Wiseguy
No, but he has been Artistic Director of London's Old Vic since 2003.
I never read of that and actually he didn't look big later in the movie after the training scenes. You maybe thought that, when Mena Suvari touches his biceps and asks him, if he did a workout, but I have to say, that Mena is a very small person and has small hands, so his arms look bigger aside her small hands. Spacey maybe showed a big stomach when he watches the himself in a reflective window in one scene, but I have a muscular friend who can pull out his stomach and he looks than fat, even though he has a six pack. You can always pull out your stomach, even when you're not fat. And remember Spacey's previous film "the Negotiator" from 1998, where he looked much more muscular than in American Beauty from 1999. So I don't think that he got in shape for the role.
Yes, he did win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Roger "Verbal" Kint. It also won for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Christopher McQuarrie). The title of the film comes from Casablanca(1942) when Captain Renault directs, "Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the ususal suspects.".
Probably thinking of Currie Graham.
(Artist) Ludovico Einaudi (Song) Nuvole Bianche. Its available on iTunes.
Yes
Among the many unusual aspects to Prot's character is his love for fresh fruit - a love so profound that he eats the entire banana, including peel. "It was always in the script that Prot ate produce that way - he just thought all of it was good and none of it was worth throwing away," Spacey recalls with a laugh. "If you gave him a coconut, he¿d probably eat the whole thing. So when we came to do that day of the shoot, they had crafted fake [banana] peels, and then put a banana inside of it. And it just looked really bad; just to the naked eye, it kind of looked like a gigantic yellow felt marker. And it kind of fell apart, and I said ¿Guys, this isn¿t going to work, why don't you just go to the store and get some nice, ripe bananas and wash them and let¿s just do it.¿ It was an astounding potassium high - you¿re bouncing off the walls. The look on Jeff¿s face [in those scenes] is the real look on Jeff¿s face - he just couldn¿t believe I was doing it."