My Date with Kevin Spacey

On Saturday 3rd September, I had a cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch. I also met the Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey after he’d finished playing a game of tennis. As you do.

The school had been given the opportunity to allow two students to apply for a place on a workshop by The Kevin Spacey Foundation back in May. The workshop would include tickets to Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey, and also a chance to meet Spacey himself. Also the odds weren’t great – of all 160 schools that applied, only 20 would be given places – my school managed to get in and, last Saturday, my drama teacher, a fellow drama student and myself all travelled down to the Old Vic Theatre in London to take part.

The workshop was exhausting but invigorating. It was refreshing too, as normally in every drama class there are at least three students that giggle throughout the exercises, but here everyone was focused and completely unbothered about looking an idiot.

It was while we were desperately shoving sandwiches down our starving throats that we were informed that ‘someone was waiting for us’.

Nervously we filed into the other room to find Kevin Spacey, wearing a sweaty t-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap, sitting in the middle of the room.

Only a few nights before, I’d watched L.A. Confidential – one of Spacey’s most famous films – and as I stared at the hairs on his legs while he sat in front of me, I was overcome with the idea that he was actually human. He might not be a normal human, but he was human nonetheless. This got me thinking; although being an actor is an incredibly competitive career to pursue, someone’s got to do it, right? And the people that end up doing it are human, like all of us. This doesn’t just go for acting, either. Great scientists, musicians, playwrights and athletes were, once-upon-a-time, just school kids, wearing ties and blazers, with friends, worries and homework. If they got where they are today, why can’t we?

I’d love to be an actor one day, but I’d also love to be a bestselling author, or an Oscar-winning director – I haven’t yet made up my mind. But one thing is for sure – no matter what I end up doing, who I end up doing it with or where it takes me, I’m going to make sure I have a great time doing it.

Ellen, Year 12