YouSaid · the spoken record

Kevin Spacey

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130
first
2024-06-05
most recent
2024-06-05
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1
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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “I said something else. So that's how improv can be a valuable process to learn about limits and boundaries. And what's going on with a character that somehow you discover in trying something that isn't on the page? There's the different thing, which is the trying to make it fresh and trying to make it new. And that is really a reference to the I'll put it to you this way. Anybody loves sports, right? So you go and you watch on a pitch, you watch on a Tennis game, you watch basketball, you watch football. Yeah, the rules are the same It's a different game every time you're out on that court or on that field. It's no different in the Yes, it's the same lines, maybe even blocking. Is similar.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “There's two slightly different contexts, I think. One is in the rehearsal room. Improvisation could be a wonderful device. I mean, Sam Andy's, for example, will start a scene and he does this wonderful thing. He brings rugs and he brings chairs and sofas in. And he says, well, let's put two chairs here and here. Let's start in these chairs far apart from each other. Let's see what happens with the scene if you're that far apart. And so we'll do the scene that way. And then he goes, okay, let's bring a rug in and let's bring these chairs much closer and let's see what happens if the space, if the space between you is. And so then you try it that way. And then, you know, it's a little harder in Shakespeare improv. But in any situation where you want to try and see where could a scene go, where would the scene go if I didn't make that choice? Where would the scene go if I made this choice? Where would the single if I didn't say that or”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, but also because it's just this incredible. Why didn't I think to ask that question myself? That's what you have directors for. That's what you have so many places where ideas can come from. But that just illustrates that even though in my brain I go, I always like to work backwards. I missed it in that one, and I'm very grateful to my friend for having pushed me into Being able to realize what that meant”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “He liked that idea and we staged that scene as if it was the eighth round, although audience wouldn't have known that. Just what I loved about that was that somebody said to me. Ask yourself a question you haven't asked yourself yet. What does that line mean and then work backwards?”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I want you to think about what that line actually means. And then work backwards. And so he left, and I sort of was left with this what? Like, what does that mean? How am I supposed to? And then, like a couple of days went by, a couple of days went by, and I thought, okay, so what does that line actually mean? Well, that last drink the old KO. KO His knockout Which is a boxing term. The only boxing term the writer uses in the play, and then I went back and I realized my friend was so smart and so incredible to have, you know, said, ask a question you haven't thought of asking yet, I realized that the playwright wrote the last round the eighth round between these two brothers, and it was a fight. Physical as well as emotional. And when I brought that into the rehearsal room to the director who was doing that play,”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Something was pointed out to me, or something was. I remember I was doing a play, and I was having this really tough time with one of the last scenes in the play. And I just couldn't figure it out. I was in rehearsal. And although we had a director in that play, I called another, a friend of mine who was also director, and I had him come over and I said, look, this scene I'm just having the toughest, I cannot seem to crack this scene. And so we read it through a couple of times. And then this wonderful director named John Swanbeck, who would eventually direct me in a film called The Big Kahuna. But this is before that. He said to me the most incredible thing, he said All right, what's the last line you have in this scene before you fall over and fall asleep? And I said, The last line is that last drink the old KO and he went.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “One of the things that I That I feel that I try to do in my work. When I read something for the first time, when I read a script or play. And I am absolutely. Devastated by it. It is the most extraordinary, the most beautiful, the most life-affirming or terrifying. It's then a process weirdly of working backwards, which I want to work in such a way that that's the experience I give to the audience when they first see it, that they have the experience I had when I read it. I remember that there's been times in the creative process when”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “To me, that's the greatest. That's the greatest Compliment for me as an actor. I love being able to go. I mean, when I think about Formers who inspire me. And I remember when I was young and I was introduced to Spencer Tracy. Henry Fonda, Catherine Hepburn. I just believed who they were. I knew nothing about them. They were just these extraordinary characters doing this extraordinary stuff. And then I think more. Recently contemporary, when I think of the work that Philip Seymour Hoffman did, and Heath Ledger and people that When I think about what they could be doing, what they could do, what they would have done had they stayed with us. I'm so excited when I go into a cinema or I go into a play and I completely am taken to some place that I believe exists and characters that become real.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “and that if I serve the writing I will in a sense serve myself because I'll be in the right world, I'll be in the right context, I'll be in the right style, I'll have embraced what a director's, you know, it's not my painting, it's someone else's painting. I'm a series of colors and someone else's painting. And the barometer for me has always been that when people are Stop me and talk to me. About a character I've played and reference their name? As if they actually exist? That's when I feel like I've gotten close to doing my job.