Robin Wright covers the latest issue of Porter Edit magazine. The shoot is severe, which I think is probably a reflection of Robin – nothing superfluous, nothing garish, nothing frilly. Robin did the cover interview to promote her “socially conscious clothing line,” Pour Les Femmes, but she talks about other things too. The interview took place before her wedding to Clement Giraudet this summer, and it also took place right around the time that she first spoke about her House of Cards costar Kevin Spacey. She talks about Spacey at length in this piece and her comments are… not great. They actually border on offensive. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
She loves Paris: “I always knew I would end up [there]… I was there modeling, right out of high school, and fell in love with it. It’s old school. You have to get up, put your clothes on and go down to the boulanger to get your croissant. Most of your day is about building the next meal. Being in nature.”
Her clothing line, Pour Les Femmes. Inspired by a trip to Congo over 10 years ago, Wright started the company with her friend Karen Fowler to provide economic opportunities – and a skilled trade in sewing – for women in conflict zones around the world. The range consists largely of pajamas, partly because both of them love to sleep (“I wish I could sleep like a teenager. But I love being in bed, working in bed, watching movies in bed,” says Wright), but also because pajamas represent comfort and security, which women in war-torn regions rarely have. “Buy our pajamas because you are helping a woman start her life again after being raped repeatedly,” she says, frankly. “It’s pretty simple.”
How close ‘House of Cards’ came to being cancelled: “Very, very close. Because of the climate at that time. The air was thick, you know. Harvey Weinstein… People were [saying], ‘We have to shut everything down or otherwise it will look like we are glorifying and honoring this thing that’s dirty.’ Our show’s not dirty. I believed we should finish. I believed we should honor our commitment. To the people that loved the show, also. Why quit? They printed that it was ‘only’ 600 people out of work, but if you include security, cops, shooting on location in Baltimore, everything, 2,500 people would have been out of a job. And that’s not fair – to take that security away from those people… They didn’t do anything [wrong].”
Whether she’ll reach out to Kevin Spacey: “No. He’ll reach out when he’s ready, I’m sure. I think that’s the way it should go.” Does she feel sorry for him? Another pause. “I feel sorry for anybody whose life is in the public arena. It’s a nightmare, can you imagine? We do a job, we share [a performance] with viewers. Why does our private life have to be public? I hate that part of this industry. It’s so invasive. I believe everyone’s personal life should be personal. Positive, negative, neutral, whatever – I don’t believe it should be anybody’s business. But I’m not talking about this [#MeToo] movement,” she clarifies, in case she’s thought to be condoning Spacey’s alleged behavior or criticizing those who came out publicly against him. “I’m talking about media. The exposure. It’s an awful feeling. A stranger deciding they know who you are and they are going to put that in a…,” she drifts off. “I mean, it’s criminal, it really is.”
Whether she thinks Spacey deserves a career reprieve? “I don’t know how to comment on that, I really don’t. I believe every human being has the ability to reform. Has the ability to reform. In that sense, second chances, or whatever you are going to call it – absolutely, I believe in that. It’s called growth.”
I absolutely loathe Robin’s tangent – or was it? – about poor celebrities having to deal with media intrusion, like that was the issue regarding Kevin Spacey. That’s what she was asked about, and she does the “pity poor celebrities” bit. Kevin Spacey’s issue wasn’t that part of his personal life got exposed. Spacey’s issue was that he was and is a serial predator who has groped and assaulted multiple men and boys over the course of decades. And no, Spacey should not get a chance to “reform.”
Cover courtesy of Porter Edit, additional photo courtesy of Getty.
Just because they can reform, doesn’t mean they will.
Just because they can reform, doesn’t mean you have to accept them back into your life.
I agree with her— I just think she stopped her statement too soon.
This. She’s not advocating for Spacey’s rehabilitation specifically, but explaining her own process of empathy. She’s right. It’s our ability to be open to the possibility of growth and redemption that keeps us human through all of this.
And if they *do* reform–that doesn’t mean that consequences for past behavior stop.
She did start the answer on Spacey with I don’t know how to comment on that. I get where she is coming from, as I kind of feel the same. It’s complicated to explain, and no she didn’t do it well, and went off on a side tangent. I’m also not sure what her interactions with Spacey were like. I do think when someone you work with does what he did, but treats you well, it can be hard to reconcile. You know the perpetrator one way, and you may have no dealings with the victim. It could be hard to come to terms with it. I also wish it wasn’t so much trial by media. I understand why, but still wish it was a bit more than that. Honestly, how has Spacey not been charged yet?
Yes they should all be punished, some with jail others with civil penalties, but I do believe they should have some chance at reform too. Ideally, society could figure this out and punish accordingly, although not so far. Also, as opposed to others, I don’t think acting or celebrity status is one of those professions where I think you shouldn’t be allowed to come back from. Mainly cause in the scheme of things it just isn’t that important of a profession. There are other professions i.e. teacher etc. where I think there shouldn’t be a return.
