will be a thaw period, followed by a re-emergence into the culture.”Gene Fallaize, the writer and director of “Control,” said that he approached Mr. Spacey for the voice role last fall, and that the recent verdict showed “our gamble had paid off.” Before the jury’s decision, his movie had distribution deals in Germany, Russia and the Middle East. Now, Mr. Fallaize said, it was negotiating with American and British distributors.Mr. Fallaize added that Mr. Spacey might need to do independent movies for a year or two, showing he could generate commercial returns, before major studios would be prepared to work with him. Those movies might have to be in countries that have a more “lenient” view to allegations made against stars, Mr. Fallaize added.“It’s more likely for Europe to be receptive,” agreed Dominik Sedlar, a Croatian-born director and friend of Mr. Spacey’s whose father made a movie this year in which the actor played the country’s first president.Mr. Sedlar said that although Mr. Spacey had twice been vindicated by juries, Hollywood studios might keep shunning the actor “rather than admit they were wrong.”In recent years, both the Venice and Cannes film festivals have been happy to showcase work by directors and actors whose reputation has been stained in the United States, including Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Johnny Depp. On Thursday, spokeswomen for both festivals said their artistic directors were unavailable to comment on Mr. Spacey.Comebacks have always been hard in Hollywood, which may be politically liberal but is artistically and financially conservative.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockThere was similar reluctance from members of the London theater world, where Mr. Spacey was a regular star in the 1990s and 2000s and served as the artistic director of the Old Vic theater from 2004 to 2015. Representatives for 15 producers, West End theater owners and artistic directors either turned down or did not respond to interview requests to discuss Mr. Spacey’s future.Alistair Smith, editor of The Stage, Britain’s major theater newspaper, said in an email that Mr. Spacey’s return was “highly unlikely.” In 2017 the Old Vic published the findings of an independent investigation into Mr. Spacey’s tenure that revealed that 20 unnamed people accused him of unstated inappropriate behavior.“Those allegations have never been satisfactorily addressed by Spacey,” Mr. Smith said. “Unless they are, I can’t see him working in London theater again.”Comebacks have always been hard in Hollywood, which may be politically liberal but is artistically and financially conservative. For those who have succeeded, such as Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr., the road was long.“You need to completely reset your reputation,” Mr. Galloway said. In “fortress Hollywood, the drawbridge is pulled up, and it’s a dangerous moat to swim across.” More

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      Kevin Spacey Is Acquitted of Sexual Assault Charges

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      A British jury on Wednesday found the actor not guilty of nine charges.A jury in London deliberated for more than 12 hours, and ultimately cleared the actor of nine charges.Susannah Ireland/ReutersKevin Spacey, the two-time Oscar-winning actor known for his movie and TV roles including “House of Cards,” was on Wednesday found not guilty by a jury in Britain of nine counts of sexual assault.Almost six years after allegations of inappropriate behavior began to emerge against Mr. Spacey on both sides of the Atlantic, a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London took just over 12 hours to reach its decision.As the verdicts were announced, Mr. Spacey, 64, stood in a transparent box in the middle of the courtroom, wearing a dark blue suit and looking unemotional as he faced the jury.But when the final “not guilty” was read out, the actor, whose birthday falls on Wednesday, began to cry and sighed heavily with relief.Shortly after the verdict, Mr. Spacey walked out of the courthouse — shaking the hands of several jurors on the way and kissing two security guards on the cheek — and gave a brief statement to a throng of waiting reporters.“I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process,” he said. “I’m enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all of the evidence.”“I am humbled by the outcome,” he added, before getting into a taxi.During the almost monthlong trial in London, the court heard from four men who said that Mr. Spacey assaulted them between 2001 and 2013. For most of that time, the actor was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater, a major London playhouse.One complainant told the British police that Mr. Spacey touched him multiple times without his consent. The complainant described incidents included once in either 2004 or 2005 when he said the actor grabbed his genitals so hard that he almost veered off the road as they were heading to Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball.During the trial, Mr. Spacey — who appeared under his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler — said that the pair had a consensual “naughty relationship.” The actor added that he felt “crushed” by the complainant’s characterization of their encounters. Elton John, giving evidence for Mr. Spacey’s defense, said that Mr. Spacey only attended his ball once, in 2001, several years before the complainant said he was groped.Another complainant said that he wrote to Mr. Spacey hoping that the actor would mentor him, and eventually went for a drink at Mr. Spacey’s London home. That complainant said that he fell asleep in the apartment, and later woke up to discover Mr. Spacey on his knees, performing oral sex on him. Mr. Spacey said during the trial that the pair had consensual oral sex, then the man “hurriedly left,” as if he regretted the encounter.On July 20, Patrick Gibbs, Mr. Spacey’s legal representative, claimed that three of the complainants were lying and only made their accusations in the hope of financial gain. Mr. Spacey’s promiscuous lifestyle made him “quite an easy target” for false allegations, Mr. Gibbs added.The trial in London was the latest that Mr. Spacey has successfully defended. In 2022, a federal jury in Manhattan found Mr. Spacey not liable for battery after the actor Anthony Rapp filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Spacey of climbing on top of him and making a sexual advance in 1986, when Mr. Rapp was 14.But what Wednesday’s verdict will mean for Mr. Spacey’s career was not immediately clear. In June, Mr. Spacey said in an interview with Zeit Magazin, a German magazine, that he intended to return to acting after the trial. “I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges,” he said. More

