Kevin Spacey

“Film is very condensed.”

“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.”

“There's no doubt that some of the greatest films ever made have come from the theater. It's all a matter of finding a way to make the theater experience watchable on film.”

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

“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.”

“My admiration for 'Mary Tyler Moore' is very, very big because they went out on top.”

“I've taken the experiences that I've had in the theatre and applied them to film and television and now games.”

“Give people what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in, at a reasonable price, and they'll more likely pay for it rather than steal it. Well, some will still steal it, but I think we can take a bite out of piracy.”

“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.”

“It's a really wonderful thing to focus your life on something other than your own personal career and ambition.”

“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.”

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

“I am so leading the life that I want and wanted and dreamed of as a kid. I'm trying very hard not to abuse it or take advantage of it.”

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

“I think it is just a function of the fact that I moved around so much as a child that I learnt early on to make every place my home.”

“I have long been a supporter of The Prince's Trust, and so when American Express asked me to launch 'Amex Be Inspired' and help young people build their confidence and fulfil their potential, I was delighted to get involved.”

“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.”

“I'm not someone who's led my life trying to get publicity; I'd rather do my work and go home.”

“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?”