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Spacey loves it at the Old Vic

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Kevin Spacey and Rosamund Pike, the star of Gaslight

Upcoming: Stephen Fry's Cinderella

The Old Vic is set to stage a performance of All About My Mother, which starred Penelope Cruz

A scene from The Old Vic's hit play, Gaslight

Kevin Spacey is having more fun than he has ever had in his life. He may have a hole in the roof of the Old Vic theatre that he runs from an unprepossessing office in a dingy street opposite. He may be exasperated at how often things he says go awry in translation (for the record, he is absolutely not giving up films, despite recent reports.)

But with Gaslight, the theatre's latest production starring Rosamund Pike, Spacey has another popular hit, swift on the heels of The Entertainer with Robert Lindsay. He has just finished a successful run in the Broadway transfer of the Old Vic's acclaimed production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, for which his young co-star, Eve Best, secured a prestigious Tony award nomination.

Now back in London, with his evenings his own again, he is looking forward to catching up on a string of shows, including Boeing-Boeing and Gorky's Philistines at the National before a holiday in August.

But sitting with his feet up on his desk sipping a can of Coke and smoking, the 47-year-old actor finds any notion that he is any less than 100 per cent committed to the Old Vic an insult. "I don't quite understand why anyone would question that commitment when I have been living in London for nearly five years and coming to work every single day and being on stage for something like 65 weeks," he says.

"I'm happier now than I've ever been in my entire life. This was the best decision I've ever made. It's challenging, difficult, complicated. But it's enormously satisfying."

It is now four years since he was appointed artistic director of one of Britain's most famous theatres, where the likes of Laurence Olivier once trod the boards. He has worked hard to show that his acceptance of the job and move to London was not some act of whimsy.

When not on stage, he's often seen out and about at other productions and events. He seems so established, it's almost as if he has never been a newcomer to London's theatre scene. Talking to him now, it's striking what a command he has of the buzzwords of subsidised theatre - a knowledge that might do him proud should the commercial Old Vic ever have to apply for Arts Council funding.

A couple of hits don't, after all, make a successful theatre. The Old Vic, Spacey freely admits, is an ongoing project and there is much to do.

One of the ventures most exciting him is The Bridge Project, with Sam Mendes, who directed him in the film American Beauty, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. It will give the Old Vic a home in America and give life to Spacey's ideal of an international theatre. Each year, for three years, leading British and American actors will perform a double bill of classic works at the BAM, Old Vic and one other leading theatre - Milan's Piccolo Teatro in the first year.

In the inaugural productions of 2008 - Hamlet and The Tempest, which run at the Old Vic from May to June - Mendes will direct Stephen Dillane as Hamlet and Prospero, and the following year, Simon Russell Beale as Leontes and Lopakhin in The Winter's Tale and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.

The 2010 productions have yet to be confirmed.
Spacey is also evangelical about creating new audiences. He talks of the £12 seats available at every performance for under-25s with an enthusiasm worthy of a New Labour minister. Yet the roots of the hours he dedicates to workshops with young people and the local community lie in his own childhood in southern California when he was the beneficiary of similar arts programmes.

"I got exposed to so many extraordinary classes and workshops and Q&As and seminars. And all of that stuff changed my life and gave me the seeds of confidence that I could do this for my career."

He is, as befits a man briefly associated with the early days of Cool Britannia, on message about arts funding. With the political finesse of the British Museum's Neil MacGregor, Spacey details Labour's investment of the last decade and acknowledges the dangers of any cuts. "Look at what a success story it's been for the Labour Government," he says. "It would be a shame if that stopped."

He is also keen for the Old Vic to do its bit for the Olympics and reveals that he is in early talks with other directors. "My hope is that London won't make the same decision that many host cities have made, that all the money goes to sports and the arts get left behind. I hope that we will be involved in something that will be unique and something that will be available for people at no cost or very little cost. It just means we have to raise a lot of money."

He is intrigued by the row sparked by Nicholas Hytner of the National who appeared to be attacking the "dead white men" who make up national newspaper critics. For Spacey, who has had his own public row with journalists, it is less critics than the traditional opening night that concerns him.

"It's an artificial kind of evening," he says. Openings generally include family, friends and corporate sponsors as well as critics and this creates "an anticipation and a nervousness that a normal audience doesn't have".

He thinks London would do well to follow New York where critics are allowed in to review new productions from a certain date in previews, for publication on an agreed date. "That is a more interesting idea because theatre is a living organism and you've got critics seeing different performances. Things are not set in stone. They are constantly evolving. We had a second intermission in Gaslight until the night before the opening."

However, the critics are being circumvented by ordinary theatregoers posting their own reviews on the internet. That's fine by him as the public have proved supportive. "We certainly appreciate if it our friends in the aisles [the critics] are generous. But our audiences have come regardless."

Although reports of him giving up his film career were greatly exaggerated, his forays into Hollywood are, he says, fewer. He produced and appeared in Twenty-One, about card-counting earlier this year. A Christmas comedy, Fred Claus, is due. But after his August break, he will be back in the Old Vic every day. "This is a full-time job."

He is "incredibly proud" of the programme presented in recent years even if critics have often condemned plays such as Cloaca or National Anthems as unworthy of the Old Vic's great tradition. Spacey says it was important to get audiences back through the doors of what had been a venue for hire.

The season starting in August is, he says, what he always envisaged long-term. There is an adaptation of Pedro Almodovar's film All About My Mother for which Spacey is due to confirm star name casting today. There is a pantomime written by Stephen Fry, David Mamet's showbiz drama Speed-the-Plow in which Spacey will star, then the Shakespeares directed by Sam Mendes.

Having established a loyal following, he thinks it should work, artistically and financially. He is ever practical about balancing the books. "It's all about risk - how much is a production costing, do you have co-producers that reduce your risk, would a [star] name have some value?"

And he is busy fundraising to keep the work going in the theatre, and outside, with the local community and educations projects - and, eventually, to help fix the war-time hole in the roof, the dearth of ladies' loos, seats that squeak and the potentially lethal damp. The plan is to carry out a complete £25 million renovation of the building in about three years' time. Spacey already has commitments from backers.

He is adept at charming cheques from the rich and famous, as evidenced by the latest donor, Aditya Mittal, son of the steel magnate Lakshmi, who is sponsoring the new cheap ticket scheme. By the time Spacey steps down as artistic director, which he expects to do in eight or nine years' time, he hopes to have built up "a huge war chest" to support his successor.

Reserved and unflashy, Spacey admits that while he has got to know many people in Britain, his closest friends are a small band back home whom he has known for 20 years or more. "I take the word friendship very, very seriously," he says, giving a rare personal insight.

But there is nothing undemonstrative about his love for the Old Vic. "It is already engraved on my heart."

• www.oldvictheatre.com

 

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