Emotional Kevin Spacey Speaks Out At Cannes About Blacklisting And Getting An Award: “It’s Very Nice To Be Back”

Refresh for more…At a 78th Cannes Film Festival that’s attempting to course correct its complicity in #MeToo, down over by the Carlton Beach tonight The Better World Fund Gala handed out its Award for Excellence in Film and Television to 2x Oscar winner Kevin Spacey.

Last year, Juliette Binoche, this year’s Cannes Jury President, was the Guest of Honor.

While Spacey was accused of several allegations of sexual misconduct, he was found not liable in 2022 New York lawsuit, and he was acquitted by a jury of sexual assault charges in a 2023 London court. Still the American Beauty Best Actor Oscar winner hasn’t been invited back to any major Hollywood productions. He’s now making his bread on myriad indie foreign sales funded feature projects.

“I’d like to congratulate (Better World Fund Gala President and Founder) Manuel (Collas de La Roche) for the decision to invite me here tonight to accept this award,” boomed The Usual Suspects Supporting Actor Oscar winner. “Who would have ever thought that honoring someone who has been exonerated in every court room he’s ever walked into would be thought of as a brave idea. But here we are.”

“I’ve been thinking of someone else you saw earlier on the screen tonight, Kirk Douglas, great American film star. It was a long, long time ago, but we have to think about the pushback that he received after he made the brave decision to stand up for fellow colleague, 2x Oscar winning screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted from 1947-1960. He was blacklisted. Blacklisted, we know what that mean? He couldn’t find work in Hollywood for 13 years. But even after he was warned if he tried to hire Trumbo as the credited screenwriter for Spartacus in 1960, he’d be called a Commie lover, and his career and professional status would be canceled, Kirk Douglas took the risk, and would later say, and I won’t do my Kirk Douglas impression, but he said this, ‘It’s easier for us actors to play the heroes on screen. We get to fight the bad guys and stand up for justice. But in real life, the choices are not always so clear. There are times when one has to stand up for principal.’”

“I’ve learned a lot from history — it often repeats itself,” said The House of Cards thespian, “The Blacklist was a terrible time in our history [we must remember] so that it never happens again.

“Kirk Douglas spoke those words in 2014 when he was 98 years old. Of course, people know about Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood 10, but I suspect very few of you know or ever heard of the 475 other industry professionals whose lives were destroyed by false allegations during that lengthy dark period. And today we find ourselves once again at the intersection of uncertainty and fear in the film business and beyond.”

Spacey then veered off in his acceptance to speech to wag a finger at the WGA West and how they punished some scribes during the 2023 strike.

“Blacklisting has happened more recently to a writer by the name of Tim Doyle.”

Spacey spoke about how the WGA punished the Last Man Standing producer and Rules of Engagement EP for an image he posted on social on day 100 of the strike. Spacey explained how Doyle apologized, and specified it was a joke. “But because the Writers Guild decided to send out a censure of him to all 17,000 guild members, predictably, Tim hasn’t been able to get work since. No studio will touch him because of a joke he posted. It took a friend of Tim’s, a comedy writer by the name of Rob Ulin to try to get the Writers Guild to reverse their censure by starting an email campaign in which he defended his friend and said the following: ‘It is vitally important that these ill-advised and dangerous decisions for none of us should be in an organization, or union or an industry that is in the business of blacklisting anyone.

“History does repeat itself, but only if we allow it to,” said Spacey. “Two weeks ago, the Writers Guild in a vote with all their members reversed their censure of Tim and at the same time Manuel invited me here to accept this award!”

Earlier, Spacey walked the red carpet with the press crowding around him. The actor made a statement in the scrum: “I feel surrounded by so much affection and love. I’ve heard from so many of my friends, and colleagues and co-stars in the last week since this award was announced. I feel surrounded by support and it’s very nice to be back.”

One reporter yelled, “Is this the beginning of a comeback for your career?”

Spacey responded, “Well, I’m glad to be working — I’ll tell you that!”

During the course of the near five hour Gala, at the end of which Spacey finally stepped onstage to accept his award, the actor took selfies with attendees, kept the conversation light, and at one point stepped up to the mic to tell the room to quiet down during the auction portion of the ceremony.

At the end of his speech tonight, Spacey turned the spotlight on his manager, Evan Lowenstein.

“Since we’re talking about friendship and people who stand up for their colleagues and who are unafraid, I want to talk about my friend, Evan Lowenstein, who is sitting right there,” beamed Spacey.

“He’s not just my friend, but he’s my best friend, and he’s my manager. And he just produced the most exciting and fulfilling films that I have ever made in my life that we just shot last month in the United States,” the actor continued.

“He looks for the good in every single person and he usually finds it. We’ve been friends for 26 years, and he’s given so much to my life. And because of Evan’s mind and spirit, because they’ve played a significant role in shaping me, I share this award with him, and him with you!

“Through Evan, I have learned to seek understanding instead of judgement and with this guidance, I’ve been able to come out these last few challenging years, not angry, not bitter, not resentful, but more present, more loving, more understanding and more forgiving in my life,” said Spacey.

Then crying, Spacey said, “He has not shown up for me, he’s shown up for everyone.”