I always feel like a doctor who loses a patient on the operating table or something where I felt just devastated and I beat myself up until I get to try it the next night and “I'll get it better tonight.” So I'm hard on myself. I think I'm not alone in that regard with acting.

I love wasting time and learning to lip-sync to songs; it's a silly hobby of mine.

It was great to have a Republican character as likeable as Alan Alda was in the West Wing. He was one Republican I would probably vote for; he was old school.

There was a courtroom scene where my son is convicted of killing Kevin Spacey's character. I find the bloody T-shirt and realize my husband did it. I get up the courage to take the shirt and send it to the police as evidence. I go out of the house for the first time. There was all this stuff I had to do that became quite truncated, because they slimmed down the movie. I understand the American Beauty is brilliant without all that stuff, but for me, personally, it was hard to see all that go.

I'm kind of at the mercy of writers out there. I need a writer out there who wants to write a vehicle for me. Do it and get it to me immediately. I do want to be a lead. I want to play a lead role in a movie.

An agent said he didn't know what to do with me, I wouldn't be able to play any parts but lesbians and aliens.

Someone said I wasn't attractive enough. People say those things, but they make you stronger. Then you can win an Emmy and think, ha, ha, ha.