Kevin Spacey Has a Critic

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/20/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Kevin Spacey may have two Academy Awards to his name, but not everyone is enamored with his work. Before he won the supporting actor Oscar for 1995's "The Usual Suspects" and last year's best actor prize for "American Beauty," Spacey starred as the disgraced Rev. Jim Bakker in the 1990 TV movie "Fall From Grace." But Bakker's ex-wife, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, who's currently on a publicity tour for the new documentary "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," tells this morning's New York Times she wasn't impressed by Spacey's work. "The man who portrayed Jim did a lousy job," she says. Complaining that the leading man "did not have Jim down at all," and that Spacey yelled and screamed whereas the real Bakker did not, Messner, 58, goes on to say, "I felt like he did not study Jim." As for actress Bernadette Peters, who played Tammy Faye, "I thought she did such a wonderful portrayal of me. I know she did her homework."