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      Kevin Spacey, in U.K. Trial, Denies Abusing Position of Power

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      Facing accusations of sexual assault, the actor defended himself against multiple claims. He also admitted he got “the signals wrong” during one encounter.Kevin Spacey told a British jury on Friday that some of the sexual assault accusations against him were “pure fantasy” and “absolute bollocks.”On trial in a London courtroom, Mr. Spacey fired back at several questions that Christine Agnew, the prosecutor, put to him.At one point, Mr. Spacey said, “You’re just making stuff up now,” and at another, he called the prosecution’s case “weak.” On several occasions, Justice Mark Wall, the presiding judge, interrupted to ask Mr. Spacey to answer the prosecutor directly.Mr. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges relating to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred from 2001 to 2013. For most of that time, the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actor was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Sitting at the front of the courtroom, Mr. Spacey — wearing a blue suit and patterned tie — was cross-examined for nearly three hours, the day after giving his own account.At one point, Ms. Agnew asked Mr. Spacey if he agreed that he was “the golden boy of the London theater scene” at the time of the alleged encounters, and whether his accusers would have been unlikely to report him because of his reputation.Mr. Spacey said that he used his position “to help others, to create art” and to revive the reputation of the Old Vic theater. “I didn’t have a power wand that I waved in front of people’s faces whenever I wanted someone to go to bed with me,” Mr. Spacey added.Opening the case last month, Ms. Agnew, the prosecutor, said that Mr. Spacey was “a sexual bully” whose “preferred method” of assault was to “aggressively grab other men in the crotch.”In the days after Ms. Agnew’s opening remarks, the jury heard from the four anonymous complainants who detailed their encounters with the actor. Some complainants said that Mr. Spacey grabbed them. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases, or to publish information that may cause them to be identified.On Friday, Mr. Spacey said that he did not have a “trademark” move or grope people. “I know myself,” the actor said.Ms. Agnew asked Mr. Spacey about an encounter with one complainant, who told the British police that, during a party, Mr. Spacey hugged him, kissed him twice on the neck, said, “Be cool,” and then grabbed his crotch. Mr. Spacey pointed out that touching the man’s crotch was not his first action.“I am accepting that I got the signals wrong,” Mr. Spacey added of that encounter.During the morning session, Mr. Spacey was also asked about his encounters with the other complainants. He said that he did not clearly remember all of the events but that he had a “naughty relationship” with one complainant, and consensual oral sex with another.Mr. Spacey became most animated when asked about accusations that he assaulted a man on the day of a charity gala. The actor said he did not accept “a single word” of that complainant’s testimony. Mr. Spacey said that complainant may be motivated by “money, money and then money” to speak out against him.After Mr. Spacey’s cross-examination, the court broke for lunch. The defense is now expected to spend several days calling witnesses in support of Mr. Spacey’s case. More

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      Kevin Spacey Denies Sexual Assault Charges During U.K. Trial

