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he crazy...or is he light-years ahead of us?" goes the slogan for K-Pax,
a movie which casts Kevin Spacey as a mental patient known only as
"Prot." The evidence is there for a quick diagnosis of delusion.
Prot, after all, claims to be an alien from a planet 1,000 light-years
away, known as K-Pax. On the other hand, he has undeniable expertise on
matters of astronomy, is able to see well into the ultraviolet spectrum,
and he has a strange, therapeutic effect on his fellow
"crazies."Alien or merely alienated? That would be telling. But director Iain Softley (The Wings Of The Dove) says it's fairly easy to tell if you pay attention. There's a real satisfaction in tracing little clues and being able to guess," he says. For his part, Spacey fought hard for the role, which he wrapped just before his recent trip to Newfoundland to film The Shipping News. K-Pax has languished "in development" for five years, during most of which Will Smith was going to play the lead. "Even after I won my first Oscar I wasn't being considered |
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for the roles I really wanted," Spacey
says. "When I read the screenplay for K-Pax, I immediately had
my agent tell them I was interested. They sent word back that it was
already optioned to Will Smith. When I expressed interest in The
Shipping News, I was told it was a John
Travolta film. I was disappointed, but I remained hopeful. Things
change in this business. "I really responded to Prot," adds Spacey. "His story takes notions of insanity and psychiatry and flips them on their ears. Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person we call insane." Jeff Bridges, in the role of psychiatrist Dr. Mark Powell, is determined to stick with the insane diagnosis. Unfortunately, whether insane or not, Prot has a definite disruptive effect on the psychotics under Powell's care with his tales of a utopian world and his plans to return (prompting film writers to dub the film "E.T. meets Cuckoo's Nest"). When Prot chooses a date for his departure - July 27 - and tells the patients that he can take one of them, and only one, bedlam breaks loose. For his part, novelist Gene Brewer gives thumbs-up to the about face in casting his alien. "Since K-Pax was my first published novel, I would have been happy to see anyone play Prot," he said. "Imagine what a thrill it was to learn that my creation would be brought to life by one of America's finest actors. On camera, he immediately became Prot, consistently and convincingly in every scene. The result was a very powerful performance, which might well win him a third Oscar." Idle talk of course, but Oscars were on everybody's mind as K-Pax was shot. On the heels of Spacey's win in 2000 for American Beauty, Bridges was nominated for The Contender earlier this year. "We waited until the end of (nomination) day and then we had a party," Softley said of Bridges' happy occasion. "Of course our own little Oscar winner (Spacey) led the celebrations." - Jim Slotek |