U.K. allowed him to remain out of the Hollywood spotlight at a time when celebrities' offscreen lives became as newsworthy as their onscreen ones. Spacey, whose only permanent home is in London, fiercely guards his private life. In fact, his affable demeanor shuts off the moment he is asked about it. This might date back to a 1997 Esquire profile that infamously suggested Spacey was gay. He later denied the characterization, and his agency at the time, William Morris, vehemently discouraged its clients from cooperating with the publication."Let's let people live their lives and do it the way they want to do it," he says now. "All the chips will fall in the end, and we'll all be judged by a much higher power than Entertainment Weekly can."

Thosewho know Spacey well say the actor, who cares for his two rescue dogs the way some would their children, often travels with big groups of close friends and trusted employees. He reads voraciously (biographies, like Andre Agassi's Open, are a favorite), enjoys TV (Dexter and Breaking Bad are two favorites) and consumes sports (basketball, baseball, tennis) with feverish passion. According to Brunetti, who transitioned from his assistant to an Oscar-nominated producer of The Social Network and Captain Phillips, both from the pair's prolific Trigger Street Productions, Spacey is as driven onscreen as he is off. He recalls a time on the Nova Scotia set of 2001's The Shipping News when a friendly game of pingpong turned into a high-stakes showdown. "There was a point where he'd be