Why not sit around a Beverly Hills pool collecting residual cheques? That is not the kind of life I want.

There does seem to be in the U.S. now an ideology and an entrenchment that has stopped people doing what they are hired to do, which is govern rather than run for office the whole time.

I have wanted to have children. I do want to have children.

I remember meeting the likes of Johnny Carson and Jimmy Stewart for the first time and being completely starstruck.

London is a very energising place to be.

I terribly miss - we all miss, I think - somebody like the great producer Irving Thalberg. He had a foot in both camps: He understood us creative people. And he understood the money people.

I want to do better. I want to produce better stories. I want to do better plays.

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

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 don't watch rugby.

It's extremely dangerous to compare anyone else to Shakespeare.

What hasn't surprised me is that audiences, as we found starting with box sets, want control, to decide how they watch it. Appointment viewing is slowly being put slightly behind.

You just play what a writer writes, in terms of what a character chooses to do and how a character chooses to deal with their various relationships.

Whether it's 'Veep' or 'Homeland' or 'The West Wing' - which is a more idealised version of democracy - people are fascinated by politics.

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.

The process of doing a play is an organic one, and the process of doing a film is totally inorganic.

Meeting the person you are going to be playing is very unique.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in Washington. It's a great theater town.

I have to remember if I'm at some charitable event where kids are... I try to remember don't swear in front of the kids!

Have we become so celebrity-obsessed that there is no longer a difference between a character and an actor? I hope not.

People sometimes have to be reminded, I'm not Frank Underwood. I'm an actor named Kevin Spacey.

President Obama will go down as having passed some of the most historic bills in the history of this country.

Some politicians that I've seen have been brilliant with the public. They almost speak with the skill of an actor.

There are ways in which you can make sure that even if people come to the theatre because they know an actor or actress, by the end, they've forgotten that, and they leave going, 'Wow - what an amazing play.'