'He had such power and presence. The room stopped when he walked in: Danny De Lillo at home in Los Angeles, May 2024. Photo: Dan Tuffs
Stephen Fry's 2007 pantomime production of Cinderella at the Old Vic is memorable for several reasons. It featured the mustachioed Sandi Toksvig as a flamboyant narrator, combining Plato's musings on happiness with bawdy anecdotes. Despite some disparaging reviews, Kevin Spacey, the theater's then artistic director, described the risque gags as “a perfect celebration of Old Vic vaudeville history and a lot of fun.”
The production was not a success. Danny DeLillo was a lot of fun. The aspiring actor was then 22 and working as a doorman at the iconic south London theater when he claims he was the victim of unwanted sexual behavior from Spacey during a performance.
It was a typical shift for De Lillo before his interaction with the two-time Oscar-winning actor. De Lillo says he was sitting in a small alcove at the back of the stalls when, midway through the performance, Spacey walked into the back of the theater and squeezed in next to him. At this moment, according to De Lillo, the star, sitting, pressed her crotch to her face. He remembers feeling Spacey's excitement at this.
Kevin Spacey with Robin Wright Penn in “House of Cards” Photo: Netflix
“I remember him getting closer and closer and suddenly he was squeezed between me and the wall. I still remember the smell… of the place where his groin was pressed against me. And I just remember being very still,” he says. “People would come into the gym and talk to him about how much they loved him. And I was like, “What’s going on now?” I couldn’t look, I couldn’t move.”
He adds: “He was in this cove with me, and there his groin was rubbing against [me].” De Lillo pauses to touch his collarbone. “Right here. There are families sitting in the room in the dark, he's laughing at the mime, and I'm just frozen.”
De Lillo couldn't say how long the incident lasted, but says he was traumatized by it. “That day took so much away from me, from who I was, what I believed in, how I felt about celebrities, how I questioned whether I wanted to be part of this industry.”
De Lillo, now 39, is one of 10 men who have come forward to publicly accuse Spacey of inappropriate behavior, apparently spanning five decades, from the actor's time in school to his heyday on Netflix's House of Cards .
They include an actor who appeared in the Old Vic's 2013 production of Sweet Bird of Youth and alleged that Spacey groped him in public at a party held at the Savoy Hotel. “He put his left hand on my butt and stuck his middle finger as high as he could,” said an actor named Ruari. “I just froze. He pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry about it.” He did just that and, like a shark, he went into 'Kevin mode' at the press night, so he went and took pictures.” /p>
A young British actor taking part in a masterclass at the Old Vic claimed that Spacey pretended to be interested in the work, “but in reality he was just walking around the room hugging what seemed to be the most handsome guys in space.” He claimed that Spacey approached him and “I just felt his body pressed against my body. I think his penis was at my leg. It was terrible.”
The former Marine, who was hoping to pursue a career in acting, claimed that Spacey took him to a screening of Saving Private Ryan and began masturbating during the first scene. “It was the first 20 minutes of the Normandy invasion. It's shockingly terrible: the guy lifts him up by the hand, and people are burning, people are just dying in the most terrible ways. Suddenly there is some action happening next to me, I look at Kevin and see that he is just having fun.”
It is alleged that while filming House of Cards, Spacey groped a young actor who played an employee of his security services.
The man said: “We’re on the other side of the set, just me and him. I leaned over because he was saying something. I felt something tickling me right under the zipper. I look down and see it's his finger. His hand touched my penis. It wasn't like we were playing in the locker room and making jokes or jokes, it was sexual. I was touched inappropriately on set at work. He just looked at me with these little dead eyes.”
Kevin Spacey publicly denied fresh allegations of illegality on Friday night ahead of the release of a new Channel 4 documentary due to be shown next week.
In an interview with Dan Wootton, the former GB News presenter, he denied allegations of sexual harassment and assault but said he may have behaved inappropriately at times. Spacey was acquitted of sexual assault in trials in the US and UK.
“I take full responsibility for my past behavior and my actions. But I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologize to anyone who has made up stuff about me or exaggerated things about me,” Spacey told Mr Wootton.
“I never told anyone that if they gave me sexual favors that I would help them in their career,” he said.
“I've obviously dated… some men who thought they could succeed in their careers by being in a relationship with me. But there was no conversation with me, it was all part of their plan, which was always doomed to failure because I was not involved in the deal.”
Over the past week I have repeatedly asked @Channel4 to give me more than 7 days to respond to the 48 year old allegations made against me and to provide me with sufficient information to investigate these matters. Channel 4 refused on the grounds that they believed…
— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) May 2, 2024
The youngest of three children, De Lillo grew up in Oxfordshire and knew from an early age that he wanted to act. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, whose alumni include Anne Hathaway, Paul Rudd and Danny DeVito, and returned to the UK after graduating because he was unable to obtain a US visa. Returning to London, he took a job with an agency and was posted to the Old Vic after shifts at various venues including the Royal Festival Hall.
