Guy Pearce says he was “targeted” by Kevin Spacey during filming of ‘LA Confidential’

Posted On February 18, 2025February 18, 2025

Australian actor Guy Pearce has revealed he felt targeted by Kevin Spacey on the set of 1997’s LA Confidential.

During an appearance on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast to discuss Pearce’s Oscar-nominated turn in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, the conversation quickly turned to his early Hollywood career. Before long, he discussed his experience working on Curtis Hanson’s excellent crime thriller, which was far from pleasant thanks to the unwanted alleged advances of the “handsy” Spacey.

Pearce admitted he spent five months brushing off Spacey’s inappropriate overtures, telling himself, “Ah, that’s nothing. Ah, no, that’s nothing.” However, he confessed, “I was sort of scared of Kevin because he’s quite an aggressive man. He’s extremely charming and brilliant at what he does — really impressive, etc. He holds a room remarkably. But I was young and susceptible, and he targeted me, no question.”

Alarmingly, Pearce revealed that the only days he felt “safe” on the LA Confidential set were the ones when fellow Australian actor Simon Baker was working because Spacey would allegedly target him instead. He said he’d be “dumped like a hot potato” because Baker “was ten times prettier than I am.”

It took Pearce decades to come to terms with what is alleged to have happened to him at Spacey’s hands, and he recalled breaking down when he heard in 2017 that Anthony Rapp had accused Spacey of making sexual advances toward him when he was only 14. “I was in London working on something, and I heard, and I broke down and sobbed, and I couldn’t stop,” he revealed. “I think it really dawned on me the impact that had occurred and how I sort of brushed it off and how I had either shelved it or blocked it out or whatever. That was a really incredible wake-up call.”

Pearce previously addressed his experience lightly in 2018 when he told an Australian talk show host that Spacey was “a handsy guy,” but this was the first time he’d recounted his ordeal in full. He was hesitant to use the word “victim” to describe himself, although he added, “Even though I probably was a victim to a degree. I was certainly not a victim by any means to the extent that other people have been to sexual predators.”

Interestingly, Pearce revealed that he has encountered Spacey a couple of times since they worked together, describing them as “confrontations” that “got ugly.” He insisted, “I don’t want him to get away with what he gets away with,” and added that he has a new strategy for dealing with behaviour he feels has stepped over the line. “I just try to be more honest about it now and call it for what it is,” he explained.

Spacey has consistently denied any accusations of sexual misconduct. He was acquitted of nine charges of sexual assault by a British jury in 2023, an outcome which “humbled” him.

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