Kevin Spacey Returns to TV for First Time Since ‘House of Cards’ With Italian Comedy Series ‘Minimarket’

Kevin Spacey is set to mark his return to the small screen for the first time since he was fired from Netflix’s “House of Cards” in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

The actor — who has been trying to resuscitate his career in recent years — is set to star in Italian comedy series “Minimarket” for Italy‘s state broadcaster RAI.

In the low-budget show, the two-time Oscar winner plays himself as the imaginary mentor of a young man who works in a Rome convenience store and dreams of becoming a TV star. As seen in a promo, Spacey sings Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and Frank Sinatra classic “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in tandem with Italian actor Filippo Laganà (pictured above), who plays aspiring Italian star Manlio Viganò.

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According to the synopsis, Spacey plays Viganò’s “artistic conscience and unpredictable mentor,” with their rapport mostly grounded in “bickering, misunderstandings and mutual teasing.” It adds that the show captures both “the experience of a man who has been on the world’s most important [movie and TV] sets” and “the recklessness of someone who does not realise that they have an Oscar-winner by their side.”

The ten-episode “Minimarket” show will launch on RAI’s RaiPlay streaming service starting on Dec. 26.

Spacey, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges brought by four men in a U.K. criminal trial in 2023, has more recently been hit with three more claims of sexual assault that he will face in a London civil court next year. BBC News last month reported that Spacey has formally denied two of the three civil claims in court, but has not yet filed a defense for the third.

Last month Spacey announced in an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph that he was officially homeless after his Hollywood film career came crashing down amid various sexual assault allegations.

“I’m living in hotels, I’m living in Airbnbs,” he said. “I’m going where the work is. I literally have no home, that’s what I’m attempting to explain… The costs over these last seven years have been astronomical. I’ve had very little coming in and everything going out.”

Italy has been welcoming Spacey for years. The U.S. actor in 2021 made his return to acting, starring as a police detective in Italian actor/director Franco Nero’s low budget indie drama “L’uomo Che Disegnò Dio” (“The Man Who Drew God”). He has also appeared as a character named “The Devil” in Italian director Massimo Paolucci’s psychological thriller “The Contract.”

In March of last year Spacey was back on U.S. movie screens with indie thriller “Peter Five Eight,” also starring Rebecca de Mornay, which got mostly ignored by critics and marked Spacey’s first leading role since being cleared in the 2023 London trial. Since then he has appeared in yet-to-be-released British indie action-thriller “The Awakening” in which he appears as the head of sinister global cabal, a film that he was promoting earlier this year in Cannes, and directed the supernatural action-thriller “Holiguards.”