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• "A (Kevin) Spacey odyssey"
• "Spacey to Be Honored with Pell Award for Achievement in the Arts"
• The Norman Conquests on Broadway
• Mr. Spacey's bio

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Actor-producer explains a quote in the New Statesman making the case for why art should be viewed as central to the economy. (2:44)
 

Full interview. (22:52)
 

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Kevin Spacey back to this program. The two-time Oscar-winning actor is one of the finest actors working today, with so many notable films and roles to his credit.

As I mentioned at the top, he's also the artistic director of the Old Vic, London's famed Royal Victoria Theater. Beginning this week in New York you can catch his latest production, "The Norman Conquests," which features the original cast from the sold-out London run. Kevin Spacey, nice to have you back on the program.

Kevin Spacey: Thank you very much. It's been too long.

Tavis: Don't you ever stay away this long. Don't stay away this long again.

Spacey: I don't know, I thought since you were going over to CNN you'd gone way uptown on us. (Laughter)

Tavis: I'm back downtown with you. Just one night for Larry, which was great fun, but I like sitting in this chair every night. How've you been, though?

Spacey: Good - very well.

Tavis: How do you divide your time up since you're doing the thing at the Old Vic in London?

Spacey: Well, really, honestly, I live in London full-time, and that's my full-time job, because the job at the London is a pretty all-encompassing one. And essentially, when I'm not there I'm sneaking off to make a movie for six weeks or eight weeks and then I'm right back home, which is what I consider London now.

Tavis: Home.

Spacey: Home.

Tavis: Right. So given that you consider London home now, what's it like for you as an American? I see you got your flag on; it's very nice.

Spacey: Well, it's a British and an American flag, joined together.

Tavis: Exactly, exactly.

Spacey: A bridge, as they say. (Laughter)

Tavis: Love can build a bridge. To the point of your lapel pin here, what's it like being an American these days living in that part of the world, seeing our country from the outside and not the inside? I love traveling because I get a chance to see from the outside.

Spacey: Well, it's progressed and it's changed over the last - I've been living in London now, full-time, six and a half years, and having a perspective on your own country where you're able to see it in a way that you don't see it here - when I come back to the United States and I just get assaulted by the amount of television, the amount of spin, agendas, it's actually kind of great to be able to see it from a perspective where you're getting information in a slightly different way.

I read a lot and I look at newspapers a lot and look online a lot, but we don't get the kind of onslaught that you get, the 24-hour news cycle that you get here. And for a long time I was looking at this country and my head was a little cocked like that dog in the back of a window - like, what is going on over there?

But I have to say all of my British friends, people that I meet in Europe, are so encouraged and delighted and excited by the steps that this country seems to be taking, the inauguration of Barack Obama, and what feels like a new day. And as he said and I think everyone feels, hope is in the air.

Tavis: What's the one thing - I know there are many and I don't want to put you on the spot but I am anyway - if you had to pick one thing that you think Americans don't get, even in the Obama era - and I hear your point about where the country can go and the enthusiasm and euphoria about that around the world for President Obama. What's the one thing above all else you think that we don't get as Americans about how others view us?

Spacey: Well, sometimes you hear - people will say - and they ask me - "Oh, people are anti-American; people don't like Americans." And I say, "No, that isn't true. People may not like an administration and they may not like a president and they may not like certain policies, but people love America."

And what this country is based on is - we're the only country based on ideas, and we believe in those ideas enough that we put them on a wall and we frame them - the Constitution, Declaration of Independence - to remind ourselves when we fail and hopefully give us something to shoot for.

I hope that the sense that I get from people in Europe and particularly in England is that the American public will be patient, and that I think very often politicians underestimate the patience of the American public. They can get caught up in media spin and lots of commentators talking about how slow it's taking.

But I think the truth is that the American public will be patient if they believe we're heading in the right direction, and I think we are and I think that if they just hold on and we work together in ways that we see we can - and it's quite remarkable in this country when people come together, and we've seen examples of it - but then it tends to fade.

And I think we've got to work harder as a county and as a people to make sure we all stay together, because we're not going to solve it unless we do it together.

Tavis: One last question to wrap up this part of our conversation before I go to the "The Norman Conquests." The excitement, again, about President Obama I hear. Again, from your perspective on the outside looking back over the last six years, do you think any of the damage done by the Bush administration is irreparable?

Spacey: No. Absolutely not.

Tavis: Okay.

Spacey: I'll tell you this - I think that the one thing about America that I think is true is we may make mistakes and we may screw up on occasion and we may have people who put forward policies that do do damage, but I also think that we learn. Now, we may not apologize (laughter) as a country, but we do progress. And I think that that's one of the things about this country that's always made it such an extraordinary example of moving forward.

