Anthony Rapp said that he found Kevin Spacey’s role in American Beauty “unpleasantly familiar” to his own alleged experiences with the Oscar-winning actor.
The 63-year-old former House of Cards star portrayed a depressed suburban dad in the 1999 romance drama who becomes obsessed with a teenage cheerleader.
Rapp, who is currently embroiled in a $40m (£36.2m) civil lawsuit against Spacey, took the witness stand on Tuesday (11 October).
He claims he was the victim of an “unwanted sexual advance” by Spacey at a party in 1986 when he was 14, an accusation the actor has “categorically” denied.
During the New York trial (per Variety), Rapp said that watching Spacey’s Lester Burnham ogle his daughter’s high school best friend in the film was “unpleasantly familiar”.
“I’m an actor and I love films – these films were acclaimed and award-winning,” Rapp said. “I felt it was part of my job to see them, I knew he was in them so I could prepare myself.”
Next, Rapp is expected to be questioned by Spacey’s lawyers after providing evidence for the first time on 7 October. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Spacey’s attorneys have argued that Rapp manufactured the claims against Spacey out of jealousy, saying that Rapp, who is openly gay, was upset after his career opportunities were limited as a result of coming out of the closet.
However, Rapp countered that he never blamed any “dry period” of his professional life on being openly gay, claiming that he disclosed his alleged incident with Spacey to many people during points when he was “working very, very steadily”.
Rapp first went public with his claims against Spacey in a 2017 Buzzfeed article.
