It was a harrowing and familiar experience for Anthony Rapp to watch 'House of Cards' star Kevin Spacey play a suburban dad obsessed with a teenage cheerleader in 'American Beauty.'
It was a disturbing reminder of his own traumatic experience with the Oscar-winning actor, reports 'Variety'. The two men are locked in a courtroom battle over Rapp's $40 million civil lawsuit, in which he alleges that Spacey made unwanted sexual advances when Rapp was 14 years old and Spacey was 26.
Watching Spacey as Lester Burnham ogling his high school-age daughter's best friend was "unpleasantly familiar," Rapp said while taking the stand in New York City on Tuesday (Pacific Standard Time).
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According to 'Variety,' 'American Beauty' was the last film of Spacey's that he watched. Rapp says his alleged encounter with Spacey took place in 1986, but he continued watching the actor's films because "they were by and large very acclaimed," and he "felt it was my duty to do so."
Their paths crossed in other professional contexts. In 1993, the men saw each other in the lunchroom of a building where they were filming projects. At the 1999 Tony Awards, they ran into each other in the lobby bathroom and exchanged "locked eye contact."
'Variety' further states that Attorneys for Spacey have argued that Rapp manufactured the allegations against the actor out of jealousy. They claim that the openly gay actor, who appeared in the original Broadway production of 'Rent' and on 'Star Trek: Discovery', was upset that his decision to come out of the closet had limited his career prospects.
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Rapp pushed back at that assertion in his testimony, saying that he never blamed being openly gay on any "dry period" in his professional life. He said he told many people about the Spacey incident during points when he was "working very, very steadily."
Rapp went with sexual abuse allegations against Spacey in 2017.
