Rolling Stone Article
HOT CHARACTER ACTOR
Mel Profitt, the crazed drug runner played by Kevin Spacey on the series "Wiseguy" was called "possibly the most intriguing TV villian of all time" in, um, 'Rolling Stone's 1988 Hot List' where we named Spacey, uh, Hot Character Actor. OK, so a subsequent feature role in 'Rocket Gibralter' didn't exactly kick his career into high gear. This time we're sure. Maybe because he's the stand-out criminal in the soon-to-be-released 'Usual Suspects'; maybe it's because his turn as a charming, demonic producer in 'Swimming With Sharks' was sharper and funnier than anything in 'The Player'; maybe because he stole 'Glengary Glen Ross' from Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin and Jack Lemmon without breaking a sweat ("I felt like a junior tennis player," he says humbly, "holding my teeny racket and trying not to get hit by a ball."). Or maybe because the 35 year old Californian has quietly proved himself to be one of the finest actors of his generation.
Spacey is standard-issue handsome, but his eyes have an unnerving, predatory intelligence. It's the face of a leading man gone wrong. "Leading actors always play the good guy," Spacey says. "I'm attracted to charcters in some kind of moral crisis or moral decay." He'll decay morally alongside Brad Pitt later this year in 'Seven' and in front of a sure-to-be-astonished Broadway audience next spring in Dennis MacIntyre's 'National Anthems'. This May, Spacey took 'The Usual Suspects' to Cannes, where it "went over beautifully" without being held in competition. "I'd rather be in a movie that people say should have won than be in a movie that does and then everybody says 'Why did that win?'." Spoken like a true character actor.
(This article appeared in the August edition of Rolling Stone Magazine.)
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