Explore Quotes by James Spader

I pretty quickly move from an idea to possibilities for execution. If there's one advantage, I think, with working in television for even a short amount of time is trying to gain a faculty for processing a storyline or an idea and how to then best implement that and execute that as swiftly as possible.

I've made a lot of very small movies that may not have had a large initial audience. Then it shows up on cable.

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes with people their work is the most important thing to them, and sometimes the work enables you to do other things that are more important to you. I probably am closer to that.

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.

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.

I have very, very strong obsessive-compulsive issues. I'm very particular.

It's fun to explore behavior that you can't explore in your own life, so you fool around with it in acting.

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.

Working in theater, film, or television are three different jobs for an actor, and I accept them as such.

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.

I played cops and robbers and pirates and all the rest when I was a kid, but I didn't want to grow up and be an actor and play cops and robbers and pirates. I wanted to grow up and be that, be cops and robbers and pirates.

I'm not eager at all to present my life out there for public consumption. I like to do one or two films a year and then do what is absolutely obligatory in terms of promoting them. My life outside of films is vital to me.

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.

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.

If I don't need the money, I don't work.

Fear plays an interesting role in our lives. How dare we let it motivate us. How dare we let it into our decision-making, into our livelihoods, into our relationships. It's funny, isn't it? We take a day a year to dress up in costumes and celebrate fear.

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.

I've had a lazy career, sometimes one film a year, sometimes none. I'm walking around in the street and doing this other thing, living, that I'm much more interested in. I just do some acting on the side.