James Spader

James: (speaking after the end of Boston Legal) Before I did the show, I was working in films and on a film I've always been really lazy as an actor and really much preferred to do other things and... don't ask me what! I used to do a film and then I would take off a period of time. Generally, a film would take, you know, two to three to four months to shoot and I would then take off two to three to four months afterwards to do other things and actually spend time with the family. Well, what the hell do you do if you have been doing a TV show for six years? I mean, the TV show has ended, I can't take six years out!

James: 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.

James: 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.

James: It's not that I dislike being interviewed. I don't have a problem sitting and talking. I'm just not comfortable talking about myself. It's a dilemma. I'm a bad interview. I don't take pride in it. I don't like the spotlight.

James: The first perk of theater is the girls.

James: Love is the one emotion actors allow themselves to believe.

James: I lost interest in firearms because we had a dog that was scared to death of the sound of a rifle shot.

James: I don't think movies or television have any basis in reality at all. It's all just pretend. That's what's fun about it.

James: Acting is easy and fun. You earn a lot of money, and you bang out with girls. The profession is given tremendous significance within our society, but it's not really worthy of it.

James Spader: The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them, ... I think [Shore] intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest.

James Spader: If I don't need the money, I don't work.

James Spader: (on why David E. Kelley has made 'the balcony epilogue' a Boston Legal tradition) There were a few episodes in the middle of the season where I think it was his favorite thing to write. It was almost as if he was writing the show to get to that. When he was first discovering those scenes, he really fell in love with that.

James Spader: I don't want to share anything. I think there probably are performers who want to share their private stuff with the world, and therefore, they don't mind letting it play out in public. I don't want to heal. I don't want to share.