"Now: In the Wings on a World Stage," 7 p.m. Tuesday at Midtown Art Cinema, 931 Monroe Drive. 404-879-0160, www.landmarktheatres.com/market/atlanta/midtownartcinema.htm.
Can we interrupt your binge-watching “House of Cards” marathon for a minute? Actually, for 90 minutes?
That’s the duration of Kevin Spacey’s new documentary, “Now: In the Wings on a World Stage,” playing for one night only at the Midtown Art Cinema. Showtime is 7 p.m. Tuesday, although if you’re busy, the film will soon be available by download.
“I’ve been paying close attention to how audiences are discovering new paths to content, how emerging talents are finding new ways to get seen,” Spacey said last week during an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The actor-director-screenwriter-producer solidified his status as champion of modern media distribution last year with his famous James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
“(T)he audience wants the control,” he said during the speech. “They want freedom. If they want to binge, as they’ve been doing on ‘House of Cards,’ then we should let them binge.”
And if an Academy Award-winning actor wants to travel the globe staging “Richard III,” then release a documentary about it, why not?
“I’m a theater rat,” Spacey said. “I kind of wanted to make a film for those who don’t know and don’t get it. We give a revealing look at what it’s like to be an actor in a company. You really walk away getting to know these journeymen actors who aren’t famous.”
(By the way, here’s all he could say about upcoming “House of Cards” episodes: “There will be scenes and there will be dialogue. Other than that I can’t say. I’m sworn to secrecy.”)
The film takes its title from the opening of the play: “Now is the winter of our discontent,” so we asked Spacey whether he had been feeling some discontent with the traditional Hollywood way of doing business.
“I love a challenge,” he said. “I love to have a goal. The idea of, ‘hey let’s put together a 50 percent British, 50 percent American company and let’s have them tour all over the world’ is (bleeping) nuts! It was a situation where 1,000 things could have gone wrong.”
He also loves the classic and cutting-edge intersection of presenting Shakespeare live, on the big screen and on whatever size screen fans might choose if they download the project (it'll be available for $12.99 starting May 2 at kevinspacey.com/nowthefilm).
“I love being a little bit disruptive,” said Spacey, who has been living for the past decade in London, where he is artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre. “I’ve just never been the kind of person who just sits by, being content. I’m interested in things that I don’t know. It gets me out of bed in the morning.”