He saw Spacey, who held the post from 2004 to 2015, at the theater, but did not speak to him until the alleged incident in Cinderella. “He had such power and presence,” De Lillo says. “The room stopped when he entered, wherever he was.”
De Lillo also claims that Spacey once put his hand down his trousers while holding drinks for a party at a restaurant. Oid Vic. “I asked, 'What's going on, what's happening right now?' It was very fast,” he says.
“This day took so much from me”: Danny De Lillo at home in Los Angeles Photo: Dan Tuffs
He had come to terms with the idea that this is what happens if you want to achieve your acting dream. “You start to feel like you deserve it, tell yourself that’s what’s happening,” De Lillo says. “I was new to the industry and thought, 'Well, this is normal, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.'
De Lillo believes Spacey, 25 years his senior, reveled in the power imbalance. “It takes a certain type of person to do this, not behind closed doors, but openly. All my contacts with Kevin Spacey happened while I was working at work,” he adds. “There was no situation where I was learning my lines with him or asking for advice. This was at the time when I was 22 years old and working in his theater for minimum wage. There was never a moment when I was not on the clock in my communication with him.” According to De Lillo, the only time he saw Spacey near the theater was when he was sitting in a cafe, and the actor saw him through the window as he passed by and knocked in greeting.
De Lillo did not report Spacey's behavior to the Old Vic or to the police at the time because he feared his word would not be taken over that of the respected actor. He didn't leave because he had to pay the rent off Edgware Road. Instead, he asked him not to work on the ground anymore. “I just did everything in my power to avoid, avoid, avoid, which I think is what a lot of people do in these situations,” he says. “Essentially, they are trying to avoid this situation. But I didn’t tell anyone.”
Kevin Spacey outside Southwark Crown Court in July 2023. Photo: Getty
Spacey has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct since the explosion of the #MeToo movement in October 2017. The first to come forward was fellow actor Anthony Rapp, who said a drunk Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was 26 and Rapp was 14. Spacey said he doesn't remember the encounter, “but if I had actually behaved like that “as he describes, I owe him a sincere apology for what would be deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” More than a dozen others also voiced their complaints.
“Anthony Rapp became my hero,” De Lillo says. “That was the time when everything started to change for me. For the first time, I gained confidence knowing that I’m not the only one, and that’s important for everyone.” De Lillo only told his mother what happened to him after Rapp's 2017 revelations because he “didn't want her to go through that pain and experience.”
Following Rapp's allegations, the Old Vic set up a confidential hotline for people to raise concerns about Spacey's behaviour. De Lillo was one of many people who turned to the theater. “The Old Vic sincerely apologizes to the people who told us they had been harmed,” Kate Wara, then chief executive, said at the time. “We realized that it is not enough to have the right process. Everyone should feel able to speak out, no matter who they are.”
Kevin Spacey plays Richard III at the Old Vic in 2011. Photo: Alastair Muir
Spacey, 64, has always denied any offenses, but it was actually canceled due to allegations that emerged. This became most apparent when Ridley Scott costly re-shot all of Spacey's scenes in All the Money in the World, the 2017 biopic about American oil tycoon John Paul Getty, starring Christopher Plummer.
Spacey was never found guilty of a crime, and a $40 million (£32 million) civil suit brought by Rapp was dismissed in 2022. He was also acquitted of nine charges, including sexual assault and indecent assault, brought by four men at Southwark Crown Court in July last year. . None of the men in the Channel 4 documentaries were involved in the trial.
De Lillo, who has lived in Los Angeles for more than a decade, says he remembers the devastation he felt when he heard the London jury's verdict. “My life fell apart at that moment because I lost faith in humanity,” he says. “I have lost faith in justice. I shuddered, curling up into a ball. I wanted to hide for a while.”
Dorothy Byrne, former head of news at Channel 4, is the executive producer of the two films. Byrne says what struck her while making the documentaries was that “men are embarrassed to publicly talk about being victims or recipients of inappropriate behavior, whereas in my experience women are not embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed. Some straight men feel uncomfortable talking about it, as if it somehow reflects on or undermines their masculinity.” She said having ten different men tell their stories on camera would be “a turning point, and I believe it will empower other men.”
After all these years, De Lillo says he made a choice . speak out now because as a producer in Hollywood who advocates for proper protections at work, he wants to continue the momentum of the #MeToo campaign.
“People have a really hard time speaking out. I’m so afraid that people will judge me before I even set foot there,” he says. “I know my truth and I don’t want to suffer in silence anymore.”
Spacey Unmasked airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Mondays and Tuesdays
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