When you're just able to distill it down to the idea and the feeling that a character is experiencing in a scene, it can become very, very razor sharp and really clean and really efficient and simple. And sometimes it takes twenty-five years to learn how to be simple.
— Kevin Spacey
My admiration for 'Mary Tyler Moore' is very, very big because they went out on top.
While data can only tell you what has happened in the past, it can in some ways give you a sense of what might be of interest to an audience in the future.
I believe this: If an actor wants a role or wants to work with somebody, then you do everything within reason to try to get that role. If they want you to audition, you audition. If they want you to screen-test, you screen-test. If they want you to come and tap-dance in their hallway, you tap-dance in their hallway.
For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans.
It's the details and the human element that makes 'Recount' entertaining. Even though we know how the election ends, it plays like a thriller. It's also funny.
After graduation, I was floundering in L.A., doing stand-up comedy and working in a shoe store in the Valley.
I have always believed that the risk takers are eventually rewarded.
What I've certainly learned is that whenever I've said anything about real politics, I've come under attack. So it's best simply to play politics on television.
If you look back through history in the United States, there have been very few landslide elections. Half the country always voted for someone else.
Exposure to the arts and culture is enormously valuable.
Working in film tends to isolate actors - it's your close-up; it's all about you.
Why is 'Game of Thrones' the most pirated show in the history of TV? Because people can't get it fast enough, that's why.
I have never played a game in my life.
Games are advancing in terms of storytelling and trying to create a character, and it's a brand new audience for me.
What I like about Britain is that I can live a normal life here.
I'm not going to make general comments about the British press.
I think people love it when anybody acts bad; it's not particular to me.
I'm not a writer, and I don't want there to be any mistake about that.
'The 24 Hour Plays' is a quite brilliant, exhilarating event for everyone concerned.
There are a lot of people out there who offer roles to actors because they'll elevate their movie to a place the movie would never reach.
The audience wants control. They want freedom.
I am now a commander of the British Empire.
The more shows that are produced, the more writers are hired, producers are hired, actors are hired, directors are hired, it means the more people will get employed. It's better for the economy. It's a fantastic thing.
One can never take the cynicism one comes across in life too seriously.
Partisan rancour and party politics and ideology have got in the way of compromise - and compromise is the only thing that has ever made politics successful.
I'm used to people thinking I'm nuts. And you know what? I kind of love it.
If we don't reach out to make theatre affordable to the young generation, we will lose them all.
If someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day, doesn't that show an incredible attention span?
People say, 'If you open a movie online at the same time as in movie theatres, no one is going to go to the movies.' That's just not true. People love to go out and have a shared experience; they always will.
I've taken the experiences that I've had in the theatre and applied them to film and television and now games.
Maybe there are people who are gamers who haven't seen movies I have made, or the movies I have made have made no impression on them at all.
I accept the fact that some things don't go the way you hope.
I always thought that, in a way, you want your Superman to be a total unknown.
You have to always be ready, always be alive, and always be willing to move in a new direction.
I never wanted to go to the Old Vic and not have it survive long after I was gone. It's not about me; it's about that theater. And the more that it's able to grow and do everything it should do without me, then I've done my job.
We're going to see a lot of companies that have been portals of entertainment become producers.
When the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera.
If you're not concerned about maintaining an image, you can pursue roads that another actor might not take.
I was terrible in my first play. After that experience, I had to face that I wasn't 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.
Sometimes it's the crazy people who turn out to be not so crazy.
People have really long attention spans, and they love complicated plots. TV series are giving the audience what they want.
Audiences grew to like this duality of feeling, where you're both championing a character and you're revolted by them.
Cable TV has become where the best actors, writers and directors have gone to work because they are allowed to do character-driven stories.
When I look around at Broadway and the West End, theatre is becoming an exclusive club.
Kids aren't growing up with a sense of television as the aspirational place for their ideas.
If you ignore the murdering and the conniving, Francis Underwood is an effective politician.
Where the gaming world is going - and certainly Activision proved it by hiring me - is being willing to push and bend and move in a new direction of actually capturing the character and storytelling.
People don't tend to hassle me because when I've got a hat on, I look like a banker. I'm just a plain guy.
Whether that's positive or not, people are talking about the Old Vic Theater again with passion and commitment and controversy and debate.