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Those are two very interesting descriptions. When I think, I guess when I think performer, I tend to think Entertaining, I tend to think comedy, I tend to think winning over an audience. I tend to think. There's something about. That quality of wanting to have people enjoy themselves. And when you saddle that against What maybe he means as an actor, which is more dramatic or more text driven, more I've always believed that my My job, not every actor feels this way, but my job, the way that I've looked at it, is that my job is to serve the writing.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Look, I've been lucky with other directors. Sam Mendes is similar. I remember when I walked in to maybe the first rehearsal for Richard III that we were doing. I had brought with me a Canopy of ailments that my Richard was going to suffer from. And Sam, you know, eventually whittled it down to like three, like maybe your arm and maybe thing and maybe your leg. But let's get rid of the other ten things that you brought into the room because I was, you know, I was so excited to, you know, capture this character. Very often Trevor known as this way, a lot of wonderful directors I've worked with. They're really good at helping you trim and edit.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Didn't always like the dramatic pauses. I mean, look, you want to go back and eat student of acting. You go back to the 30s and the 40s, 50s. The speed at which actor spoke Not just in the comedies, which of course, you know, you look at any Preston Sturge's movie, and it's incredible how fast people are talking and how funny things are when they happen that fast. But then acting styles changed. We got into a different kind of thing in the late 50s and 60s. Know a lot of actors are feeling it, which is, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just that if you want... To keep an audience engaged, as Fincher does, and I believe successfully does in all of his work. Pace, timing. Movement, clarity, speed, and are admirable to achieve.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I think because Fincher hates indulgence And he wants people to talk the way they do in life. Is, you know, we don't take Big dramatic pauses Know before we speak, we say what we want.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Sometimes it's timing. Sometimes it's literally he has a stopwatch and he's timing how long a scene is taking. And then he'll say You need to take a minute off this scene. A minute, yeah, a minute off this scene. I want it to move like this. So let's pick it up. Let's pick up the pace. Let's see if we can take a minute off.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “In terms of the writing and in terms of what the characters had to do, it was incredible culmination of how this character Could manipulate in the way that he did. And And in the end Succeed”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, and also because I so well remember I think the work that Brad did, and also Morgan did in that scene, but the work that Brad had to do, where he had to go. I remember rehearsing with him as we were all staying at this little hotel nearby that location and we rehearsed the night before we started shooting that sequence in. I just, I mean, it was just incredible to see. The levels of emotions he had to go through and then the decision of what do I do. Because if I do what he wants me to do, then he wins. But if I don't do it, then I'm what kind of a man, husband am I? I just thought he did really incredible works. It was also not easy to not react to the power of what he was. throwing at me, I just thought it was an extraordinary. A really extraordinary scene.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And Jack said, less than what I just did now. He said, Yeah, just a little bit less. He goes, Oh, okay. So they didn't undertake. And he said, Jack, just a little bit less. And Jack said, a little less than what I just did. He said, yes. He goes, if I do any less, I'm not going to be acting. And Kuker said, exactly, Jack, exactly.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Story I just love because it's in exactly the same wheelhouse. So Jack Lemmon's first movie was a film called It Should Happen to You and was directed by George Kuker. And Jack tells this story. And it was just an incredibly charming story to hear Jack tell. He said, so I'm doing his picture. And let me tell you, this is a terrific part for me. And I'm doing a sheen. It's on my first day. It's in my first day. And it's a terrific scene. And he goes, we do the first take, and George Cuker comes up to me and he says, Jack, I said, yeah. He said, could you do, let's do another one, but just do a little less in this one. And Jack said, a little less, a little less than what I just did. He said, yeah, just a little less. So he goes, we do another take. And I think, boy, that was it. I mean, let's just go home. And Cucker walked up to him and said, Jack, let's do another one. This time just a little bit less.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “He is systematically shredding you of all pretense of all, you know, because look, very often, you know, actors we come in on the set and we thought about the scene and we've worked out, you know, I've got this prop and I'm going to do this thing with a can, you know, all these things, all the tea, I'm gonna do a thing with the thing. And David is the kind of director where he just wants you to stop adding all that crap and just say the words and say them quickly. and mean them. And it takes a while to get to that place. I'll tell you a story.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I've been very fortunate to be directed by Fincher a couple of times. And, um, He would say to me sometimes. I don't believe a thing that is coming out of your mouth. Shall we try it again And you go. Okay, yeah, we can try it again. And sometimes he'll do take. And then you'll look to see if he has any added genius to hand you. And he just goes, let's do it again. And then let's do it again. And sometimes I say this in all humility. He's literally trying to beat the acting out of you. And by continually saying, do it again, do it again, and not giving you any specifics.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Makes tragedy so I mean, you know, very often tragedy is people operating without enough information. They don't have all the facts. Romeo and Juliet. They don't have all the facts. They don't know what we know as an audience. And so in the end Brad Pitt's charact Shooting John Doe or turning the gun on himself, which was a discussion. I mean, there were a number of alternative endings that were discussed. Nothing ends up being tied up in a nice little bow. It is complicated and shows how nobody wins in the end. When you're not operating with all the information.