Judi defends Kevin Spacey
The actress described the alleged sexual offender as a ‘good friend’
Veteran British actress Judi Dench has criticised the decision to remove Kevin Spacey from a completed Hollywood film last year after the two-time Oscar-winning actor was accused of sexual misconduct.
The makers of All the Money in the World decided to reshoot Spacey’s scenes with actor Christopher Plummer stepping in to play the late US oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty in the drama about the 1973 kidnapping of Getty’s grandson. “I can’t approve in any way of the fact, whatever he has done, that you then start to cut him out of films,” the 83-year-old Dench told a news conference at Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival, when asked about Spacey.
“Are we to go back throughout history now and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or has broken the law, or has committed some kind of offence, are they always going to be cut out?” Spacey’s character was also written out of US TV series House of Cards after more than 30 men accused him of making unwanted sexual advances.
Dench described Spacey as “a good friend” and “an inestimable comfort” when they worked together on 2001’s The Shipping News after Dench’s husband died.
“I don’t know about any of the conditions of it but nevertheless I think he is and was a most wonderful actor. I can’t imagine what he’s doing now,” Dench said.