James Spader Quotes
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For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that.
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The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them, … I think (Alan Shore) intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest.
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I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.
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I lost interest in firearms because we had a dog that was scared to death of the sound of a rifle shot.
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You know, when you choose to make your living as an actor, it's all fine and good to look at it as some kind of artistic endeavor. At its best, it is that. But the fact is, most of the actors out there don't earn $3 million a picture and can't afford to take two years off between films and look for the right thing. Most of us are tradesmen.
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When doing theater, you have to find great satisfaction in the small things. There's going to be a repetition and a redundancy night after night, but it's the small variations in those moments - a word, a tone of voice, the smallest sense of enlightenment that can happen in an instant onstage - that will be the most rewarding.
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Acting for me, is a passion, but it's also a job, and I've always approached it as such. I have a certain manual-laborist view of acting. There's no shame in taking a film because you need some money.
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I don't think anybody in the entertainment industry or in politics is surprised by the fact that those worlds are rife with promiscuity and irresponsibility - certainly a lack of accountability.
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Love is the one emotion actors allow themselves to believe.
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If you find great difficulty in trying to reckon with the future or even the present, I think it's intuitive to start that process by reckoning with the past.
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I am not very responsible economically. I have a history working on films for years and years, and by the time I was starting the next film, I was starting from zero again.
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Acting is a great way to make a living, especially when I consider what my alternatives were and probably still are. I mean, you are only making movies. It is a lot less pressure than being a surgeon; although it seemed like the only other thing that I was qualified for was manual labour.
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I don't think movies or television have any basis in reality at all. It's all just pretend. That's what's fun about it.
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Working in theater, film, or television are three different jobs for an actor, and I accept them as such.
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Every film you work on is different, and that's part of what it's like for anybody who works on a film, is to learn how to work with others. Learn from top to bottom. Actors have to learn how to work with the director and the director has to learn how to work with actors, and that's not just those two departments.
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I'm not someone so much interested in exploring a slice of life unless that is down the corridor, around the corner, up the alley, and down the rabbit hole. That, I like.
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I think that Barack Obama faces a level of divisiveness, and I don't mean on a national level in terms of the North and the South and the Civil War; I really mean just politically.
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I'd like to thank the academy and I'd like to thank my mother and I'd like to thank my mother again, because I forgot to thank her last year.
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I think the most significant change in my life is the decision to do a series. An hourlong dramatic television series on a broadcast network swallows you and chews you up and refuses to spit you out. You're making a decision that's going to be a profound and significant impact on the practical aspects of your life.
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The unknown is very appealing to me. I like to be surprised. I love the idea I might know less at the end of reading something than I do at the beginning.
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I enjoy the most that Alan seems to be the happiest the stranger that it can be. I don't think it ever can be strange enough for him.
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People who supported Obama felt like they formed a relationship, that they were being spoken to. The way that campaign worked and the way he's worked during his first term is to make people feel like he's grasping their hand, whether it's by tweeting or email, moments after an event, sometimes during an event. It makes people relate to him.
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The script is the coloring book that you're given, and your job is to figure out how to color it in. And also when and where to color outside the lines.
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I have very, very strong obsessive-compulsive issues. I'm very particular.