The fact is that HBO is doing the kind of films and the kind of stories that the movie industry used to do. You look at a lot of the specialty sections of studios that have gone under... and there's no doubt in my mind why filmmakers and screenwriters and actors are ending up at a place like HBO. They do it better than anybody.
— Kevin Spacey
I've always found it strange that a director can hire any designer he wants from any country. But if he hires a foreign actor, it's like he's stolen the crown jewels and run across the river with them.
I'm able to hang up the character with the costume at the end of the movie.
In film, movies' schedules are based on three things: actors' availabilities, when are sets being built, when you can rent the place you're going to film in.
Clarence Darrow was a unique and courageous man. Several of my favourite actors have played Darrow... Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy.
I've never done a movie that's shot more than 40 days because I just don't do those kinds of films.
Bobby Darin was one of the first to take black musicians on the road with his band, and there were places that didn't want him to play, and he stood up to it.
Life's all about perceptions.
It's interesting to play a politician who gets stuff done.
I don't categorize characters into one syllable. These are fully-rounded characters that I don't judge; I just play them.
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.
People think that direct address was invented by Ferris Bueller, but in fact, it wasn't. It was invented by Shakespeare.
Essentially, your voice is an instrument; it's a muscle, and you have to treat it like a muscle, and so you have to work it.
Am I arrogant? I've been arrogant, sure; everybody's been arrogant.
No one's personal life is in the public interest. It's gossip, bottom line. End of story.
It's always the big question in our lives if you have a lot of success. What do you do with it? Buy more houses, buy more cars, buy more stuff, be wealthy and distant and unengaged? Or do you take all that good fortune that has come towards you and spread the love, do something with it?
When you study, as I did, every theatrical beginning in this country, none of them have been greeted well. The Royal Shakespeare Company was a disaster, Peter Hall was a disaster, Richard Eyre was a disaster, Trevor Nunn was always a disaster.
The Old Vic has always been first and foremost an actors' theatre, a home for great talent and memorable performances.
I certainly identify with the role of mentor and, to some degree, maybe teacher. I do a lot of work with kids at the Old Vic.
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.
There are good people in the lobbying industry. Lobbyists can serve a very useful purpose.
Both 'Consenting Adults' and 'Glengarry Glen Ross' revolve around the economic stresses of the '90s. They are about what people do when they're pushed against that wall, and how they're manipulated. They are both morality tales, though in very different genres.
I couldn't imagine something asking as much of me as 'House Of Cards.' It's a great warm-up for coming back to the screen.
I'll tell you one thing. I've never heard a director saying that the dailies suck.
There's nothing like standing in a place and wanting nothing so much as to change but simply not being able to.
I think that there was a period of time - and I would reckon it was about 12 years - where I was just determined to see if I could build a career for myself.
The audience, the place you're in, has everything to do with how your performance goes.
My mother always, always, always thought that I was going to be famous. Thought that I was going to win Oscars. In fact, I believe I accepted the Oscar as a ketchup bottle many a time in front of my mother in the kitchen. 'I'd like to thank the Academy,' I said with a ketchup bottle.
Francis Underwood was entirely based on Richard III. When Michael Dobbs wrote 'House of Cards' in the original British series, Richard III is what he based the character on.
I guess I've been training in the theater for as long as I can remember.
Film is very condensed.
I don't live a lie. You have to understand that people who choose not to discuss their personal lives are not living a lie. That is a presumption that people jump to.
We're all victims of our own hubris at times.
The less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen.
I actually have a number of lovely watches from the International Watch Company.
The only real experiences I've had with therapists were the ones who were working with me and my family when my mother was ill.
I'm not revolted by Washington.
You can almost hear people saying, 'We're going to make a movie about an election' and 'We're going to make a movie about a lobbyist.' You can hear the yawning start across the nation.
I was on a couple of scholarships. I had a job in the school administrative office. I had a job as a hat-check boy in a restaurant. I had another job as an assistant to a casting director. It took a lot to get myself enough money to put myself through Juilliard.
I felt that I shouldn't be an actor who just makes movie after movie in a quest for prestige and money.
As an actor, you're always nervous as to what a director will do with something.
Being an actor sometimes requires that you ask yourself questions you'd rather not know the answers to.
I'm attracted to things that are challenging and fun and interesting, and it certainly seems that audiences enjoy them as well.
The relationship with the cast has everything to do with how a performance develops, and in a sense that while you're discovering a play in the course of rehearsal with the director, you're also discovering it with your fellow actors. We're all in it together.
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.
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. You're working on a different part of your game every time you're out on that court; your partner's working on a different part of their game, and the act of being watched changes it.
I don't play villainy. I wouldn't even know how to play it.
I would love to do much more singing; it's just one of those things where I can't quite describe what it feels like when you're standing in front of a forty piece orchestra, and there's nothing between you and an audience but a microphone. It's like strapping yourself to a locomotive, and I love it.
I might have lived in England for the last several years, but I'm still an American citizen and I have not given up my right to privacy.
One of the tasks that any artistic director has is, you're trying to bring elements together that will work. The truth is that you could bring all the best talents in the world together and produce a big turkey.
