Seeing Kevin Spacey on screen after alleged assault was like being poked 'with a cattle prod,' Anthony Rapp testifies

• Actor Anthony Rapp detailed the moment he saw Kevin Spacey for the first time after his alleged assault.
• He said he saw Spacey in the 1988 movie "Working Girl" and it felt like "someone poked me with a cattle prod."

In testimony delivered in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday morning, actor Anthony Rapp detailed the first time he saw Kevin Spacey on screen after he allegedly assaulted Rapp at a party in 1986.

Rapp, who sued Spacey in 2020 over the incident, said it felt like "someone poked me with a cattle prod" when he saw Spacey two years later in the 1988 film "Working Girl."

Spacey is on trial at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York over sexual abuse claims involving Rapp. He allegedly grabbed Rapp's buttocks during a party at Spacey's Manhattan apartment when Rapp was only 14 — lifting him onto a bed, getting on top of him, and leading Rapp to flee "fearing for his safety," he said. Spacey, who was 26 at the time, tried to convince Rapp to stay, the lawsuit claims.

Rapp has accused Spacey of assault, battery, and intentionally inflicting emotional distress, and he is asking a jury to award him $40 million in damages. Spacey has denied the allegations.

When he went to see "Working Girl," Rapp said he didn't know Spacey had a minor part in the movie but "jumped out of my seat" and had "sweaty palms" when he spotted the star.

Over the years, Rapp said he voluntarily saw other Spacey films, like "American Beauty," "Se7en," "The Ref," "L.A. Confidential," and "The Usual Suspects."

"I'm an actor. I love films and by and large, these were all very acclaimed films. I felt it was a part of my job to see him," Rapp said when asked in court why he had watched those films.

He also tried to "tamp" down his feelings about the 1986 encounter and said he felt "it was my duty as an actor in the community to get over it and push it aside."

But then it became "harder to push it aside," he said in court. The last movie he watched featuring Spacey was "American Beauty," in which the actor plays an older man with feelings for his teenage daughter's best friend.

That movie, Rapp said, was "unpleasantly familiar" and "difficult to be in the presence of."

Rapp testified that he decided to go public with his allegations against Spacey with the hope that "by doing so, I could help protect others." But Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who's presiding over the trial, called for that comment to be stricken from the record.

Pursuing the lawsuit has been "somewhat re-traumatizing," Rapp said in court. "It's been very difficult."