When Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple men, including at least five who said they were teens at the time, it triggered a memory for Mena Suvari.
To prepare for a scene in a future-Best Picture winner American Beauty, Spacey invited the 19-year-old actress to “lay on the bed very close to one another,” Suvari told People. “He was sort of gently holding me. It was very peaceful but weird and unusual.” She “thought of that day” following the allegations against Spacey, but, as she noted in 2018, “it’s important to focus on the conversation that’s happening and the healing, the victims — the right thing that’s to come out of this. That’s sort of what I try to hope for and focus on the most. It’s something that we’re truly changing and moving out of.”
1999 was a breakthrough year for Suvari with high-profile roles in American Beauty and American Pie. But as she revealed in her new memoir, The Great Peace: A Memoir, she was “living a double life” at the time. “Between the ages of twelve and twenty, I was the victim of repeated sexual abuse,” she writes in the book.
“Every time I would go on a set. Every time I was interviewed, I was acting the whole time. It was another role for me to play. That I was okay,” she tells People… Looking back, she says of American Beauty: “It was a beautiful experience, being given the opportunity to work and express myself right when I needed I to save me.”
The Great Peace: A Memoir is available beginning next week.
(Via People)
