Kevin Spacey recently appeared in the Gene Fallaize-directed film Control in a voice role. Spacey was preparing for his now-finished trial in the U.K. as he recorded. The casting choice is one Fallaize says he would do all over again.
Fallaize has no regrets picking Spacey for the role
Speaking to Variety, Fallaize was asked whether or not he received any backlash for the casting move. According to Fallaize, while the film received some initial backlash, responses have been mostly positive. The director says he would do it over again.
“When we first announced his casting, we got some of that,” said Fallaize. “But since yesterday I’ve received only positive so far. But for me, personally, what else can you go on? You know, the facts were laid out, simply as that. All of the facts were presented from both sides and the jury found him not guilty. [The jury] have all of the facts, facts that people on the Internet don’t have.
“The only people that know everything are the ones that were in that courtroom and they decided he was not guilty. These people that are saying – if they’re saying – that we’re whitewashing him or enabling him to come back, what facts have they got to contradict the jury? I don’t regret casting Kevin and I would do it all over again.”
On Wednesday, a U.K. jury found Kevin Spacey not guilty of nine charges of sexual assault, indecent assault, and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity. Outside the courtroom, Spacey gave a brief statement to the press, saying he was “grateful to the jury,” while also thanking his legal team and those involved in the decision.
Spacey serves as the primary antagonist of the independent film, which “follows British government’s Home Secretary Stella Simmons as she drives home one night whilst engaging in a secret love affair with the Prime Minister,” reads the official synopsis for the film. “One other man — played by Kevin Spacey — knows her secret, however, and has been badly affected by it, and he wants revenge on Stella for her part, so he plots to remotely-hijack her fully self-driving car and takes control of it, forcing her on a rampage through the streets of London, using the car she’s trapped in as a deadly weapon.”
Once heralded as a legendary actor, Spacey’s career came to a halt in 2017 when he was accused of making sexual advances on then-14-year-old Anthony Rapp (who appeared in a Broadway show with Spacey) in 1986. More allegations came forward following that, leading to Netflix cutting ties with Spacey on their planned film Gore, as well as removing him from the final season of the series House of Cards.
