When you think Kevin Spacey, "song-and-dance man" is hardly the first label that springs to mind. But the two-time Oscar winner wants to remind us that he actually has an extensive background in musical theater. "By the time I was 20, I [had done] a lot of musicals," he says. "I did Gypsy, Damn Yankees and West Side Story. But then I just never found the time or the chance to do more."
That's one of the many reasons he chose to write, direct and star in Beyond the Sea, a musical biopic about '50s pop idol Bobby Darin (opening today). Apart from wanting to show off his vocal pipes and fancy footwork, Spacey's always had a strong interest in telling Darin's life story. "I feel that, in a lot of ways, his legacy has dissipated. He's not as well known as he would have been had he lived a long life and done one thing really well. He kept reinventing himself, sometimes to the detriment of his career. I just don't think he deserves to b
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When Kevin Spacey was pitching Beyond the Sea — his biopic about '50s pop idol Bobby Darin, which opens tomorrow — the big Hollywood studios all asked him the same question: "Who's heard of Bobby Darin?" As it turns out, Spacey's costar in the film, Kate Bosworth, had the same reaction when she first met with Spacey to discuss the project.
"He told me, 'I'm doing this movie about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee,'" the 21-year-old actress remembers. "I was like, 'Sandra Dee from Grease? You're making a remake of Grease?' He said no and then drew me into their story."
Despite her lack of firsthand knowledge about yesteryear's teen heartthrobs — and the fact that Dee is mentioned in a Grease song but wasn't actually in the movie — Bosworth was Spacey's first choice for the part. That's largely because, he says, of her "mature face." According to Spacey, her grown-up look helped overcome
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Since her breakout role in 1996's Secrets & Lies, Brenda Blethyn has found steady work in both British and American films. Next up, she appears in Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea as '50s crooner Bobby Darin's mother. Despite her big-screen success, this theater veteran's heart still belongs to the stage.
"I love the theater," says the 58-year-old actress, who's currently headlining with Sopranos star Edie Falco on Broadway in a revival of Marsha Norman's acclaimed play 'night, Mother. "The show is going fabulously well. We've had a standing ovation every single performance, except for one when the air-conditioning was up too high. There's a lot of laughter. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a comedy — and then you hear it kind of turn. It's just a wonderful play."
The Broadway gig is a dream come true for Blethyn, a regular fixture on the London stage since the '70s, when she joined the pre
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