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      Two weeks into a trial in London, the Oscar-winning actor gave his account of sexual encounters that the prosecution says were criminal acts.Kevin Spacey arriving at Southwark Crown Court in London on Thursday.Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKevin Spacey told a British jury on Thursday that he was “a big flirt” who had what he characterized as gentle, touching and romantic encounters with a man who accused him of sexual assault. He always respected the man’s boundaries, Mr. Spacey said, adding that he felt “crushed” when the man accused him of assault.Two weeks into a sexual assault trial in London against the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actor, Mr. Spacey’s testimony on Thursday was the first time that the jury heard from him directly.Mr. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges relating to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred from 2001 to 2013. For most of that time, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Sitting at the front of a courtroom at Southwark Crown Court and facing the jury, Mr. Spacey — who was wearing a gray suit, and light blue tie — was calm and occasionally joked with his legal representative, Patrick Gibbs.Opening the trial last month, Christine Agnew, a British prosecutor, told the jury that Mr. Spacey was “a sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.” He had repeatedly groped men, Ms. Agnew said. On one occasion, Ms. Agnew added, Mr. Spacey gave a man oral sex without that man’s consent.In the days after Ms. Agnew’s opening, the jury heard from the four anonymous complainants. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases, or to publish information that may cause them to be identified. The jury first watched recordings of interviews that each complainant gave to British police officers, then the accuser was cross-examined in the courthouse.The first complainant said in his police interview that, in the early 2000s, Mr. Spacey touched him multiple times. On one occasion, the complainant said, he was driving with Mr. Spacey to a ball organized by Elton John, and the actor grabbed his genitals so hard that he almost veered off the road.On Thursday, the day’s opening session focused on Mr. Spacey’s recollection of those encounters and the actor discussed his relationship with that complainant. Leaning back in his chair, and sounding wistful, he said the man was “friendly and charming and flirtatious.”The pair’s encounters gradually “became somewhat sexual,” Mr. Spacey said, adding that this most likely occurred at the actor’s own initiation. Mr. Spacey said the pair never had sex. The complainant “made it clear he didn’t want to go any further,” Mr. Spacey added. He said he had respected the complainant’s boundaries.Mr. Gibbs then asked Mr. Spacey to recall how he felt when he learned that the complainant accused him of assault. Mr. Spacey said he had been “crushed” and it felt like the complainant had stabbed him in the back. The court then adjourned for a break. More

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      Kevin Spacey Called ‘Sexual Bully’ in U.K. Trial

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      The prosecution outlined its case against the actor, who has pleaded not guilty to 12 sexual assault charges.The actor Kevin Spacey arriving at the London courthouse with members of his legal team.Kin Cheung/Associated PressThe actor Kevin Spacey is “a sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable,” a prosecutor told a British jury on Friday. Speaking at Southwark Crown Court, the prosecutor, Christine Agnew, outlined her case against the Academy Award-winning actor, who is on trial in London facing multiple charges of sexual assault.Ms. Agnew said that the actor’s “preferred method” of assault was to “aggressively grab other men in the crotch.” On one occasion, she said, Mr. Spacey had gone further and performed oral sex on a man while he was asleep.The actor “abused the power and influence that his reputation and fame afforded him” to take “who he wanted, when he wanted,” Ms. Agnew said.Mr. Spacey has pleaded not guilty to all charges.The actor, 63, faces 12 charges related to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013. For much of that period, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Ms. Agnew said that the complainants included an aspiring actor and a man whom Mr. Spacey had met at a work event. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases or to publish information that may cause them to be identified.Patrick Gibbs, Mr. Spacey’s legal representative, gave a short statement stressing his client’s innocence. He said the jury would hear some half truths, some “deliberate exaggerations” and “many damned lies.”He asked the jury to consider the complainants’ motivations, and to think about whether the encounters could have been “reasonably believed to be consensual at the time.”During Ms. Agnew’s statement, she discussed interviews that Mr. Spacey had given to the British police under caution. During one of those, she said, Mr. Spacey said that it was “entirely possible and indeed likely” that he had made “a clumsy pass” at other men but that he would never have touched someone’s crotch “without an indication of consent.”Throughout Ms. Agnew’s almost 60-minute opening statement, Mr. Spacey sat in a large transparent box in the middle of the courtroom, wearing a light gray suit, white shirt and gold tie, watching intently. On several occasions, he looked at photographs in an evidence bundle. When Mr. Gibbs spoke, Mr. Spacey nodded along and looked at the jury.Friday morning’s session ended shortly after Mr. Gibbs’s comments. The prosecution its scheduled to call its first witnesses on Monday. More

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      Kevin Spacey Begins Sexual Assault Trial

