Spacey shrugs off hostile U.K. press

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LONDON, May 29 (UPI) -- Actor and artistic director of London's Old Vic Theater, Kevin Spacey says he doesn't mind the British press hostility he gets, as that's what sells papers.

In a telephone interview with The New York Times, the 46-year-old said he didn't want to get into mud-slinging with the press, which has called some of his productions "stinkers," the Times said.

"To some degree they're taking advantage of the fact that I'm a well-known actor and using it as a headline in their stories to sell papers. This is what they do," Spacey said.

The most recent failure was "Resurrection Blues," a star-laden production that got terrible reviews and closed a week early this spring, just as the theater announced it would go dark until September.

The first play he put on, the Dutch comedy "Cloaca," drew terrible reviews in which The Daily Telegraph and The Times of London called it a "stinker."

"The Philadelphia Story" was more successful but tended to fare much better with audiences than with critics, the Times said.