On the surface, Kevin Spacey and Jack Abramoff don’t appear to have much in common.
Spacey is a Democrat. Abramoff is a Republican.
Spacey starred in a high school production of “The Sound of Music.” During his teen years, Abramoff was a wrestler.
Spacey is best known for his roles in films such as “American Beauty” and “The Usual Suspects.” Abramoff? He’s known as the lobbyist who rose high and fell hard, ultimately serving time in federal prison after being convicted on multiple charges related to widespread corruption and fraud.
But spend an hour at breakfast with Spacey at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, and it becomes clear where the Spacey/Abramoff personality diagram may overlap.
Spacey, an actor who often plays ambitious, even ruthless men, is at turns charming (a word Spacey also uses to describe Abramoff), defensive, potty-mouthed and passionate, as well as prone to doing impressions, a trait that he shares with Abramoff and that is on display in “Casino Jack.”
He even dumps a healthy amount of sugar into his cafe au lait, laughing when a reporter reminds him that, as Abramoff, he does that in the movie.
“Yes, it’s the little things that people informed me of that we tried to infuse into the film,” he says with a smile.
Political junkies — and anyone who saw the first of this year’s two Abramoff movies, Alex Gibney’s documentary “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” — are familiar with how Abramoff and colleagues tried to defraud American Indian tribes of millions.
They also know that a subsequent FBI investigation uncovered evidence of sweeping misconduct that led to criminal charges against Abramoff, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, former U.S. representative Bob Ney, former DeLay aide Mike Scanlon, and other congressional staffers and lobbyists.
But it’s the details — the little things, as Spacey calls them — that often work their way into “Casino Jack,” a satirical, hyperbolic version of the events that led to the 2004 ethics scandal.
Example: how Abramoff wore the unfortunate “Godfather”-like fedora and trench coat to a 2006 courthouse appearance.
“He opened his closet, grabbed the first hat that he could grab, the trench coat because it was raining, and went outside,” Spacey says, noting that Abramoff often kept his head covered in public because of his Orthodox Jewish faith.
Getting to know him
Spacey uncovered that kind of information through absorbing news coverage of the case, speaking with Abramoff’s friends and former colleagues; and spending six hours last year at a federal prison in Cumberland, Md., getting to know the man himself.
Spacey describes Abramoff as “very forthcoming” during their prison conversation. But press for too many details, and the two-time Academy Award winner borrows from the same playbook Abramoff used during a 2004 Senate hearing: He pleads the Fifth.
“I’m not going to answer specific questions, and I’ll tell you why,” he says. “Because I felt it was very gracious of him to have met with me. . . . At whatever point he makes a decision to start talking about his experience, he can do that in his own time and under his own conditions.”
Abramoff did not respond to requests for comment via his attorney, Abbe Lowell, or his Facebook page.
But a self-identified friend of his stood up at last month’s Washington, D.C., premiere and thanked the actor for accurately capturing the one-time power player’s humor and “dorkiness.”
For Spacey, creating a portrait of Abramoff that is perceived by those who knew him as fair may be a greater reward than any nomination.
