‘He targeted me, no question’: Guy Pearce reveals his troubling encounters with an infamous co-star

In 2018, Guy Pearce made an interesting public statement about Kevin Spacey, his now disgraced co-star in the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential. He told Australian TV presenter Andrew Denton, “Slightly difficult time with Kevin, yeah. He’s a handsy guy. Thankfully, I was 29 and not 14.”

This was a reference to the infamous allegation about Spacey from actor Anthony Rapp. Rapp always alleged that Spacey molested him when he was a young teenager. However, a jury found that Spacey was innocent. Spacey never got his career back to where it was, though, because there were multiple other allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

At the time of Pearce’s original statement, he tried to walk it back to some extent. He told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I very much understand that it’s too sensitive a topic to be brushed off. Although I wasn’t sexually assaulted or molested, I was made to feel uncomfortable. I addressed and handled the situation when it took place, hence my regret at making it public now.” Now, many years later, he’s explained what “the situation” actually was, and it clearly affected him a great deal.

Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, Pearce got emotional when he talked about how Spacey had allegedly behaved when the two of them were working together. He didn’t want to describe himself as a victim, but he felt he “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,” he went on. But Pearce described a nasty undercurrent when Spacey was in the room with him.

Pearce tried to get himself to think it was “nothing” when Spacey behaved inappropriately around him, but it didn’t work. “I did that for five months, and really, I was sort of scared of Kevin because he’s quite an aggressive man,” he said. “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.”

Spacey also allegedly had his eye on another L.A. Confidential actor, Simon Baker. Pearce remembered telling his wife at the time, “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.”

Finally, Pearce heard the news of the allegations against Spacey, and they hit him hard. “I was in London working on something, and I heard [the reports], and I broke down and sobbed, and I couldn’t stop,” he said. “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.”

Spacey has since responded to Pearce’s story, telling the Australian actor he needs to “grow up” and that he was “not a victim.” In a video on X, Spacey said: “We could have had that conversation, but instead, you’ve decided to speak to the press, who are now, of course, coming after me because they would like to know what my response is to the things that you said.”

Pearce also said he had “had a couple of confrontations with Kevin” that “got ugly.” He didn’t elaborate on these, but Pearce concluded, “I don’t want him to get away with what he gets away with.” In his retaliatory video, Spacey claimed that Pearce came to visit him the year after they finished shooting L.A. Confidential.

Unfortunately, and depressingly, it seems Spacey has gotten away with it. Despite the vast amount of allegations against him, nothing has been proven in a court of law, and big names like Liam Neeson, Sharon Stone, and Brian Cox have all defended him. He’s even attempting to make a comeback in Hollywood now. Spacey is the main person to point to when you want to demonstrate that cancel culture doesn’t truly exist.