We move forward, and I think we'll get beyond whatever damage was done. I think that people are willing to be forgiving.

Tavis: "The Norman Conquests." Tell me about it.

Spacey: I saw "The Norman Conquests" here in Los Angeles when I was 13 years old at the Ahmanson Theatre, and I fell in love with them as plays. They're a trilogy of plays - three different plays that all interconnect, taking place within the same 12 hours of time in a country house.

And for people who think that wow, we've staged the Norman conquests, boy, that's a big, epic thing, it's actually about a guy named Norman who's trying to be naughty with lots of different women. (Laughter) So it's his conquests.

And I fell in love with those plays, and then when I started at the Old Vic they went on my list - one of the first plays I hoped to be able to do, because I found out that Alan Ayckbourn, the extraordinary and prolific playwright, had not given the rights to any theater to do them in 35 years since they were originally done in 1974.

So Matthew Warchus, the director, who's an extraordinary man and one of our associate directors at the Old Vic, we finally, after sort of three years, convinced Alan to give us the rights.

What's unique about them, and the way that Alan always writes for his theater in Scarborough, is he writes in the round and that's how they're originally performed, is in the round.

Now, every time they move to the West End or to Broadway they're done in a proscenium house. Now, we've got a photo up of the Old Vic Theatre as it is at this moment because we decided to honor the way they were originally done. And I reconfigured the Old Vic for the first time in its history into a theater in the round.

And it was a remarkable success, and we also followed with two other productions that we've done in the round. And in May, when Sam Mendes comes to direct The Bridge Project, which is something we'll talk about, "The Cherry Orchard" and "Winter's Tale," we'll take out the round quite carefully, put it in storage so we can use it again, and bring it back to the proscenium arch theater that everyone knows the Old Vic for.

And what we're doing in New York at Circle in the Square is we're bringing the round there as well, so it's the first time that "The Norman Conquests" or I think Ayckbourn has ever been done in the round on Broadway with the original British cast.

Tavis: Two questions in that regard - come off the stage as the actor Kevin Spacey. Leave behind your being the director of the theater. Sit in the audience with me and tell me why, how this experience is different in the round than -

Spacey: I think the round is an incredible experience for audiences because when you remove the wallpaper, when you remove the setting, it just becomes about human beings in space. And there's also something about you looking across to actors but just beyond, slightly out of focus, is an audience watching you watching it.

And the perspectives become quite extraordinary, and I think that there's something so dynamic about watching actors in a space where for them there's nowhere to hide. There's some actors, like Laurence Olivier, who never, ever wanted to work in the round because he said there's nowhere to hide. (Laughter)

Because if you're on stage and you can turn this way and you can sort of not see the audience, but in the round you turn and oh, they're there, and oh, they're there. We've found that our companies of actors have loved it because it also forces a relationship between them that is so intense, because you've got to rely on each other in a way that you don't normally have to when you're working in a proscenium, and I think it's an extraordinary way to see theater.

And the great thing about these places is although you can see each one individually and they're great fun to watch, I think the best days are Saturdays, which are the trilogy days. So you come at 11:00 in the morning and see play one, 3:00, see play two, 8:00, see play three. You spend the whole day with this group of six characters, and it received probably the best reviews we've had at the Old Vic.

It in a way sort of gave Alan Ayckbourn a chance to be rediscovered because as often happens in I think any country, writers sometimes get marginalized and sort of taken off the national stage, and this was a real resurgence of his craft and I think he was appreciated in an almost Chekhovian way because of the way that Matthew Warchus attacked these plays.

Tavis: You saw this as a child, given your earlier story. You're now producing it. You produce it in London, now you're producing it here. What was it about the subject matter that pulled you in, that made you want to do this as the theater director?

Spacey: Well first of all, it's incredibly funny. There's also something so clever about let's say you go to play one and when someone leaves - one takes place in the dining room, one takes place in the living room, one takes place in the garden.

So when someone leaves the dining room they're going into another play. When you then go see that play you realize, oh, they were lying in that scene because that's not what they said. So there's this incredible interconnecting logic to the way that he wrote it, but it's also - I think what makes these plays so lasting is that they are in many ways like Shakespeare.

They're about how we deal with each other and love and disappointment and frustration and all of it done on a very comic, almost farcical level. But I think when they're played in the proscenium there's a tendency to play them out and play them for laughs. And I think what Matthew did - I remember when he was in the middle of rehearsals I said, "How's it going?" And he said, "Well, it's very tough right now."

And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Well, because I've taken the comedy out and I'm now just putting as much pain as I can in the performances and so the actors are going through a painful experience. But then I'm going to put the comedy back on and so it is in fact painfully funny to watch.”