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      The actor faces 12 charges related to incidents that prosecutors say involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013.Kevin Spacey, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, appeared briefly on Wednesday in a London courtroom for the first day of a trial on multiple charges of sexual assault.Mr. Spacey, 63, is facing 12 charges related to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013. For much of that period, he was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.In two previous hearings over the past year, Mr. Spacey pleaded not guilty to all those charges.On Wednesday morning, in a wood-paneled courtroom at Southwark Crown Court — a venue typically used for high-profile British criminal cases — Mr. Spacey sat in a large transparent box in the middle of the room, wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and pink tie, while the jury was sworn in.The judge overseeing the case, Mark Wall, told the jurors that Mr. Spacey would “be gratified that many of you know his name, or have seen his films,” but said that would not disqualify them from serving on the case. Mr. Spacey, who is appearing under his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler, smiled at the comment.Just after midday, the judge dismissed the jury until Friday morning, when the prosecution is expected to deliver its opening statement. Mr. Spacey then left the courtroom with several advisers.Mr. Spacey is facing 12 charges including multiple counts of sexual assault and one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without their consent. More

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      What to Know About Kevin Spacey’s UK Sexual Offenses Trial

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      The actor will appear in a London courtroom on Wednesday to face a four-week trial over allegations of sexual assault.The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is scheduled to go on trial in London on Wednesday, facing multiple allegations of sexual assault.Since the #MeToo movement came to prominence six years ago, a number of high-profile men have been accused of misconduct, yet Mr. Spacey’s case is one of only a few to reach a British courtroom.The actor, 63, has already pleaded not guilty to all charges. This month, in an interview with Zeit Magazin, a German magazine, he said he expected to be found innocent, after which he would resume acting.The trial at Southwark Crown Court is scheduled to last four weeks. During that time, the courthouse is likely to be filled with reporters and celebrity watchers following the case.Here’s what you need to know.Why is Kevin Spacey on trial in Britain?Mr. Spacey is accused of sexually assaulting four men in England between 2001 and 2013. For much of that period, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater, one of London’s most acclaimed playhouses.Last June, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service charged Mr. Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men, as well as another of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without their consent.A few months later, in November, the prosecutors authorized seven further charges against Mr. Spacey related to another complainant. Those included three counts of sexual assault, three of indecent assault and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.Both sets of charges will be considered in this month’s trial.How will the trial work?Anna Bradshaw, a British criminal lawyer, said in a telephone interview that the case will look different from an American trial. In Britain, legal professionals called barristers argue cases in court while wearing the traditional garb of white wigs and black gowns.The trial will not be televised, Ms. Bradshaw added, because cameras are rarely allowed in British courts. (Instead, specialist artists sketch the scene.)The complainants will also not be publicly identified, Ms. Bradshaw said, adding that this rule was in place to protect accusers’ privacy and encourage victims of sexual assault to report incidents to the police. They will likely give evidence, and be cross-examined, “via a video-link, or, in court, possibly from behind a screen or curtain,” Ms. Bradshaw said.During the four-week trial, the prosecutors will first outline their case to the 12-person jury, then Mr. Spacey’s team will make its defense.What penalty does Mr. Spacey potentially face?One of the offenses carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Others also come with potential jail terms. Under British law, judges have some flexibility to alter sentences.If there is a guilty verdict, the judge would normally hold a separate hearing to announce the sentence at a later date, Ms. Bradshaw added.What has Mr. Spacey said about the accusations?In two hearings over the past year, Mr. Spacey pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Last June, Patrick Gibbs, Mr. Spacey’s legal representative, told a courtroom that the actor was determined to establish his innocence.In Britain, where it is an offense to publish information that may bias a jury, defendants like Mr. Spacey face some restrictions in using the news media to make their case before a trial.To avoid breaking British law, Mr. Spacey did not discuss the case in the Zeit Magazin article, apart from stressing his innocence. But he said he knew of directors who wanted to work with him once the trial ended. “I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges,” he said. More

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      Kevin Spacey Pleads Not Guilty to 7 Charges of Sexual Misconduct in U.K.

