Kevin Spacey Quotes

You learn every single day when youre running a company. You learn as you go.

Why not sit around a Beverly Hills pool collecting residual cheques? That is not the kind of life I want.

It's Hard to Stay Mad When There's So Much Beauty in the World

In recent years we've seen an explosion of creative programming, and I think it represents a third golden age of television because the creators have more control over the story. The audience doesn't care about the platform. They care about the content.

Its interesting to play a politician who gets stuff done.

The journey that we go on as actors is an interesting one and sometimes a revealing one.

I have always believed that the risk takers are eventually rewarded.

As an actor, youre always nervous as to what a director will do with something.

There are ways in which you can make sure that even if people come to the theatre because they know an actor or actress, by the end, theyve forgotten that, and they leave going, Wow - what an amazing play.

If there is one thing I object to, its actors talking about how tough their jobs are.

Directing a film was something I was yearning to do. I always wanted to see if I had the capacity to be a good storyteller.

My mother was sarcastic and delightful and, trust me, quite remarkable.

The characters created cannot just be a mouthpiece for the writer. When you look at a piece of writing, and it's genuine and it doesn't feel like every character is just a mouthpiece for the writer, but that they've been created in such a way that they're expressing an idea that a writer wants to get across, that's when a story succeeds.

Sometimes you walk away from playing somebody and you think, "Wow that was far as from my own experience as I can possibly be." And sometimes you walk away thinking, "Wow. There are qualities in that character that I didn't realize I had." And those can be both interesting and uncomfortable.

I've done big studio films and the big studio films I've done, I've tried to do the interesting ones and the ones where I could live with myself in the morning.

Whether thats positive or not, people are talking about the Old Vic Theater again with passion and commitment and controversy and debate.

Im not revolted by Washington.

I've been on sets where things weren't relaxed because someone was creating tension for no reason.

Have we become so celebrity-obsessed that there is no longer a difference between a character and an actor? I hope not.

Theres no doubt that some of the greatest films ever made have come from the theater. Its all a matter of finding a way to make the theater experience watchable on film.

I've been intrigued by politics my whole life. And, yes, I am very close to the Clintons. I was a Hillary person until I was an Obama person. And she was a Hillary person, too, until she was an Obama one, evidently.

Studios and networks who ignore either shift - whether the increasing sophistication of storytelling, or the constantly shifting sands of technological advancement - will be left behind.

You must find a way to express your ideas and compel your audience to react through the idea itself, and then figuring out what the best representative of that idea may be, and bringing it to life.

What I like about Britain is that I can live a normal life here.

Politics and acting are very closely tied. The job is to convince.

I'm a relatively ugly character who's done pretty damn well in film.

I'm supposed to convince you, for two hours, that I'm somebody else. Now if you know everything about my life, if you think you've got me figured out and you think you know all my dark secrets, how am I ever going to convince you that I'm somebody else?

Clearly the success of the Netflix model, releasing the entire season of 'House of Cards' at once, proved one thing: The audience wants the control. They want the freedom. If they want to binge as they've been doing on 'House of Cards' and lots of other shows, we should let them binge.

There are two things that have been happening over the last few decades in my opinion. First, there have been unbelievable, remarkable, pioneering advances in technology and, second, an equal amount of evolution in creativity. These two shifts are meeting at an intersection.

I'm not out there trying to get press for myself nor am I trying to convince anybody that I'm living any kind of a life. I'm actually trying to convince people: I don't want you to know what I'm living, because it's none of your business.

I liked it because it was such a dangerous script and showed just what human beings are capable of. Here was a movie in which Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, who always win in every movie they ever do, simply don't win. I felt that was outrageous for a commercial movie.

Fundamentally, I like to accomplish things.

I just want it to be better, I just want to be better, but this is very encouraging.

[What's my favourite book?] It changes all the time.

To look in the eyes of audiences and see the kind of naughty glee that they got with being on the inside, the audience becomes your co-conspirators.

There are good people in the lobbying industry. Lobbyists can serve a very useful purpose.

Cable TV has become where the best actors, writers and directors have gone to work because they are allowed to do character-driven stories.

I guess Ive been training in the theater for as long as I can remember.

No one should ever feel sorry for me. Ive been treated very well for the most part.

Secret Cinema has created a new way of experiencing film. The fusion of film and theatre allows for a much more powerful experience and adds an incredibly unique dimension for the audience. It certainly did for me. I was blown away

I'm aware that, from the outside, this looks like I've got quite an ego.

When I was young, I learned very early on that I could make my mother laugh. And that was one of the greatest sounds I ever heard.

I have done films where we all thought the director didn't know what he was doing and it is going to be a gobble gobble turkey. And you go and watch it and it is great.

I open myself up every time I walk on screen and give you everything that I am. There are parts of me that are in every movie that I've done. That to me is what my job is.

A couple of clues came my way of what I might be getting myself into when I sat down with a number of actors who had played Richard III in the past. And I was hoping of course, that one of them or all of them were gonna give me the magic key, the secret way in to play Richard III but none of them did that.But every one of them did say the following, "Be careful."

To me, getting up every single night and trying to reach out to an audience, and trying to dig deeper and further in the play to serve the writer and to understand yourself in that context is how you continue to grow and learn.

The most important definition of an actor, the job of the actor, is to serve the writer, not yourself. Way too many actors serve themselves.

I mean we all played as kids. You play games, you take on different characters, you imitate; the fun and the love of play has never left me.