“The Life of David Gale” will be released this Friday in theaters, and one month ago, Northeastern students were treated to a preview of the movie with a serious theme – the death penalty. After the screening, viewers had the opportunity to see actor Kevin Spacey entertain questions from the audience in a much lighter atmosphere.

The movie, starring Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney, shows a convicted man, Gale (Spacey), dealing with his last few days on death row. The twist of the film is that Spacey is an anti-death penalty advocate, but an even stranger turn comes at the end of the movie.

Kevin Spacey is most widely known for his Academy Award-winning roles in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty.”

The News had the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes with Spacey, recently named artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston last month.

The News: Is there anyone you would like to work with that you haven’t worked with yet?

Spacey: There’s people that I would like to work with in film, and then there’s people that I would like to work with in theater and for different reasons. There’s directors that I’d like work with, Martin Scorcese. I kind of feel that he and I would be very interesting together. I think he would push me in a way that would be very interesting, and there’s actresses that I’d like to work with … there’s romantic comedies that I’d love to do. [I would like to work with] Miss [Cate] Blanchett, I don’t know how much better you can get. There’s even actors that I went to school with, but never actually got to work with professionally. Val Kilmer and I never did anything together from our time at Julliard, and I’ve always thought that he was a remarkable actor, so who knows. There’s just a huge list, then there’s those actors who are no long with us, I would die to work with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart or those guys.

The News: You went to Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, Calif., right? I’m from Valencia, Calif…

Spacey: I built condominiums in Valencia, there was a summer that I worked for a construction company there. I’ve always been very nervous that I put the ovens in wrong and that I’d be reading that a horrible explosion happened in Valencia.

The News: Last night, at the screening the night before NU’s screening, you said that over the next 10 years you wanted to do a lot of theater. Are you looking into new productions, or older ones?

Spacey: I want to do new plays, I want to do old plays, I want to do classics, I want to do Shakespeare, so I kind of want to do the gamut of it because I feel like this is the time of my life that I should, and that I can become a magnet for the theater because of the success that I’ve had in film. I can get people to come to the theater and particularly students; kids that are just developing and forming their views about the world — many of whom have never been to the theater. I don’t mind that they come because they saw me in the movies, I don’t care why they come. I think that it’s really important that you lay that foundation down because I feel that we’re going to lose an entire generation to film and television; that just have no interest in going to the theater.

When I did “Iceman Cometh” four years ago, we instituted a policy with our ticket sales because I produced the play, so I sort of laid this out as this is the way we’re doing it. We charged $100 in orchestra seats; which is very expensive, but it was a four and half hour play, which I figured was two and a half hours more entertainment than they were getting down the block; number one and number two. We didn’t just take that money and make a profit, we took that money and subsidized it 125 student seats a night at 25 dollars a pop, so by the end of our 16 week run, 12,500 students saw the play which is a remarkable amount, given the fact in most Broadway plays they don’t even give students seats for like a year in the run, and then there’s like 10 seats in the back. We had students in our front row. It affects the performer to have all that sort of energy in the front.

The arts are a vital part of our society. We don’t have a government that supports the arts, so it has to come from a private sector.

The News: How cool is to be friends with P. Diddy?

Spacey: I know P. Diddy, I don’t hang out with him … there have been a couple of occasions, but really only one. We went to a Versace show in Paris and then he threw a party afterwards, then that picture sort of went around. I think that he’s a smart guy and he’s had a remarkable success in a number of areas and some challenges in his life. The nature for this business is that if you meet somebody at an awards show and a picture is taken, you’re best friends. I have a very specific definition of friendship, I have a lot of colleagues and I know a lot of people, but I have about six friends and that is the fact of it.

The News: How long did “The Life of David Gale” take to shoot?

Spacey: My part took about six weeks, the first four and half weeks were the flashbacks with Laura [Linney], and the last two weeks were the jail scenes and stuff with Kate [Winslet], so it almost had three different lives, and Alan [Parker] managed to weave it all together into this incredible triangle between the three of us. So, the movie took the usual amount of days for shooting.