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      The Oscar-winning actor had already pleaded not guilty in July to five other counts of sexual misconduct. He is currently out on bail.The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty in a hearing at a London court on Friday to seven more charges of sexual misconduct, the BBC and other British news outlets reported.Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, which authorized the criminal charges in November, had said previously that the charges related to allegations of sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.The charges involve one man and the offenses were alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2004, prosecutors have said.Mr. Spacey, 63, a two-time Oscar winner, had already pleaded not guilty in July to five counts of sexual misconduct, relating to allegations involving three men involving incidents that are said to have taken place between March 2005 and April 2013.Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London during that time. A judge has scheduled a trial on those charges to begin on June 6, 2023.On Friday, the British judge, Mark Wall, agreed to join the seven-count indictment to the previous five-count indictment, Reuters reported. Mr. Spacey appeared via videolink only to confirm his name as Kevin Spacey Fowler and enter seven not guilty pleas during the brief hearing, the news agency said.The Southwark Crown Court, where the hearing took place, and legal representatives of Mr. Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation.The actor, who won Academy Awards for his performances in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” is free to work and travel before the trial, having been granted unconditional bail. More

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      A Balkan Leader Gets the Hollywood Treatment, Starring Kevin Spacey

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      A director cast the beleaguered actor as Franjo Tudjman, the late Croatian leader, whom some call a patriot and others revile as an ethnonationalist zealot.A hagiographic movie about the stiff former leader of a small Balkan country was never going to be a global box-office hit. But its director, a former water polo champion turned darling of right-wing Croatian cinema, found a novel way to generate some buzz: He cast Kevin Spacey as its star.While Hollywood has generally turned its back on Mr. Spacey because of sexual assault accusations against him, purging the 63-year-old from its roster of bankable talent and deleting him from productions already in the works, a new cinematic tribute to a nationalist leader some view as a dangerous bigot puts the “House of Cards” star front and center.The 90-minute film celebrates Croatia’s first president, the late Franjo Tudjman, a leader revered by fans as a Balkan George Washington but reviled by foes as an ethnonationalist zealot. The movie, “Once Upon a Time in Croatia,” goes into general release in Croatia in February and will be screened in other countries, including the United States.The director, Jakov Sedlar, 70, conceded in an interview that in Croatia, many people, particularly the young, do not care much about Mr. Tudjman, a highly divisive authoritarian figure whom the historian Tony Judt described as “one of the more egregiously unattractive” leaders to emerge in the early 1990s from the rubble of Yugoslavia, of which Croatia was formerly a part.Warren Zimmerman, who was the American ambassador to Yugoslavia as the multiethnic country unraveled, warned in a 1992 cable to Washington that Mr. Tudjman’s election as Croatia’s president in May 1990 had brought to power “a narrow-minded, crypto-racist regime” that, in tandem with Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, was unleashing “nationalism, the Balkan killer.”But having Mr. Spacey play Mr. Tudjman, the director said last week in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, “will definitely help” break through a wall of what is at best public indifference and at worst fierce hostility toward the man who led Croatia’s battle for independence.“Ask people whether they have heard of Spacey or Tudjman, they will, of course, say Spacey,” he said. The American actor’s fame, no matter the risk of it curdling into infamy, and undisputed acting talent, Mr. Sedlar added, “will certainly attract people to see my film about Tudjman.”The director declared that Mr. Tudjman, who died in 1999, “was not a nationalist, but a patriot, an absolutely positive personality.” And Mr. Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner and a friend of the director for more than a decade, “is the best of the best actors” and “absolutely innocent,” Mr. Sedlar said.Kevin Spacey on the film set of “Once Upon a Time in Croatia,” by Jakov Sedlar.Karla JuricBoth men, Mr. Sedlar says, have been unjustly maligned: Mr. Spacey by accusers like Anthony Rapp, a fellow actor whose battery claim against the disgraced star was thrown out in October by a New York civil court, and Mr. Tudjman by domestic political rivals and foreign critics angry over his role in the blood-soaked destruction of Yugoslavia.One of seven states that emerged after the collapse of Yugoslavia, Croatia today is a stable democracy of fewer than four million people, a popular tourist destination and a global soccer power.But the struggle to shape the history of the Yugoslav wars, critical to national identity in each of the countries spawned by the violence of the early 1990s, still rages across the region, particularly among filmmakers in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, the nations that saw the worst of the fighting.