Jurors who will determine the destiny of actor Kevin Spacey had been sworn in Wednesday in a London courtroom because the Oscar winner faces fees of sexually assaulting 4 males so long as 20 years in the past.
The end result of the trial might ship Spacey to jail or revive his profession.
The two-time Academy Award winner was wearing a darkish blue swimsuit, mild blue shirt and pink tie as he strode confidently into courtroom and was referred to as by his full identify. He was requested if he was Kevin Spacey Fowler.
“I am,” he stated as he stood behind a window within the dock.
Spacey, 63, has pleaded not responsible to a dozen fees together with sexual assault, indecent assault and inflicting an individual to have interaction in penetrative sexual exercise with out consent.
“I am sure the defendant will be gratified to know that many of you will know his name or have seen his films,” Justice Mark Wall stated as Spacey nodded and smiled on the potential jurors lined up between the dock and two dozen journalists taking notes.
The first 14 jurors, together with two alternates, referred to as by identify had been seated with out objection from the prosecution or protection. The remaining 13 had been excused.
The jurors had been clad in a mixture of enterprise and informal apparel. Two girls wore clothes and two males had fits and ties. One man wore a black denim jacket and a bearded man had a weathered Superman T-shirt stretched throughout his midsection.
Spacey stood along with his palms clasped behind his again because the 9 males and 5 girls had been sworn in as jurors to listen to proof within the case anticipated to final 4 weeks in Southwark Crown Court.
Opening statements are scheduled for Friday.
Spacey, who’s free on bail and has properties in London and the U.S., arrived at courtroom by taxi along with his supervisor, Evan Lowenstein, about two hours earlier than the trial was on account of begin. He smiled and waved as he handed photographers and video journalists.
Spacey has stated an acquittal within the case might jump-start a profession that has largely been on ice since sexual misconduct allegations surfaced in opposition to the star who received his first Academy Award for supporting actor in “The Usual Suspects” in 1995.
“There are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” Spacey said in a rare interview published this month in Germany’s Zeit magazine. He said the media had turned him into a “monster.”
The fees involving males now of their 30s or 40s date from 2001 to 2013 — overlaying a lot of the decade when he lived in Britain and served as creative director of the Old Vic Theatre till 2015.
Spacey’s downfall got here amid the #MeToo motion within the United States when allegations led to him being written off the Netflix political thriller “House of Cards,” where he played the lead character Frank Underwood, a ruthless and corrupt congressman who becomes president. He was cut from the completed film “All the Money in the World,” and the scenes reshot with Christopher Plummer.
Spacey grew to become probably the most celebrated actors of his technology within the Nineteen Nineties, starring in movies together with “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “LA Confidential.” He received his second Oscar, for greatest actor, within the 1999 film “American Beauty.”
Spacey not too long ago had his first movie function in a number of years, showing in 2022 in Italian director Franco Nero’s “The Man Who Drew God,” and taking part in the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman within the biopic “Once Upon a Time in Croatia.” He additionally stars within the unreleased U.S. movie “Peter Five Eight.”
Italy’s National Cinema Museum in Turin gave him its lifetime achievement award in January. He additionally taught a masterclass and launched a sold-out screening of “American Beauty” which was billed as Spacey’s first talking engagement in 5 years.
Spacey saluted organizers for “making a strong defense of artistic achievement” and for having “le palle” — the Italian phrase for male physique components synonymous with braveness — to ask him.
Associated Press author Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
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