Kevin Spacey Quotes - Page 3

[Washington, DC] feels like you're watching performance art. A lot of the time. I don't believe them, I don't believe what they say, I don't think they're being absolutely sincere. I think it's performance art. And most of them are bad actors.

It takes stamina to get up like an athlete every single night, seven to eight performances a week, 20 weeks in a row. And there are many young performers who only learn their craft in the two minute bits it takes to film a scene. You never learn the arc of storytelling, the arc of a character that way.

If you haven't turned rebel by twenty you've got no heart; if you haven't turned establishment by thirty you've got no brains!

My job is to interpret. I'm an interpreter. I can add things and bring unique qualities to the role that the writer may not have thought of, but someone else created the fundamental idea.

I have talked to more people who are in politics who have said to me, "[House of Cards] is closer than you can imagine. It's the most accurate description of how politics actually works that we've ever seen." I mean, West Wing - beautiful, wonderful idea of how democracy should work. But I've had more people in politics say they think House of Cards is closer. I - don't know whether to take that as a compliment or a sad state of affairs.

In film, movies schedules are based on three things: actors availabilities, when are sets being built, when you can rent the place youre going to film in.

It's not even about being negative. It's just being unsettled, unsatisfied, unfinished.

For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans.

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.

I was terrible in my first play. After that experience, I had to face that I wasnt good enough to play with the big boys. I had to go away and learn, so I worked in regional theater for three years. I even understudied at the Kennedy Center.

The movies are not my first priority - the theater is.

We're all victims of our own hubris at times.

One can never take the cynicism one comes across in life too seriously.

Its a really wonderful thing to focus your life on something other than your own personal career and ambition.

There are times when you do a play when you are living in the character over a two-and-a-half-hour period or longer, and you come to the end of the night, and you can feel like you were hit by a truck.

It's so easy for us to misperceive and see the things in others that we want to see. And, when we're wrong, and often we're dead wrong, we miss the truth.

If you have done well in whatever business you are in, it is your duty to send the elevator back down and try to help bring up the next generation of undiscovered talent.

I often make the analogy with tennis. Every match the rules are the same, but no game is ever the same. Theatre is like that. Every time is different.

The greatest sound in the theater is silence.

Over the years, I've been trying to build a relationship with an audience. I've tried to maintain as much of a low profile as I could so that those characters would emerge and their relationship with audiences would be protected.

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

If you wanna compete, youve got to get into the original content game.

You are not just, "This is the way I play it every night." You are constantly finding new ways in, new attacks, "I want to try it this way. Maybe this scene is affecting that scene. I want to attack this scene differently."

It is not about whether you are an executive, a studio or a network. If you have a story or an idea you can build a following for it.

Talent is only interesting if it's challenged.