Kevin Spacey

0:00It felt like a rock concert. Kevin would go out there on stage and everybody would clap up and be like his Beyonce in the room. Like... The focus. The sense of anticipation. The thrill of theatre is the fact that it's alive. And it's happening once only in front of your eyes. This play has probably been the most demanding experience I've ever had. Aha! So this back to back, looking for Richard. Oh my god. That was nice. Well you know what's funny about that to me?

0:46Ours clearly is about a production of Richard III that we did. Als is about a production of Richard III. He never did. He never actually did the play. It was all just filmed and all of those scenes we just did in various locations. But it was an incredible experience to be a part of that. And I was incredibly grateful that he asked me to do it. And then he came and saw R. Richard III in London. And we went out to dinner and he said, oh, you graduated. My little booking guy. I was like, thanks Al. I never got to start the end of movies because it always ruins them. But with this one I'm going to start at the end because you talk about holding on to moments. And now it's been two years. You've been talking about this film probably for weeks now. Looking back at all the memories, what would you hold on to?

1:32The relationships. In fact last week was sort of fantastic because we'd had the premiere of the film at the Tribeca Film Festival where everyone in the company in to be a part of it. And it was just an incredible night for all of us to see the movie. For me to actually see the movie the first time with an audience which was awesome. And then we all went bowling after. We had an awesome night. Is that your typical rapping bowling? The reason we did it was because on the closing night at BAM when we finished the final performance, we had an after party. And then I had rented a bunch of lanes at a bowling alley called the Gutter in Brooklyn. And so we all went bowling that last night. So I thought we'd relive that after the Tribeca night. You're a good baller? I'm a really good baller. Okay. In the topic of games the Angel cards thing was really cool. And you got truth in the film.

2:18Yes. Which is great for an actor. Yes. I thought you were going to find the truth. Yeah. Who out of everyone you've played, who's been the hardest to find truth in? Phew. That's a really good question. Yeah, okay. That's it. Thank you very much for coming. Let me think of the... Maybe I'll mention that as we go on. Because also you talk about no matter what mood you're in, when you hit on stage, you let the play take you. The musicians talk about the... I talked to a lot of musicians, muscle memory, you go into trance, and then the show's over and you're just like, oh, it's done. Is it like that for you? Or because you need to say present? It's like... I call it Dr. Theatre. Almost no matter how you're feeling, you wake up and you're tired. Let's say in Hong Kong we had five performances over four days and we were exhausted.

3:08And you get up and you're like, I can't. And then you go and you just go and you do it. It's like going to the gym. Half the battle is showing up, right? Is it autopilot? It's not autopilot. What it is, it's technique. So all the training that I've done, you know, going to Juilliard, all of the plays that I've done over all the years I've been doing theatre, that is what prepares you for those days and nights when you don't feel it. That's when technique takes over. And you might feel the difference. But an audience doesn't. And you have to trust that. And by the end of the night, Dr. Theatre has done his job and you're like, yeah, I'm glad I did it and it was great. And it was okay. And even if you think it wasn't the best performance, you have to learn to be very forgiving of yourself in the theatre.

3:55You have to be in the moment and let it go. And if a scene doesn't go the way you wanted, you just have to forget about it and move on. And if you screw a line up, which I regularly did, you just have to not apologize. If you don't apologize, if you say gibberish, you literally comes out of your mouth. And that often happened in this production. Just absolute gibberish. But if you say it with incredible confidence, and then you turn and you walk up stage, the audience will think, wow, Shakespeare made up all those words. No, you just made up all those words, actually. But you just don't apologize. You just go forward. And you know what? The audience thinks it's part of the play. If you don't stop the play, fall into the orchestra pit, the audience thinks it's part of the play. I'm going to let you go. I want to keep going about it. Thank you very much. I have five questions. Five quick questions, one word answers. Okay.

4:40Script or improv? Improv. Stage or screen? Stage. Landon or McCartney? Landon. Hitchcock or Cooper? Cooper. In one word, Richard III. Dick. Oh. That's it. That's it. That's it. But now it makes sense.