And although people don't know this group of actors in New York and in the United States, they're all very well known in England, and I think they're going to get discovered on the Broadway stage because it's a remarkable ensemble.

Tavis: What have you told them, if anything, that you may or may not want to share with me about what they can expect from an American audience for this particular play as opposed to what they are used to getting back in London?

Spacey: Well, I think that the great thing is that even in a lot of the reviews that were American reviews indicated you do not have to be British to appreciate these characters or this situation at all. It is a universal kind of story. So I think I've always felt, whenever I've done a play in London and I've brought it to New York, there really isn't that much of a difference between American audiences and British audiences.

Maybe more cell phones go off in the middle of the show. (Laughter) People are out there twittering away.

Tavis: Which leads me to a question I wanted to ask anyway - the audiences, you said earlier, are not that different, Kevin, and yet my sense is that even though it can be gotten, if I can put it that way, there is a difference between European humor, American humor, and I may be bastardizing what comedians do, even, or what humor is to even make that comparison. Am I right, am I wrong, am I (unintelligible)?

Spacey: I think that there's certain kinds of humor that are very, very British.

Tavis: Like Benny Hill.

Spacey: Like Benny Hill (laughter), and certainly in Britain they like a lot of drag so you see Monty Python and lots of guys wearing dresses. There's a particular thing that they love about that. But if you look at Shakespeare, you look at some of the great writers that have come over to the United States, I think there is something about what we all share and it doesn't matter that there might be cultural differences.

What in fact brings us together is that we're all human beings, and I think that one of the great things about theater is that you can get over what you would think are obstacles to understanding. I really never truly felt that great of a difference.

I suppose other than cell phones the big difference here is people give standing ovations very quickly in this country. Jay Leno gets a standing ovation every night - he does.

Tavis: Just for walking out.

Spacey: Just for walking out.

Tavis: He ain't even said nothing yet. (Laughter)

Spacey: Just for walking out. And in Britain they're a little more reserved. To get them on their feet in Britain takes a little bit of an effort.

Tavis: And what do you make of that? I hear your point - what do you make of that?

Spacey: I think in America with the big applause signs and people telling you to get up it's easy to stand up and give anyone a standing ovation.

Tavis: Does that make the actors work harder to get that if they understand that?

Spacey: No, no. We have an old tack, you see. If you're standing up and you're taking your bow, the way to get them up is you just - you go oh, please, no. (Laughter) It's an old Bob Hope thing.

Tavis: I love it. You're doing so much stuff, tell me about - you teased us with the Sam Mendes project earlier; tell me more about that.

Spacey: Well when I first started at the Old Vic the first phone call I made was to Sam Mendes because he had just left the same role that I was about to take on at the Old Vic at the Donmar Theatre in London. He ran that for 10 years as the artistic director.

So I thought if anybody could talk me out of it, it would be Sam, but he didn't. And I started wooing him right away to come to the Old Vic and do a play, but the more he and I talked over the years - and we'd see each other for dinners or lunches or email - the less satisfied we became with the idea that he'd come and do one play and then leave.

And somewhere around four years ago we were sitting at breakfast and he said, "We're missing something." And I said, "What?" And he goes, "Well, it's obvious - I'm a British director living in New York; you're an American living in London running a theater. There's some connection that I think we need to take advantage of."

What I didn't know was that at the same time, Joe Melillo, who runs the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was also wooing Sam to come. And ultimately, we decided that we would create this company called The Bridge Project, that we would try to go to the equities on both sides of the Atlantic and convince them that if we guaranteed we would cast 50 percent Americans and 50 percent British actors to create a company, that we wanted to do this as an experiment to see that if you open up the flow of traffic that it'll go in both directions.

So this is the first year of The Bridge Project. Sam has committed, quite remarkably, to doing two productions every year for the next three seasons. So he's doing six productions in rep. The first ones opened at the Brooklyn Academy in January - "Winter's Tale" and "The Cherry Orchard," with Sinead Cusack, Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Hall, Simon Russell Beale, Josh Hamilton, and Richard Eastman, and they were just in Singapore a few nights ago.

They'll be in Auckland a little later; they go to Madrid and to Germany, and then in late May they come to the Old Vic. They play 16 weeks at the Old Vic as they played 16 weeks at BAM, and then they end the whole thing at one of the outdoor theaters in Greece in August for two performances there.

And then Sam will be back in rehearsal in November for year two, and my intention is to leave the company in year three. So it's a pretty remarkable - it's really the first time that anything like this has been attempted, and I think part of the reason Sam was so determined to do it is that he wanted to prove that you could bring Americans and Brits together and do Shakespeare and it wouldn't be crap. (Laughter) And I think he's proving it.

