Visitors to Prague restaurant and music hall Malostranská Beseda were in for an unexpected treat over the weekend as Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey made a surprise appearance on stage. The actor joined Czech swing musician Jan Smigmator for an impromptu concert at the venue on Saturday evening, reports Czech music magazine Headliner.
Spacey, who was reportedly in Prague on a private trip, came to Malostranská Beseda for dinner with Smigmator and his wife before stepping on stage for a rare musical performance. Going by the Czech singer’s Instagram, he dined with Spacey the previous night at Sansho, which just happened to be used for production on FUBAR, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, earlier in the week.
Best known for his roles in films like American Beauty and The Usual Suspects and the Netflix series House of Cards, Spacey also has a background in musical theater. He began his career as a singer and has maintained an affection for the craft in his work, which included starring as Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea, a passion project he also co-wrote and directed.
“Kevin is here on a private trip,” Smigmator told Blesk. “Not many people know that he started his career as a musical theater singer, and he still loves music to this day. We have mutual friends among American musicians, and when he mentioned his love for Prague, we offered him a jam session, which he gladly accepted.”
Smigmator is a Czech singer, radio host, and music producer known for his performances with his band, Swinging Quartet, both in the Czech Republic and internationally; his gigs have included performances at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. He hosts the show Klub Evergreen on Czech Radio and has released several albums, including Swing Is Back and Time To Swing.
After dining at Malostranská Beseda on Saturday, Spacey and Smigmator casually made their way to the venue’s stage, much to the surprise of the two dozen or so people present. They were joined by pianist Mikuláš Pokorný and bassist Petr Dvorský.
The quartet performed an impromptu hour of swing and jazz classics, with Spacey and Smigmator crooning renditions of Frank Sinatra’s iconic songs Strangers In The Night and That’s Life, and Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
Spacey has faced a myriad of sexual misconduct allegations over recent years, which resulted in him being replaced in Ridley Scott‘s All the Money in the World and dropped from House of Cards in 2017. He’s only appeared in a handful of small projects since then, but was found not liable in a 2022 lawsuit in New York and was acquitted of sexual assault charges by a London jury in 2023.
Earlier this year, Spacey filmed The Contract in Rome for director Massimo Paolucci, a producer on Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D and Dolph Lundgren’s unreleased Malevolence. In The Contract, which co-stars Eric Roberts and Vincent Spano, Spacey plays a character called The Devil, which the film’s producers compare to Robert De Niro‘s role in Angel Heart and Al Pacino‘s in The Devil’s Advocate.
Lead photo: Instagram / jansmigmatorofficial
2 Responses
He was in Prague!!! Who was watching the house for him? 😀
slowly wading out of the metoo marshes in countries that are deemed in this respect as pretty “safe”? 😛