arents around the world pray for teachers like the one Kevin Spacey plays in Pay It Forward. Giving his
students the assignment of devising an idea that would change the world for the better, Spacey inspires a young student, played by Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense), to come up with the concept of "paying forward" favors. Not only does he affect the life of his struggling single mother (Helen Hunt), but the student sets off a wave of unprecedented human kindness. For this effort, one can only hope Spacey gives the school project an A.

  Like his character in Pay It Forward, Spacey is a lightning rod for talent. A two time Oscar winner himself (The Usual Suspects and American Beauty), Spacey plays opposite Hunt who won a Best Actress Oscar for As Good As It Gets and Osment, nominated for The Sixth Sense. Talent clusters around him.

  The concept the bright young lad comes up with is basic karma. You do a good deed for someone, and they have to then do a good deed for three others. Instead of getting paid back, 
you pay forward. Not a bad idea. There are three rules to "paying it forward."  It has to be something that really helps people, something they can't do by themselves, and they have to do it for three others. The boy starts by taking in a homeless		 actors
Kevin Spacey
Helen Hunt
Haley Joel Osment

director
Mimi Leder

locations
Seattle, Washington
Las Vegas, Nevada
Vancouver, British Columbia

outtake
Unlike most films based on literature, the producers of Pay It Forward were so excited about the story that they started filming
before the book
of the same name had even been
published.
junkie (James Caviezel), much to his mother's surprise. Eventually, an intrigued reporter, played by Liev Schreiber, breaks the story.  

  Directed by Mimi Leder (Deep Impact, The Peacemaker), with a screenplay by Leslie Dixon (The Thomas Crown Affair), Pay It Forward is based on a novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It also features Jay Mohr (Jerry Maguire) and Jon Bon Jovi (U-571).

  Theatrically caffeinated, Spacey sprints from camera to stage and back to the camera again, collecting awards along the way. Still, he doesn't forget how he spent his mid-20s in a sweat about his lack of career ignition. To remedy his problem, he took himself to a library, inhaled the biographies of his idols, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, and Henry Fonda, realizing none of them hit their stride until their mid-30s.

  "Ten years ago I was dodging my landlady, collecting cans in a shopping cart for dog food money, and doing Sleuth at a New Jersey dinner theater. I was just
obsessed about my career non-stop. You go into an audition with that kind
of panic and you can forget it. There's no deodorant for desperation . . . "
This is the same man who took his mother as one of his dates to this year's Oscars. He refuses to live his life in the public eye.

  "Call me naive, but I always perceived the actor's job was to convince people that you're somebody else. Now they shove this camera in your face and you yap, yap, yap about yourself or the character. All the mystery is dead. That's dangerous. The actors I admire the most are the ones we know least about. I mean, what do we know about DeNiro?"

  When studying acting at Juilliard, his favorite thing was mask class. "When you put a mask on your face you can see the world," said Spacey, "but the world can't see you."

- Cynthia Amsden