I feel as if the outcome from all this is that we will ending “cancelling” the WOMEN slightly related professionally to the abusers while the abusers themselves won’t be facing real consequences at all and making spectacular comebacks just to add to their public persona’s allure while the women around them will be always hold accountable just for not having said the right thing, the thing we expected them to say. As usual women pay the price when the real crimes were committed by men slightly related to them in a professional workplace. People: Robin is not the enemy here. Spacey’s behaviour is not her responsibility and we can’t blame her for not saying what we what to hear.
Yes, I believe in second chances for everyone… after facing consequences. After putting in the work and making changes in your life. After apologizing, showing that you truly understand that what you did was wrong, making amends, and then proving yourself all over again.
I’m so exhausted about getting offended by everything. War offends me. A person putting their thoughts together about a person they cared about once who has hurt others doesn’t offend me. I’m not sure i’d be able to answer that kind of question.
same
Sane view. Thank you.
I agree. I’m more offended by her description of my second city, Paris, as I said below. And by Spacey’s creepiness. I could see that in her mind she was thinking more about the series and whether it should have gone on or not, how to deal with scandal within a production and the collateral damage of a person’s crimes in the public eye. Thats why she started talking about the public aspect of making films, imo. Also, she must be deeply conflicted and embarrassed by her friend’s bad deeds.
@sara Yes. Thank you so much for this comment.
I don’t like her answer one bit tbh. But I kinda agree that it’s exhausting to keep worrying about some celebrity‘s thoughts about whatever…
It is a gossip site so if someone wants to complain then that’s the place I guess…
Yes, Valerie as I wrote it was the worst apology non apology IMO also because he equated being gay with being a predator, or at least tried to hide behind what he thought could have been a bigger news of him coming out, which everybody basically knew for decades, so totally pointless. But he did say he was sorry for his behaviour, which he qualified as “drunken” behaviour to add to the string of mistakes and common places. But he said he was sorry to Rapp and that at least I think is a start? Google his statement. It would have been an ok statement had he stopped at the “I’m sorry” also think that the “reform” Robin is referring to could be that he’s said to be seeking help and to be in currently in treatment for sex addiction in rehab. At least, that’s what has been said. What he did is terribly serious because involves minor victims in some cases, and he could be very scared to actually be prosecuted (LA DA office discharged his case because of the statue of limitations(….ugh) I think that’s why Robin says she’s unable to reach him: he’s probably already on the run or hidden in the event of prosecution, fearing the same fate of Weinstein.
Drinking is a common excuse. Drinking only lessens the inhibitions. The impulse was there. So blaming the behavior on alcohol is BS.
+1- I’m giving her huge props for the courage of NOT going with a PR rehearsed statement to NOT be controversial and get a nice headline to herself. That’s quite unusual in a celebrity so close to the metoo earthquake: she could have benefited tremendously with a statement of the lines of ” I stand by the victims side, I want him in jail, etc, etc….” All ready to wear PR template for all celebs hit by this peripherally. That’s what we all want to hear. She did NOT give us that and that’s why we are so mad at her. We blame them for having the courage to say something not very popular but honest but we also blame them when they go with full PR advised statements. We should make up our minds because we can’t have it both ways.
This!
Wow, she really stepped in it for me.
Cancelled
Ugh. The whole thing with Spacey is that he was notoriously private and thus managed to hide his offences for years. It was the media intrusion that outed him and ultimately protected any future victims. She is way off here.
As awesome as she is onscreen I am always a bit confused when people are surprised when she makes off statements. Ummmm…did you forget who she was married to for a really long time? Who she has two children with? I imagine she’s had to make a lot of excuses to justify a lot.
That is an excellent point, Mia. She was married to a racist, abusive POS, who hasn’t really been held accountable for his own behavior. I think it would be better just to say, no comment. Why do they all feel the need to try and rationalize their co-worker’s/friend’s behavior?
And it was THEIR son (in his late teens, I believe) who spit a racial slur at the paparazzi, so…
Yep. She’s never been all there really. I’d reply to her – Charles Manson, just for instance.
Her work is never interesting to me. She’s empty.
I’ll be generous and say I think she tried to deflect the question and it did not go well. She should have just said she felt bad for his victims and left it at that. She needs a better publicist to train her better on how to answer the Spacey questions.
And I get what she’s trying to say about reform, but this isn’t the situation to be bringing it up.
Her tiresome complaint about the invasive burden of fame did not serve her well. Some huge misattunement there.
Her comments about Paris are so ridiculous it makes me laugh:
“It’s old school. You have to get up, put your clothes on and go down to the boulanger to get your croissant. Most of your day is about building the next meal. Being in nature”.