“The history of the war is a constant process of remembering and forgetting,” said Dejan Jovic, a professor at the University of Zagreb. Memory wars, he added, are especially active in cinema. Each side, Mr. Jovic said, “remembers only what it wants and forgets the rest.”Mr. Sedlar’s new film makes little effort to give a full and balanced history. It avoids any mention of crimes committed under Mr. Tudjman’s leadership, like attacks on Bosnian civilians, the ethnic cleansing of Croatia’s once large Serb minority and the destruction of a 16th-century bridge in the Bosnian city of Mostar in 1993. It skips his outreach to extreme nationalists linked during World War II to the Ustashe, a fascist group whose brutality shocked even some German Nazis.But, the director insisted: “This is not propaganda. It is just my view.”Croatia, almost ethnically homogeneous as a result of the 1990s violence that drove out many Serbs and members of other minorities, has mostly moved beyond the narrow ethnonationalism of Mr. Tudjman’s era and become a member of the European Union and NATO. While Mr. Sedlar has been promoting his movie, the government had been focusing on getting the country ready to adopt the euro and to enter the borderless Schengen zone, on Jan. 1.The government, though led by the political party Mr. Tujdman founded, wanted nothing to do with Mr. Sedlar’s film and rebuffed his appeals for funding. The director said he raised the 400,000 euros needed — about $425,000 — from private donors.Mr. Tudjman of Croatia, left, and President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia meeting in Belgrade in 1991.Petar Kujundzic/ReutersHe initially hoped to make a full-scale biopic to mark the centenary of the former Croatian president’s birth. But he settled for a more modest production built around Mr. Spacey’s reciting Mr. Tudjman’s stirring speeches.The director said Mr. Spacey had taken the part out of friendship, and had neither asked for nor received any payment. Mr. Spacey’s lawyer, Jennifer L. Keller, did not respond to a request for comment.Whether playing Mr. Tudjman will help Mr. Spacey in his quest for rehabilitation is another matter. It is not his first acting role since accusations against him surfaced in 2017 — he has appeared as a detective in an Italian feature and as a mysterious henchman in an American thriller — but his role as Mr. Tudjman is perhaps his riskiest.Laura Silber, an author of “Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation,” said she was mystified that anyone would want to be associated with a tribute to the former Croatian leader. She had met him several times while covering the Yugoslav wars as a journalist and found him, she said, to be “repulsive” — an unashamed bigot with a “superiority complex” who “could not control his loathing for Muslims,” the largest ethnic group in neighboring Bosnia.“He was like Dr. Strangelove meets Adolf Hitler,” she recalled.Mr. Tudjman had fought against fascism during World War II, joining Communist partisans opposed to Hitler’s puppet regime. But in the 1990s, he refused to condemn the Ustashe legacy and decreed that independent Croatia should adopt a red-and-white checkerboard coat of arms that had been used by ethnic Croats for centuries but that closely resembles the Ustashe’s symbol.Mr. Sedlar, who served for years as Mr. Tudjman’s cultural attaché in New York, comes across as a calm and reasonable man entirely free of the violent, often racist rhetoric that gave Croatian nationalism such a bad name. But he brooks no criticism of Mr. Tudjman.“Compared with his establishment of an independent Croat nation, all the other stuff is absolutely unimportant,” Mr. Sedlar said, adding, “Without Tudjman, independent Croatia would not exist.”Mr. Sedlar delivering a speech before a screening of his movie in May to mark the centenary of Mr. Tudjman’s birth. Karla JuricVesna Skare-Ozbolt, a fan of the former president who worked in his office as an adviser from 1991 until his death of cancer, insisted that while Mr. Tudjman, a former Communist general in the Yugoslav Army, had some unappealing personality traits, “He deserves a film.”“He is the father of the nation,” she said. “He did a great job.”Mr. Spacey’s performance in the film, which includes archival footage of Mr. Tudjman making wartime speeches in Croatian, consists largely of Mr. Spacey intoning the same speeches in English, walking through government buildings in white-soled sneakers and scribbling in a book.Critics in Croatia have been divided along political lines in their reviews, though even hostile ones have praised Mr. Spacey’s performance.One panned the film as “garbage” but described Mr. Spacey as “basically the best part of the movie,” adding, “He had a difficult task: to recite in English verbal sausages from Tudjman’s better-known speeches and give them a certain passion without any clear context.”Despite his legal victory in New York, Mr. Spacey still faces serious legal troubles in Britain, where he is expected to stand trial this year on charges of sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty.The jury of history is still out on Mr. Tudjman, and Ms. Silber, the former war correspondent, said it was unlikely to reach a clear verdict any time soon, at least not in Croatia.“He will never be judged by history in Croatia because he delivered their independence,” she said.Julia Jacobs More