Kevin Spacey to receive award in Cannes as part of "guerrilla marketing" stunt

Spacey won’t just be present in Cannes, Variety reports. On Tuesday, the actor will be accepting a lifetime achievement award for “his decades of artistic brilliance but also for his enduring impact on cinema and the arts” from the Better World Fund, an organization that at least claims to support “cinema & art at the service of humanity.” While The Guardian notes that the fund’s 10th anniversary gala, at which Spacey will be presented with the award, isn’t an official part of the festival, the Carlton hotel, at which it is being held, is “one of the premiere sites of festival activity.” 

That’s precisely the point, at least according to Matt Hookings, the producer of Spacey’s new film, The Awakening. Spacey hasn’t visited the festival since 2016. Since then, he’s been accused of sexual misconduct by over 30 men and been found not guilty at trials in both the U.S. and U.K. No matter where people stand on Spacey now as he tries to claw his way back to the mainstream, the appearance is sure to generate a lot of conversation. When it does, “he could say he’s in Cannes and receiving an award, but he’s also here with The Awakening, so the film gets plugged,” Hookings said, characterizing the whole stunt as “guerrilla marketing.” Hookings and Spacey are currently shopping the conspiracy thriller, which stars Spacey as the head of a sinister organization attempting to rule the world, at the Cannes market. 

It remains to be seen whether Spacey will be allowed to walk the red carpet at the Palais. (It should be noted that Cannes already banned one alleged sexual predator from walking this year.) Hookings said it was easy to land Spacey the award, however. “The guy that runs [the Better World Fund] is a big fan of Kevin and I just said, ‘Look, here’s a crazy idea: if I asked him to come, what can you do for him?… So it kind of happened organically,” the producer shared. “A lot of people really like him, so you’ll have a lot of people going, ‘This is really cool.’ And then you’ll have some people that’ll be like, ‘What the fuck is he doing here?’ But hopefully the people who say, ‘What the fuck is he doing,’ when they realize why he’s here they’ll give him a second chance.”