Yes, lady that’s how I lived there for 12 years. Thinking of the next meal but in a completely different way. And Paris is so polluted that they have non-paying days in the tube so that people don’t use their cars. A great contact with nature indeed. {I do like Paris, go there for work all the time but this is so up her butt it’s hilarious}.
Yeah I don’t understand where in Paris she gets to ”be in nature”. It’s a very polluted city and completely removed from nature, unless you count manicured parks (I don’t).
Maybe she meant the rats, lol.
As much as I love Paris, they have a problem with the little buggers. There’s no sense in glorifying the urban problems they have.
They all go on-and-on about how great/better/homier France* is, but as soon as they DIVORCE/separate/split, they are outta there and never a mention again. Johnny Depp, Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johansson, etc.
*While Paris is lovely, it just tickles me how it’s the bees’ knees — until it’s not.
uhm. In her defence she might be living a complete different experience living in Paris from all us commoners might have. I mean, her husband is a fashion executive. When I lived in Paris some years ago it was well known that most wealthy people live in a totally different reality. Usually a great place in the city and a Chateau/Maison outside Paris for the weekends and surprisingly not as expensive as we might think, by American and Uk wealthy people standards. One of my closest friends just bought a chateau an hour from Paris for less than 600K. Is gorgeous and regal. Living in Paris is pretty expensive though, but Robin and her husband I think do not have that problem probably.
Thing is how do you answer that kind of question? She should have been better prepared but when people want to know your opinion on a friend/colleague/acquaintance about how they sexually assaulted/raped other people and you had no idea that was going on, it’s pretty devastating to learn especially if you were close with that person. How do you reconcile who you thought a person was with who they actually are? To me it’s the equivalent of finding out someone you were once close to is actually a murderer. It’s not just the victims of these people who are affected. Family, friends, etc. are equally affected too with the revelations.
She should have just stopped at “I feel sorry for the victims and I am sorry to learn Kevin was not the person I thought he was” but it’s clear she’s confused and doesn’t know what to think. That’s how I read her statement.
Jesus. He didn’t hold shoplift or write bad checks – he sexually assaulted someone. And he has yet to take full responsibility for his actions. Stop being cavalier and acting like it is just as simple as him”reforming” himself.
This is the part I have a hard time with. Yes, these men did something horrible and something that needs to be called out. But how are we supposed to punish them? Should they have to go away and lose everything? I know this has been done to women in the industry for years but are we to impose the same fate or forgive and move on. We humans are all flawed and we learn through trial and error and deserve forgiveness and a chance to try again. I know there’s a lot of anger around this subject and it’s new to us. I just don’t think this is a situation where we force these people into exile for the rest of their lives.
@KB
Hope you understand the long lasting effects abuse (and in this case sexual abuse and intimidation, etc…) have on people. It takes years, and most times even lifetimes for the vitims to have to deal with that trauma.
That trauma affects them to the very core of their personality and sense of self. It affects their relationships and their careers to say the least.
It really bothers me when people are so quick to protect abusers from the potential life-long consequences of their actions, when their actions have life-long effects for their victims.
I, for one, would not be so quick to sympathize with them and put their well being and potential to thrive above that of their victims.
Thank you @mtam, this made me cry.
@Hmmm
*sending virtual hugs* best of luck with your healing.
$325 for a pair of “socially conscious” pajamas!!! Are you kidding me??
So basically she believes exposing an abuser is a “crime,” but the actual crimes he committed are not? She seems to feel disgusted that people wrote about his predatory ways more than the acts themselves.
Also, even if someone is capable of reforming, doesn’t mean we are under obligation to forgive and forget. There are still consequences, and if they’re mad about it, they should have thought of that before they chose to inflict pain onto others.
I get the sense from many interviews over many years that Robin is the survivor of abuse – she alludes to abusive behaviour, working to forgive, and having empathy for the offender. I think some of this comes from seeing an abuser be abusive, then feel remorse, try to control their impulses with love, tenderness, and kindness, then repeat the cycle.
I do think she has empathy for Spacey the person, not Spacey the assaulter because of her complicated relationships in the past. And I also think she treads carefully because of her own experiences with volatile men and the reality that her ex and her son are those people. I disagree with everything she says related to Spacey, but I get a sense that her responses are in context of her own experiences.
@Oh_Dear
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I totally get what you took from her statement. The only thing i can say is what she said is deeply problematic.
She says it herself that as performers, they share a lot of themselves with the audience, so of course it makes sense the fans or the public would feel his crimes to be kind of a personal betrayal. Yet she doesnt see that, and thinks it’s horrible for us to react this way about it.
She’s also wrong that “it’s none of our business”. I agree that actors personal lives should be private and theirs to decide where those boundaries lie.
