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kevin spacey

A reporter talks to a famous actor like he's an actress, and he doesn't like it so much.

This article originally appeared on 01.26.15

The interview starts out pretty normal.

"So tell me what you're wearing tonight."

And then the reporter takes a slight but somewhat harmless turn.

"When did you get up this morning to get ready?"

"Who did your hair?"

Now this is when Kevin starts to realize something is up.

"What about mani-pedi? Show us your mani-pedi."

"Have you been dieting for months getting ready for this?"

"What about Spanx? Do you have any Spanx on tonight?"

You're right, Kevin! It is f**ked up. Fashion is cool, but let's give leading ladies a bit more credit, shall we? Why do actors get to answer all the interesting questions about their favorite movies and TV shows while actresses usually just get asked about their bodies? While this video is pretty funny, these types of superficial and sometimes invasive questions that actresses regularly deal with on the red carpet aren't very funny at all. Check out the full video below.

Kevin Spacey chose a pretty terrible moment to come out as a gay man.

There's never a bad time to start living your truth as an LGBTQ person. But, as actor Kevin Spacey's watershed coming-out moment shows, there are certainly some not great times to share that news with the public — like, for instance, when you're protecting yourself against allegations you molested a teenager.

Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images.

On Oct. 29, actor Anthony Rapp alleged Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances toward him when Rapp was a minor.

More than three decades ago, when Rapp and Spacey were both working on Broadway productions, Spacey had invited Rapp over to his apartment for a party. After the other guests had left, "[Spacey] picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed, and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance," Rapp told BuzzFeed News.

Spacey would have been 26 years old at the time. Rapp was just 14.

Anthony Rapp. Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images.

Spacey, who didn't dispute Rapp's recollection of the incident, apologized in a statement Sunday night.

"I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago," Spacey wrote, blaming any misconduct on "drunken behavior."

https://t.co/X6ybi5atr5
— Kevin Spacey (@Kevin Spacey) 1509336019

Spacey also chose to come out as gay in the very same statement — a move the LGBTQ community is not thrilled about.

"As the closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women," Spacey wrote. "I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man."

Normally, yes, coming out should be celebrated. But Spacey's decision to note he's part of the LGBTQ community in the same breath as he was deflecting allegations of sexual misconduct toward a minor was, as actor and comedian Billy Eichner wrote, "a bad time to come out."

— (@)

Intentional or not, Spacey's statement could conflate being LGBTQ with being a sexual predator.

Many queer activists, like comedian Cameron Esposito, felt the need to make it crystal clear: Those two things are not the same.

Just wanna be really fucking clear that being gay has nothing to do w/ going after underage folks
— Cameron Esposito (@Cameron Esposito) 1509337536

The LGBTQ community has been fighting the myth that queer people are a danger to kids for decades.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the idea that gay men are more likely to prey on children is one of the most pervasive and harmful myths associated with queer men. Leaning heavily on debunked "science," anti-LGBTQ advocates have (often successfully) pushed this backward narrative into the forays of public debate and politics. The late singer turned activist Anita Bryant, for instance, fought to overturn a Dade County, Florida, ordinance barring discrimination of gay people in 1977 by asserting LGBTQ people were a threat to children. She won.

As film critic Richard Lawson alluded, it's shameful political victories like Bryant's that illustrate why conflating queerness with predatory behavior is so dangerous.

Coming out as a gay man is not the same thing as coming out as someone who preyed on a 14-year-old. Conflating those things is disgusting
— Richard Lawson (@Richard Lawson) 1509337386

This exposes the gay community to a million tired old criticisms and conspiracies.
— Richard Lawson (@Richard Lawson) 1509337625

Spacey's statement, muddying the waters between his life as a gay man, drunken behavior, and sexual predation, adds fuel to the fire for homophobes hungry for any anecdote that could be twisted to prove their point.

If you want to celebrate Spacey for finally coming out of the closet — just remember he could've done so at any time, in any way. He chose to do so now, in response to these allegations, and in a way that risks massive negative repercussions for the rest of the LGBTQ community. This story should be one about sexual assault and how to prevent it — not a famous actor's sexual orientation.

The "House of Cards" star wants you to know something about her paychecks.

Is Robin Wright slowly evolving into her bold, dauntless character from "House of Cards"?

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Or has she always been at this level of badass?

I ask because Wright, in perfect Claire Underwood fashion, demanded to be treated fairly by the show's bigwigs ... or else.

At a media event at the Rockefeller Foundation on May 17, 2016, Wright got candid about her paychecks working alongside co-star Kevin Spacey on their Netflix series.

“I was like, 'I want to be paid the same as Kevin,'” Wright told the audience of activists and media, The Huffington Post reported. And she'd get paid the same or "go public" with the pay discrepancy, she explained.

After all, she did snag Best Actress in a TV Series at the Golden Globes in 2014 for her role in "House of Cards." Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.

Wright noted that she'd decided to seize the moment after seeing data suggesting her character was actually more popular than Spacey's among viewers. Armed with that knowledge, Wright went to executives with her bold proposition. They went for it.

"It was the perfect paradigm," Wright said. "There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in 'House of Cards.'"

Pay inequality has been a hot-button issue in Hollywood lately.

On top of widespread discriminatory hiring practices that leave women out — an issue that prompted the ACLU to ask federal agencies to investigate — Hollywood has a nasty habit of paying its leading men far more than its leading ladies.

Last October, Jennifer Lawrence penned an essay expressing regret over failing to insist she be paid equally to her male co-stars in 2013's "American Hustle." Lawrence didn't want to come across as "difficult" or "spoiled," she wrote (which, unfortunately, is a valid concern among women, because #sexism). But still, the inequity didn't sit well with her.

Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

Lawrence's essay helped push the conversation forward about Hollywood's inexcusably large gender pay gap, with other stars like Kerry Washington and Carey Mulligan speaking out on the matter, too.

But isn't it a little absurd for women making millions of dollars to be complaining about their paychecks?

Not at all. As Susan Sarandon noted this week at the Cannes Film Festival, "it's about respect — it’s not about the money.”And it's respect that needs to be felt at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, too.

Equal pay "has to start with regular pay," Sharon Stone told People last November. "Not just for movie stars, but regular pay for the regular woman in the regular job."

Pay inequity isn't exclusive to Hollywood. Women are undervalued in their work throughout most industries.

Pay discrimination based on gender is far too common in the U.S., with full-time women workers making just 79 cents for every $1 their male counterparts make, according to recent data from the Census Bureau. The pay gap gets even more alarming when you consider race and ethnicity, with Hispanic women earning just over half of what a man earns in the U.S.

Graphic via The White House.

Sure, blatant discrimination isn't solely to blame for the gap in its entirety — other important social factors, like access to education, play a role. Still, a sizable discrepancy remains, "even after comparing men and women with the same job title, at the same company, and with similar education and experience," Glassdoor's Andrew Chamberlain told Fast Company in April.

Women shouldn't have to be bold or deliver ultimatums to their bosses to get paid equally. They should be treated fairly as human beings just for doing their jobs. That's it.

But until we've reached that benchmark, we have women like Claire Under — er, Robin Wright to inspire us all to demand better.

Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Nantucket Film Festival.