Kevin Spacey quoted his “friend” Elton John’s 1983 song “I’m Still Standing” while delivering a passionate speech during his return to Cannes Film Festival, marking his first appearance at the event after being cleared of sexual assault accusations in 2023.
The 65-year-old two-time Oscar winner, who won Best Supporting Actor for his role as a con man in The Usual Suspects and Best Actor for his performance as Lester Burnham in American Beauty, was speaking at a gala held by the Better World Fund, where he was presented with lifetime achievement award for “excellence in film and television”.
The appearance was the actor’s first visit to Cannes since 2016, which is when he stepped away from the spotlight while facing allegations of sexual assault misconduct by more than 30 men.
Appearing on stage after accepting the award, Spacey delivered an almost 10-minute-long speech, in which he compared his ousting from Hollywood to the blacklisting of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (who was ostracised from Hollywood in 1947 for his ties to communism) and grew emotional as he praised his “best friend” and manager Evan Lowenstein for his support.
He quoted the lyrics of John’s 1983 hit, saying: “As my friend Elton John once said, and the reason that this means so much to me, is because I’m still standing, I’m still standing.”
Variety reports that Spacey told the crowd he had “come out the other side of these last few challenging years not angry, not bitter, not resentful, but more present, more loving, more understanding and more forgiving than I ever have been in my life”.
The actor hailed the Better World Fund for taking “risks” by inviting him, saying: “Who would have ever thought that honouring someone who has been exonerated in every single courtroom he’s ever walked into would be thought of as a brave idea.”
He claimed that the Better World Fund’s move to invite him had parallels with filmmaker Kirk Douglas’s support for Trumbo, who was banned from the film industry until the early 1960s as part of the “Hollywood Ten”, a group of producers and writers who refused to testify at an anti-communist committee hearing. Trumbo spent 10 months in prison and, in 2011, posthumously received an Academy Award for the film 1953 Roman Holiday, which he had written during his blacklisted period.
Spacey said: “Kirk Douglas took the risk and would later say: It’s easy for us actors to play the hero 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 principle. I have learned a lot from history. It very often repeats itself. The blacklist was a terrible time in our industry, but we must learn from it so that it never happens again.”
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“And today we find ourselves once again at the intersection of uncertainty and fear in the film business and beyond,” Spacey added.
Since his acquittal, Spacey has starred in a number of small projects, including the 2024 thriller The Contract, where he played the Devil.
The actor’s career was stalled in 2017 after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of sexually abusing him in 1986. Spacey would have been 26 at the time, while Rapp was 14.
Rapp’s allegations were later dismissed by a Manhattan court in 2022. Spacey has since faced several more allegations of sexual misconduct over the years, all of which he has either denied or insisted were consensual.
In 2023, Spacey stood trial in the UK after four men alleged that he had sexually assaulted them in separate incidents over the period between 2001 and 2013. He was again cleared of all nine offences.
