“Guy Pearce has opened up more about his ‘uncomfortable’ experience with Kevin Spacey in the 90s (Picture: PA/Reuters) Guy Pearce called Kevin Spacey ’quite an aggressive man’ whom he felt ‘targeted’ by while working with him on L.A. Confidential. The actors co-starred in the 1997 thriller opposite Russell Crowe and Simon Baker about three police”, — write: metro.co.uk
Guy Pearce has opened up more about his ‘uncomfortable’ experience with Kevin Spacey in the 90s (Picture: PA/Reuters) Guy Pearce called Kevin Spacey ’quite an aggressive man’ whom he felt ‘targeted’ by while working with him on L.A. Confidential.
The actors co-starred in the 1997 thriller opposite Russell Crowe and Simon Baker about three police officers tackling corruption in Los Angeles.
Pearce, 57, first raised his ‘uncomfortable’ experience working with Spacey, 64, in 2018 during the height of the MeToo movement, shortly after the House of Cards actor was accused of historic sexual assault by actor Anthony Rapp.
In an interview with Australian presenter Andrew Denton he described Spacey as a ‘handsy guy’. He later clarified that although he wasn’t ‘sexually assaulted or molested’ he was ‘made to feel uncomfortable’ but regretted bringing it up publicly.
Now – two years after Spacey was cleared of nine charges of sexual assault and indecent assault in a high-profile London trial – the Oscar nominee has shed more light on what he went through.
In a chat on Andrew Feinberg’s podcast, Awards Chatter, The Brutalist actor spoke more about Spacey’s alleged advances when he was ‘young and susceptible’.
Guy Pearce played one of the movie’s lead cops (Picture: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock) 
He first spoke about his troubles with Spacey in 2018 (Picture: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock) He said: ‘Ah, that’s nothing. Ah, no, that’s nothing.did that for five months, and really 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.’
He was reluctant to call himself a victim, adding ‘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.’
Elsewhere in the chat, he claimed he had a ‘couple of confrontations’ with Spacey that got ugly’.
He was accompanied by then-wife Kate Mestitz while filming in LA and recalled telling her “the only days I feel safe are the days when [Simon Baker] is on set because I’m dumped like a hot potato, and [Kevin] focuses on [Simon] because he was ten times prettier than I am.”
Rapp sued Spacey for allegedly sexually assaulting him at party in 1986 when he was 14 for which the Netflix star was found not liable in 2020.
But when the news first broke in October 2017, Pearce ‘broke down and sobbed’ as he remembered his own experience.
Although he regretted bringing up his experience at the time, now he wants to be ‘honest’ (Picture: Getty) He shared: ‘I was in London working on something, and I heard [the reports] and I broke down and sobbed, and I couldn’t stop. 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.’
He added that he doesn’t ‘want him to get away with what he gets away with’ and said he just tries ‘to be more honest about it now and call it for what it is.’
The Neighbours star’s latest comments come just days after Spacey was hit with another sexual abuse claim from a previous co-star, Rauri Cannon, per court filings.
Cannon is suing him at the High Court as well as two organisations connected to the Old Vic.
Following the verdict in 2023, Spacey said: ‘I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process after what has just happened today.
The Netflix actor was cleared of several sexual assault charges in 2023 (Picture: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock) ‘But I would like to say that I am enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all of the evidence and all of the facts carefully before they reach the decision and I am humbled by the outcome today.’
He was accused of behaviour such as non-consensual groping, humping and claims they were forced to watch Spacey masturbate.
As well as staging an onscreen comeback with 2024 films The Contract and Peter Five Eight, Spacey also appeared in an interview with Piers Morgan in June last year.
When asked by Morgan what he consituted as ‘bad behaviour’, Spacey replied ‘pushing the boundaries.
He continued: ‘Being too handsy, touching someone sexually in a way that I didn’t know at the time they didn’t want.’
Metro has reached out to Kevin Spacey’s representatives for comment.
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