Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor, film director, producer, singer and comedian who has resided in the United Kingdom since 2003. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects, and an Academy Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth26 July 1959
CitySouth Orange, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I believe if you go to a movie theatre, and you see something you think is incredible, if you walk out of the theatre and there was a bin in the lobby of DVDs of the film you just watched, you would buy four of them - one for you and three for your friends.
I felt that I shouldn't be an actor who just makes movie after movie in a quest for prestige and money.
Theatre is organic, film is not. Theatre you come every day and you work with a group of people and you're are all up for it and you all get to do the whole thing every night, be it two hours or three hours. In film you work in two or three minute bits and it's never in chronological order and then someone takes that away and makes it look like it all happened, or that you gave that performance.
You risk working with this director, you risk making this movie, you risk working with another actor you don't know. It makes your heart beat faster. And it keeps you interested.
I can't judge the characters I play, because it's for the audience to do. What I can try to do is to understand and embody what were they going through? How did they make the decisions they made? That to me is a more interesting way to approach something, rather than saying this person is a villain and that person is this and - because it's not very interesting to play that anyway.
People sometimes say, "Isn't it boring, isn't it always the same? It's the same lines." I go, "Well, do you play tennis? Because that's the best analogy I can give." If you go out eight times and play tennis eight times this week, yeah it's the same rules but it's a different game every time you're out on that court.And that's the best analogy I can come up with the theater.
Politics and acting are very closely tied. The job is to convince.
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.
The control is shifting because of the democratisation of the internet. My industry is very good at building walls to stop people getting in.
I want to bring theatre to a new generation, using the tools available to us, including taking it out to them on film and with new technology, but that is just so they can discover theatre. I want them to come in and sit in a theatre. This is the way to plant seeds.
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.
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.
Gaming is going into storytelling. It was a new audience.
I've never heard of a situation where, because somebody had a particular political belief, they didn't get a part. I think it's a bit of a myth.