Kevin Spacey conveyed a great story

This was perhaps the most eventful evenings for me at University at Buffalo (UB). Many of us in UB marked out calendars many months ago when it was announced that Kevin Spacey will be the UB distinguished speaker. It turns out that his charm with his audience doesn’t stop with his famous show “House of Cards”, he enthralled everyone at Alumni Arena today.

As a member of GSA, I and my friends were fortunate enough to get front seats for this event. The stage was shining and the presentation was impeccable. Everyone was present, the student, the old, the young, the students, the faculties all of Buffalo was there. My friend couldn’t find a parking space for his vehicle and he parked it 500 meters away from the Alumni arena. Our hosts were GSA and SA presidents and an alumni of UB (class 1991). They treated the entire audience with “House of Speakersg” video which had the hallmarks of the famous video- The intro video of House of Cards. The presenters did a wonderful job of capturing the imagination of the crowd.

A few minutes later the man of the moment revealed himself and immediately introduced himself as Frank Underwood (FU). He made jibes about the “campaign” for presidency of FU; He then realized that it would be hard to control the passions of many because even I believe that Frank Underwood would make a great President (:P). He made the most striking point, it was simple and true. He said, all we have to do is convey a great story. Immediately an image of a Starbucks coffee cup was shown on the screen. He said, that the coffee at Starbucks was schmuck, and it always tasted bad. He said that they had a selling point, naming the coffee in Italian and making it so sophisticated that they would even correct a consumers who would pronounce differently. So, in a way they charged $4 for a coffee that costs only $1. Thus, reminding all of us that they did a great job selling it and reinforcing it.

Starbuck’s coffee sucks…

All the shows, “Game of Thrones” , “Better Call Saul” and the Youtube channel artists are all doing the same. They convey a very convincing story. At that time I realized that inspiration is often abstracted in simple words. He then started off by describing about himself and how he worked on these lines. He described his childhood and then talked about his involvement in stage acting since he was 13 years old. He provided an emphasis to what Jack Lemmon’s encouragement did to him. He said,

if your parents, idols, loved ones give you just the right advise at the right time, then it’s enough to change your life.

and yes even I agree and I have seen something similar in my life as well. Anyway the lines of encouragement sent him to acting school and that is where he started the journey of his illustrious career. His stage career actor was tough, and he had to face financial hardships and said he is not the only exceptional person who underwent such a problem. He said, he even had some friends who helped him out in that period and he was doing just fine. He shared an anecdote which was amusing, he narrated how he stole a ticket to an important event in NY city. He explained his dilemma and also mentioned the role played by his angel and the demon. The admission to this event landed him in a play called Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Thus, he got an opportunity to work with his idol Lemmon and more so, he also was rated well by the press of New York City.

… stole a ticket…

This interesting event of picking up the ticket although unethical prompted him to mention a point about looking for opportunities. He said that it will be a difficult to grab them, but one has to make sure that it is done. He tried an easy way to explain, he said it is difficult to pickup a date and take them to “Steer” [ the popular bar for students at UB], to which the crowd erupted in joy. So, however difficult one has to embrace risk and push because it is important for oneself.

The tales of him dropping out of Julliard School in New York were also mentioned by him. To this one of us said, “yet another drop-out”. Seems like great men do drop out of college. He also shared with us the acting at Shakespeare Park play at NYC central park, he acted sometimes like a rock, soldier and a priest quite a humble beginning after dropping out. He got that opportunity with lot of nagging and persistence, he had to call the secretary of the troupe everyday for one week. Such was the engagement of his life story that everyone stayed affixed to their chairs.

Dropped out from School…

After his success in movies and winning several awards he decided to take on a journey which he thought was to challenge himself. He started acting for plays premiered in Old Vic theater in London. He was criticized for doing so, but he didn’t buy into that. He had an option to make it big in Hollywood by churning movies year by year, but he stuck to his guns and did what he wanted to do. One of his first play was Iceman cometh and he made it huge in that stage. Many year later he returned to start the next big thing- The House of Cards.

Usually the series were based out of television, but he thought it would be better if things went in a format which was liked by masses. Once again, quoting “conveying a great story”. According to him, if you give them what they want, when they want, in the format they like at a reasonable price, then they will surely like it. Netflix was fully supportive and gave the producers 2 seasons instead of usual “Pilot shows”. He jokingly said that one day, one of the fans shouted!! “Thanks !! Spacey!! You sucked four days of my life”[holds true for me as well].

The first episode of Frank killing an animal, struck a chord with his audience. He made it easy to carry the audience as a co-conspirator to Franks ulterior motives. This was well received and he admits that this is one thing that stands out in comparison to the prior version of House of Cards (England). He also mentioned that Francis Urquhart had to be Americanized to Frank Underwood so that the initials FU could be used :D.

Going ahead with new visions, he felt VR (the immersive) technology will be used as a great tool not only for entertainment but also for education, medicine, Sports etc. He gave a convincing speech about immersive engagement by the actors.

In conclusion, he summarized the above points and emphasized the habit of giving back. He said,

If you’ve done well, it’s your obligation to spend a good portion of your time sending the elevator back down.

This was one of the defining moments about him, where I came to know that he runs schools worldwide for artists and actors. Providing them with mentoring, scholarships and guidance. This was a great talk and surely did inspire some of us in the crowd. I hope Kevin Spacey himself reads it and feels great that many of us are supportive of him sending elevators down.