But Spacey created and took advantage of this “privacy” and silence to abuse people, knowing he would get away with it (at least till now). she says the “negative” of their lives should be kept private, but i disagree. Not when that negative is downright hurting people, and keeping other fellow actors or people in the business from doing their job.
She basically wants us to turn a blind eye when we see people being abused just because it happens to famous people? If spacey had been any other regular dude sexually assaulting people, should we stay quiet too because that’s “their personal lives”? —That is bullshit.
If this were a one-time occurrence, I might agree with her. People do things under the influence, be it alcohol, drugs, or power, that they wouldn’t do ordinarily. That doesn’t make it excusable or less hurtful, but if their larger actions reflect the fact that this was an error of judgement, and they’ve truly apologized, then sure. But attempted rape and continual abuse isn’t just an error of judgement. He did this SO MANY TIMES and he never even apologized. He just blamed everything on being gay and sad. No sympathy. None.
All you said is right except that he did not apologize. He did. In the worst way possible (by coming out) And I’m far to be a Spacey apologist, believe me. What he did is despicable and has to do with the too much power put in the hand of just a few white man in industries that move huge amounts of money. I bet Robin and everybody else in Hollywood and everyone in any other industry, job, work environment all of us: we all had and have to deal with *that* guy, usually a white, middle aged, usually straight guy in a position of power who thinks he’s allowed to do whatever he wants because nobody can touch him because it all depends of him. That’s Spacey. That’s CK. That’s Weinstein. That’s Cosby. Too much power to just ONE male person.
Did he? I thought it was a “sorry you were in the wrong place at the wrong time” kind of non-apology.
I’ve always really disliked her. Never had a good reason for it though. Until today….
She, as most great actors, is capable of empathy. Something essential to, not only the ability of playing a character but simply to be a decent human being in the end. That’s what allows her to play someone as despicable as Claire Underwood yet we can feel her turmoil and nuances and doubts. I think what she said is not fundamentally wrong or right: is just how she feels and how most of us might feel if someone close to us, a coworker who is not our friend but someone we respect, is find to be a criminal: confused and not knowing what to say other than our own view and what we do know about. And in her case her view (and mine too) is that yes, even monsters could redeem if they do the work of reform themselves, which is what she basically said. Reform. She never said that he should be given straight a second chance. She spoke about “reform”, which is something the legal system believes in, thankfully in most civilized places. Otherwise, if you believe a monster can not reform then you might as well believe in death penalty. She did not disappoint me a all in the sense that she’s not someone who would say what everybody expects her to say, which would have been destroy Spacey to pieces and get a #metoo friendly headline, great publicity for her show. In that sense, she got a lot of sh*t for saying what she said, but I admire her honesty and courage in not milking the situation for her own good PR gain.
Yea…you push up on under-aged people for sex….then ALL OF THAT gray area that she’s trying to explain…disappears…sorry, I don’t need to know who you are…you mess with children or under-aged teens…I just need to know what you DID…
I can’t with her regarding this….like…I’m actually…disgusted with her answer…and I adore her…
He won’t reform, he’s a dyed in the wool predator: dude was doing this BEFORE he was famous and still in theatre.
There’s a family history and pathology at work. His brother said as much.
What stood out for me when Spacey got exposed was that he didn’t seem to have a single person who knew him personally as a long-standing friend over the years, or even from back in the day. Just seem to be a lot of long-standing colleagues. Even seemed like he and his only living relative weren’t in touch.
I’m not really here for some rehabilitation comeback tour where he’s concerned: James Spader can ably fill his niche. If he wasn’t thinking about his career (or his victims’ for that matter) when he assaulted people, no one needs to care about his endpoint. He had a very good career run that he didn’t deserve, and many people suffered because of him.
And one thing other thing I did find interesting back when he got booted off of HoC was how both Robin and Beau Willimon got called a out as people who “must have known” but no one ever aimed that accusation at David Fincher. Fanboys always know who they want left out of a controversy, I guess.
He’ll probaby get some Netflix film attempted comeback. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Source on what his brother said? Just curious.
Google “kevin spacey’s brother”, Randall Fowler, and you’ll find all the links in the world.
He basically claimed their father was abusive and sexually abusive and it likely created a pathology in Kevin who seemed to unable or willing to acknowledge the damage it did.
If I recall, his brother decided not have children should he repeat his father’s abuse.
(I think Spacey took his mother’s maiden name rather than his father’s to avoid the family reference and burid his bother under a different name.)
**buried his mother under a different name.
Let’s not forget that this is someone who could actually spend time with Sean Penn for over a decade. I think her levels of tolerance are crazy high.
I was interested in her clothes because they help women, but now after her comments regarding giving a serial predator a chance to reform – with no thought to his victims and the fact that most convicted predators go on to offend again – I can’t in good conscience buy them.