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Do yourself a favour, stop rewatching old 1990s sitcoms, and revisit American Beauty.

It won five Oscars in 2000, including best picture and best actor in a leading role for Kevin Spacey, and scored eight nominations in total.

The world will also never look at a plastic bag blowing in the wind in the same way.

Watching American Beauty was far less of an enjoyable experience for Anthony Rapp, however, who testified yesterday about the emotional distress he says Spacey has caused him.

Rapp, an actor himself, has filed a $40 million civil lawsuit against Spacey, who he accuses of making “unwanted sexual advances” when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26.

Lawyers for Spacey argue that Rapp made up the allegations because he was jealous of Spacey’s success, having seen his own career stall after he came out as gay.

Details below via The AV Club:

…that led to Rapp [below] discussing how he feels about Spacey’s career, which ended up with him testifying that 1999’s American Beauty was the last of Spacey’s movies that he ever saw…

Image: Gabe Ginsberg / Getty Images file

In American Beauty, Spacey plays a man who is attracted to—and tries to have sex with—his daughter’s teenage friend, which Rapp says was “unpleasantly familiar” for him.

He also said that watching the film was “upsetting” and he felt compelled to come forward with his claims, which date back to 1986, after people began to speak out publicly about Harvey Weinstein in 2017.

CNN with more on the allegations:

Spacey, then 26, invited Rapp, then 14, to his Manhattan home where he picked Rapp up, laid him down on his bed, grabbed his buttocks and pressed his groin into Rapp’s body without his consent.

Spacey has said he does “not remember the encounter.”

The first time Rapp saw Spacey on the big screen following that alleged incident came in 1988’s Working Girl. He says that moment felt “as if somebody had poked me with a cattle prod”.

In response to the allegations, Spacey’s legal team accuse Rapp of ‘borrowing’ details from a 1986 Broadway play he appeared in.

 In the play, “Precious Sons,” actor Ed Harris carried Rapp, then later laid on top of him while Rapp’s character was asleep.

Rapp testified that he has never confused what happened in the play with his allegations against Spacey.

During what has been described as an aggressive cross-examination by Jennifer Keller, one of Spacey’s attorneys, Rapp was also accused of concocting the story to raise his own profile and garner attention.

The trial continues, with Spacey’s lawyers set to further cross-examine Rapp this week.

[sources:avclub&cnn]