Kevin Spacey has been popping up a fair bit in the past few days - treading the red carpet at the premiere of The Shipping News; among the Hollywood contingent at the Baftas; lending his public support once again to London's Old Vic theatre as it struggles to put three difficult years behind it by naming its first artistic director. A big-name actor spreading his fame and using it to back a worthy cause on the side.

But even though he has one film about to open here and another, K-PAX, in the next few months, Spacey has not acted in a movie since the end of last year, when he finished filming with Alan Parker on The Life of David Gale. And he does not plan to do another in 2002. Instead, the 42-year-old is going into business full-time. Or to be more precise, he is going to spend a year capitalising on the fame and credibility his screen and stage work have brought him to build up his production business.

The formula is not new: Spacey's name will attract creative talent, which can be nurtured and see its projects brought to fruition either inside the Hollywood system or outside it. At the same time, the talent he finds will help him to build a serious independent production house.

With eight-strong Trigger Street Productions, Spacey, who ironically had one of his first breakthroughs as a sadistic Hollywood executive in the cult satire Swimming with Sharks, joins a long line of movie stars such as Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise who've set up their own production companies. Yet, while for most stars the prime motivation is to produce their own pet projects and take more creative control over their on-screen appearances, Spacey insists he has other ideas. Rather than creating a vertically integrated Kevin Spacey Corp to come up with suitable vehicles (as, for example, Tom Cruise has done) he says his aim is to produce feature films, documentaries and plays that give a voice to new talent and regard the vision and creative integrity of the director as crucial.

"What we are trying to do is to protect and shepherd [the creative talent], be there as an advisor and help to surround them with the right kinds of people and the right elements. To make their dream come true in the way they see it. And if we get behind something, it's almost guaranteed that it's a dream that we share," he says.

In order to prove he means business, he is happy for his acting career to take a back seat for a while. "Over the next year I am not going to be taking on acting challenges at all. I will be focusing entirely on the films that my company is doing," he says.

For Spacey, having accumulated fame, it's time to invest some of it. If the pitch is to attract creative talent with the promise that its integrity will be respected and prized, Spacey is a good choice to make it. He has won two Oscars since the mid-1990s, first as best supporting actor for his portrayal of Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects, and then as best actor for American Beauty, where he played frustrated suburban male Lester Burnham. Roles like these and a string of others have earned him credibility as a serious actor and it is this credibility he now aims to make the foundation of his business.

Alongside Spacey's kudos however, comes cash from Intermedia, the international sales and financing house run from its London headquarters by Guy East and Nigel Sinclair. They signed a first-look deal last May and pay Trigger Street's running costs.

So Spacey's appeal is clear - his outfit is on the side of the creative talent. It says, trust me, I'm Kevin Spacey. All of which tends to cast the Hollywood system in its familiar role: as a ruthless machine that takes the dreams of creative people and mangles them to make a buck. According to Gosford Park director Robert Altman, his biting Hollywood satire The Player only showed the tip of the iceberg. "The reality is much, much worse," he said recently.

Although Hollywood-bashing is increasingly popular on the celebrity circuit, Spacey demurs: "In my career I have never really come across these sleazy horrible, manipulative sons of bitches who lie to you and steal all your money. I hear that they're out there, but in my own experience I have had nothing like that happen." Chuckling he adds: "Because if I did I would sue their son-of-a-bitching asses."

Maybe it's that Spacey attracts only honest, decent professionals or the fact that his lawyer, Doug Stone, features on any press release that Trigger Street issues, but somehow the actor has managed to maintain a relatively optimistic outlook on Hollywood. And his vision for Trigger Street is nothing short of utopian. "I formed my company to be able to give opportunities to creative talents who so far haven't had a chance. If you are fortunate enough to do well in your profession, then I think it's your responsibility to send the elevator back down," he says.

Among those ready to hop aboard are first-time director Matthew Ginsberg, maker of Trigger Street's first documentary, the privately-financed Uncle Frank, which was part of the official selection at this year's Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the moving story of Ginsberg's 89-year-old uncle, who tours retirement homes and plays the electric piano for their occupants. There are few films that feature old people making sense of their impending death and finding happiness, and Spacey calls it "a very uplifting look at how people live out their golden years and find a way to give back to their own communities".

As part of his own grand scheme of giving back to the community, Spacey is in the midst of principal photography with the $5.5m feature The United States of Leland. Based on a script by first-time writer/director Matthew Ryan Hoge, Leland is the offbeat and by no means easy story of a 15-year old who murders an autistic child and claims that he committed the act out of sadness.

As with Uncle Frank, Spacey stresses that his creative approach as a producer on this film is decidedly hands-off. "You want very much for the person who is making the movie to feel that it is in many ways their baby. You don't want to suffocate them or that it starts being your thing. You know, I'm there when a director or writer is unsure about something. That's when I step in and try to give advice."

However, on a business level, he says, he is very much hands-on. When Spacey talks shop, he gets straight to the point. "In the day-to-day aspects of running a company I am quite involved, because we have more than six films that we are going to go into production with this year, and we have 15 that we are in the process of developing. Being a producer actually uses a completely different part of your brain. It's an interesting prospect dealing with budgets and finances and bringing the right people together."

Leaving aside his philanthropic declarations, Spacey makes no secret of his ambition to turn Trigger Street, which he set up in 1999, into a serious independent Hollywood production house that spots young talent and provides a fresh bloodline to the movie industry.

"At the moment we have films with Intermedia, Lions Gate, Warner Bros and several other places. We're not trying to pigeonhole ourselves in any way and have films that have a smaller budget of $5.5m and films with a budget of $50m. So we are trying to work both within and outside of the studio system. It's always been my dream to have a company that fostered opportunities for other people and that also was making money."

In order to support this approach, he is launching a community-based website www.triggerstreet.com where young scriptwriters can have their work evaluated in return for reading the scripts of others.

"That allows us to find good material without being dumped on with hundreds of scripts. There is just not enough time to read everything that comes along," he says. Part of his drive to become a magnet for new talent also includes an online film festival, during which Spacey can rely on his celebrity friends (including Ed Norton, Tim Burton and Danny DeVito) to sit on the jury and add instant glamour.

Having spent much of his life in Europe, Spacey notes that Trigger Street's outlook, like Intermedia's, is very much international. He refuses to be drawn too far on whether he plans to work with European talent or produce in Europe, but adds: "For me it's important not to isolate yourself in your own country and to get a broader perspective. I think the films we will be doing will have a broader perspective."

To persuade nervous Hollywood executives to make films with a broader perspective is not always easy, especially if you're talking budgets of $50m. Yet, this is also an obvious area where Spacey can wield the power of his name. "We can get into people's doors because of who I am as a professional."

But he insists that this does not mean that he will finance his movies by attaching his name to the script. "Trigger Street is not about producing starring vehicles for myself. In Leland I play a small role, but what's interesting is that we got all the financing and the cast set before I made the decision to play it."

Apart from his name and his Oscars, Spacey has one other clear advantage: his showbiz experience. "Being a producer is a bit of a showgame, where you're constantly working to keep all the balls in the air. And raising money is a bit of a poker game."

For the next year, however, that is what Spacey will be doing as he tries to build an outfit that attracts top talent by being an island of creative integrity in a notoriously unprincipled business. Under the circumstances, you can see why his next producing effort should be called The Return to Morality.

katjahofmann@compuserve.com