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I can really only tell you that while we were shooting that scene in the car, while we were out in the... In the desert, in that place where all those electrical wires were David just kept saying less. And I just tried to, I mean, I remember he kept saying to me, remember. Urine control You're going to win. And knowing that should allow you to have tremendous confidence. And I just followed that lead and I just think it's the kind of film that so many of the elements that had been at work from the beginning of the movie in terms of its style, in terms of how he built this terror, in terms of how he built for the audience a sense of this person being one of the scariest people they might ever encounter It really allowed me to be able to not have to do that much. Just say the words and mean them. And I think it also It's an example of what”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “To meet this character. I think the last scene, the ending scene, and the car ride leading up to it where it's mostly on you. In conversation with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. Is one of the greatest scenes in film history. So people somehow didn't see the movie. There's these five mergers that happen that are inspired by five of the”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I got on a plane on that Sunday and I flew to Los Angeles and I went into where they were shooting and I went into the makeup room and David Fincher was there and we were talking about what should I do, how should I look. And I just had my hair short for outbreak because I was playing a military character. And I just looked at the... Hairdresser, and I said, Do you have a razor? And Fincher went, I said, no, he goes If you shave your head, I'll shave mine. So we both shaved our heads. And then I started shooting the next day. So My long-winded answer to your question is that I didn't have that much time to think about how to build that character What I think in the end, Fincher was able to do so brilliantly with such terror. Was to set the audience up.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “And if any of those films broke through or did well, if it was going to be Brad Pitt, Morgan, Freeman, Gwyneth Peltro, and Kevin Spacey, and you don't show up for the first 25, 30, 40 minutes, people are going to figure out who you're playing. So people should know that you are the play the serial killer in the movie and serial killer shows up like more than halfway through the movie. Very latest one. And when you say billing is like the posters, the VHS cover everything you're gone. You're not there. Not there. And so Newline Cinema told me to go fuck myself, that they absolutely could use my picture and my image. And this became a little bit of a, I'd say, 24-hour conversation. And it was Fincher who said, I actually think this is a really cool idea. So the compromise was, I'm the first. Credit at the end of the movie. The credits start”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And David would like you to get on a plane on Sunday and come to Los Angeles and start shooting on Tuesday. And I was like, Okay Would it be imposing to say, Can I read it again? Because it's been a while now, and I'd like to. So they send a script over. I read the script that night. Thought about it. And I had this feeling, I can't even quite describe it, but I had this feeling that It would be really good if I didn't take billing in the film. And the reason I felt that was because I knew that by the time this film would come out, it would be the last one of the three movies that I just shot, the fourth one.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “And I went in to audition for David Fincher in probably late November of'94. And I audition for this part and didn't get it I went back to New York And I think they started shooting like December 12th. And I'm in New York. I'm back in my, I have a wonderful apartment on West 12th Street, and my mom has come to visit for Christmas, and it's December 23rd. And it's like seven o'clock at night and my phone rings, and it's Arnold Copelson, who's the producer of seven. And he's very jovial and he's very friendly, and he says, How are you doing? And I said, fine. He said, listen, do you remember that film you came in 47? I said, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He goes, Well, it turns out that we hired an actor and we started shooting, and then yesterday David fired him.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “There's a part of me that hates it. There's a part of me that loves it. And every part of me is better for having done it. Anyway, I love AJ One, especially after a long run. They'll give you one month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drink ag one dot com slash lex. This is Alex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Kevin Spacey. You played a serial killer in the movie seven. Your performance was one of if not the greatest portrayal of a murderer on screen ever. What was your process of becoming him, John Doe, the serial killer? The truth is I didn't get the part. I had been in Los Angeles making a couple of films, swimming of sharks and usual suspects, and then I did a film called Outbreak. Morgan Freeman was in.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Use Shopify and sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at Shopify.com slash lex all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by AG one, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. I often drink it twice a day Make the drink, put it in the fridge, sometimes put in the freezer, and like thirty minutes later, it's got that beautifully chill consistency. Almost like a slushy but not quite as slushy. And it just brings me happiness, especially when I just did a super long run in the Texas heat and boys that heat coming that summer is coming. The hundred degrees the one hundred five and it's intense. Those ten, twelve, fifteen mile runs in the heat.”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “The things I love. If they know the thing, I get to talk to them and share in their love of the thing. If they don't know about the thing, then I get to talk about the thing I love and share in that way. It's kind of cool that those are two of the modes of connection. So one is you explaining a thing that another person doesn't know about. And in that explanation, the teacher students sort of dynamic. You get to celebrate a thing. And then when you're both fans, you get to both celebrate, both as teacher and student. Anyway, if you want to sell shirts to sell whatever you want,”

    2024-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #432 – Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source