Kevin Spacey is set to make his first major television appearance since he was fired from Netflix over sexual misconduct allegations eight years ago.
The two-time Academy Award winner will appear in Minimarket, an Italian comedy series due to be released on state broadcaster RAI’s streaming platform later this month, according to Variety.
It will be his first significant TV role since he was fired from House of Cards in 2017. Spacey has since been acquitted on all counts of alleged sexual misconduct by a UK court, as well as having allegations against him dismissed in the US.
Minimarket follows a young man called Manlio Viganò, played by Italian actor Filippo Laganà, who harbours ambitions of becoming an entertainer while working in a small convenience store in Rome.
Spacey plays himself as Viganò’s imaginary “artistic conscience and unpredictable mentor” with the relationship defined by “bickering, misunderstandings and mutual teasing”.
The 10-episode series sees a “true friendship” develop between the men – one with the “experience of someone who has graced the world’s most important sets”, the other with the “recklessness of someone who doesn’t realise he has an Oscar winner at his side”.
Minimarket will be released on Raiplay on 26 December.
Spacey was exiled from mainstream Hollywood in 2017 after multiple men accused him of sexual misconduct, allegations that he consistently denied.
Actor Anthony Rapp was the first to accuse Spacey of sexually abusing him. He claimed the incident occurred in 1986 when Spacey was 26 and Rapp was 14. Thereafter, more than a dozen men came forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against the actor, all of which he either denied or insisted the encounters were consensual.
Rapp’s allegations were dismissed by a Manhattan court in 2022. The next year Spacey stood trial in the UK after four men alleged he had sexually assaulted them in separate incidents between 2001 and 2013. He was again cleared of all nine offences.
Since his acquittal, Spacey has appeared in several small projects, including Italian director Massimo Paolucci’s 2024 psychological thriller The Contract, in which he played the Devil.
He returned to acting in 2021 in L’uomo che disegnò Dio (The Man Who Drew God), a low-budget Italian drama directed by and starring Franco Nero in which he played a police detective.
In March last year, Spacey briefly returned to US cinemas with the indie thriller Peter Five Eight, co-starring Rebecca De Mornay, which received little critical attention.
He has since appeared in the yet-to-be-released British action-thriller The Awakening and Dustin Fairbanks’ historical thriller 1780 and also directed the supernatural movie Holiguards.
Earlier this year, he was presented with the Maximo Award for Excellence at the Italian Global Series Festival, adding to his recent string of honours as he attempted to make a career comeback.
Spacey made headlines last month when he opened up about “living in hotels” in an interview with The Telegraph.
However, he later clarified he wasn’t exactly “homeless,” and said that he had said he was “basically living in hotels and Airbnbs and going where the work is”.
“And there are many people, as we all know, who are indeed actually living on the streets or in their cars or are in terrible financial situations – and my heart goes out to them,” he said. “But it is clear from the article itself that I am not one of them nor was I attempting to say that I was.”
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