As the disfigured Machiavellian monarch in Sam Mendes’s flashy restaging of Richard III, Kevin Spacey is likely to enhance his reputation for playing the villain who turns out, in some way, to be just like us. Over the past two years, the actor has made his own cottage industry out of characters The New York Times describes as “both plausible targets and sympathetic alter egos.” These include an ethically conflicted Wall Street executive in Margin Call, a disgraced mogul in Father of Invention, and a bombastic, power-mad lobbyist in Casino Jack. Now, when he hobbles onstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where Richard III makes its Stateside premiere on January 10 (through March 1) following its critically lauded run in London last summer, Spacey channels his inner antihero—which he parlayed into an Academy Award under the direction of Mendes in 1999’s American Beauty.
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