Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey to be honored by NY museum

[January 29, 2014]  By Marina Lopes

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Award-winning actor, director and producer Kevin Spacey will be honored for his contributions to films, television and theater by New York's Museum of the Moving Image at its annual salute in April.

Spacey, 54, who won the best actor Oscar in 2000 for "American Beauty" and a best supporting actor award four years earlier for "The Usual Suspects," will join the ranks of past honorees including Tom Cruise, Robert DeNiro and Julia Roberts, the museum said on Tuesday.

"We've always wanted to honor him since he delivered these tremendous screen performances for which he won Academy Awards," said Carl Goodman, the executive director of the museum, said in an interview.

"Since then it has only become more clear that his strength as an actor and his willingness to take risks have led him to make great performances in any medium on any screen," he added in an interview.

Spacey currently stars as a charismatic and ruthless politician in Netflix' political drama series "House of Cards," which he also produces.

For his stage work, he picked up a best supporting actor Tony award in 1991 for the Broadway production of Neil Simon's play "Lost in Yonkers." Spacey has been the artistic director of the Old Vic Theater Company in London since 2003.

"The fact that we are the only museum devoted to the full sweep of media makes it more exciting for us to celebrate someone whose full work is not defined by a single medium," said Goodman.

The three-hour, private event will bring together Spacey's colleagues, friends and family for a tribute to his work.

(Reporting by Marina Lopes; editing by Patricia Reaney and David Gregorio)

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