Kevin Spacey won not only his first Golden Globe on 11 January 2015, but also the humane appreciation of hundreds of fellow-artists and behind the screens admirers. After being nominated for his parts in The Usual Suspects (1995) or American Beauty (1999) – and five others – Spacey won the award in the category Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama for his role as Francis Underwood in House of Cards.
Kevin Spacey opened his speech at the Awards with a contextual joke: ‘’This is just the beginning of my revenge’’, uttered with the Southern accent of his character and continued by thanking to Netflix and every person involved in the project. By the end of his speech, Spacey appealed to a melancholic tone, as chose to correlate his feelings and emotions with a past happening, thus commemorating the late Stanley Kramer:
‘’The last time that I saw Stanley Kramer — one of the great filmmakers of all time — was at the Motion Picture and Television Home, and I was sitting with him and he was in a wheelchair. He was ill at this time. And as I was about to leave, I realized that I had never told him what I thought about his work … how much his work had meant to me. And so I said to him, the films you made, the subjects you tackled, the performances you got out of some of the greatest actors that have ever walked the face of the Earth, the Oscars you won … your films will stand the test of time and will influence filmmakers for all time.
And I didn’t know whether he had really retained what I said or not. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. But as I stood up to leave, he grabbed my hand, and I looked at his wife, who was across the room, and I sat back down. And he said as clear to me as anything he had ever said, ‘Thank you so much for saying that. That means so much to me. I just wish my films could have been better.’
And so as I stand here tonight as someone who has enjoyed such an extraordinary career, in large measure because of the people in this room, I just want it to be better. I just want to be better, but this is very encouraging. Thank you very much.’’
The less-known and more emotional moment of the evening occurred after Kevin Spacey delivered his impressive speech and has not been televised. Deadline, nonetheless, wrote about the moment. Karen, the widow of Stanley Kramer, was utterly impressed by the great words of appreciation delivered by the actor and desired to personally thank him for his caring thoughts. Overwhelmed and without being noticed by the cameras, behind all the fuss and agitation, Karen calmly approached the table where Kevin was seated, knelt before him and took his hand: “I am so deeply, deeply touched by what you said and by your generosity in giving so much of your valued time to Stanley.’’ He then bent down to the widow and they embraced. “We both cried,” she confessed, and then drew the unforgettable conclusion: “It was a moment that I think we will both cherish for the rest of our lives.”