Tavis: Yeah, yeah - let's hope so. There's a quote that I want to give you a chance to excavate or share more with me about that you said about the arts a while ago, after - I want to do that after I tell you - and I'm not saying it just because you're here, but it's true.

When you were here last and I knew you had done the soundtrack for the movie, and so I ran out and I got it and can I just tell you that thing is still on my iPod? I had no idea -

Spacey: You're talking about "Beyond the Sea?"

Tavis: Yeah, "Beyond the Sea," yeah. I did not - thank you - I knew that you had a voice; I knew that you sang, but that CD was really very good.

Spacey: Thank you. I had a great experience.

Tavis: Your "Mack the Knife" piece is - I love it.

Spacey: Listen, "Mack the Knife," I can only tell you because I'm asked sometimes now, "Will you come and sing 'Mack the Knife,'" and I'm like "'Mack the Knife' takes, like, two weeks to work up, let me tell you." (Laughter) It's not something you just break into.

Tavis: You don't just step up. (Laughter)

Spacey: No, you don't just break into it, because I don't do this for a living.

Tavis: "Beyond the Sea," there's some really nice tracks on there.

Spacey: Look, there (audio drops out) Bobby Darren's spectrum of music, the styles that he hit in his remarkably short career was just great, and for me to be able to do that music, we recorded that stuff at Abbey Road with a 70-piece orchestra, Phil Ramone producing. It was like a fantasy come true.

And then I went on tour with it with a big band, and I just love singing, I love getting a chance to get up and sing. I don't do it as often as I'd like. But I hope that one day they bring the headliner back to Vegas. Nothing against magicians and all of that, but I think the days of the headliner in Vegas should come back.

So who knows? Maybe when I'm 75 I'll be going, "Who am I playing, and when do I go on?" (Laughter)

Tavis: I think Vegas slowly but surely is getting that. They've got some folk over there now who are - Bette Midler's there now; Elton John is there.

Spacey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, those are those big, big shows that - big, gigantic shows. But there is something about the intimacy of the nightclub experience where it's not a huge venue. When I went around the country some of my favorite places were these little places of 700 people or so, and they're great to play in and the acoustics are great and there's a more intimate feeling than in a big stadium.

Tavis: It was a great CD; I just wanted to tell you. I have it in my iPod and I play it all the time. This quote really got - everything you say can be arresting in a good conversation, but this really got my attention and I wanted to get your thoughts on it. I'm quoting Kevin Spacey here.

"In these turbulent times our concepts of what we value are being reconsidered. Banks may collapse, individuals might display unprecedented levels of greed, and innocent people may become casualties. But what we can rely on is our creativity, our inspiration, and our passion."

What did you - I think I get it, but I want you to -

Spacey: Well, I'm making an argument that very often, those of us in positions to fight for funding for the arts - I've been now fundraising for the Old Vic for more than six years and I try to help out other organizations. And I started to notice that as the talk of the recession and the downturn, that the doomsters and gloomsters tend to immediately start saying, "Well, arts and culture are going to find it so much more difficult to raise money."

And, "Surely we can do without these luxury items." And I cannot disagree more. I believe in arts and culture and I believe far from being a luxury item they are a necessity in our lives, and first of all I think that can be said - that we need the arts for our common good, both as people and as nations. Because countries may go to war but it's culture that unites us.

And the argument I want to make is we have to start citing the economic successes of arts and culture. Not saying that the social aspects or the artistic aspects aren't important and valid, but if you look at what arts and culture bring to our economy - and that goes right down the line to why do people come to various places around the world for tourism?

They go to London, they want to go to the West End, they want to go to Stratford-on-Avon. They come to California, they want to go on the movie tours, they want to - there is something about how we reach people around the world, through movies, through theater, through music, through art, that we have to begin to recognize, and I hope people who love culture can be made more aware of the incredible impact it has on our communities.

If you look at any arts center or cultural institution, that brings economy. Any place where people gather, even a jazz club or a comedy club, people gather, that brings money to the hotels, to the restaurants, to the taxicabs, to the newsstands, to every business that surrounds those cultural centers. And I just think that we don't use that as the centerpiece of our argument as much as we should.

Tavis: Let me close our conversation by going back to the play, because what you're talking about here now is really our common humanity. What's the humanity in the play that we're going to connect to when we see it in New York?

Spacey: "The Norman Conquests" is about the one thing that we all are united by, which is the power of love. And in a very humorous and I think very honest way, Ayckbourn has tapped into something that we all understand - family, its complications, its difficulties, but ultimately, its humanity. And I think people will have a really good time if they go out and see it.

Tavis: I appreciate your humanity and I'm always honored to have you on the program.

Spacey: Thank you. Pleasure.

Tavis: Good to see you, Kevin.

Spacey: Thank you, man.

Tavis: Kevin Spacey.