To be a good actor you really have to want to act first.

'ER' was so huge that whatever I did coming back to television, I'd have to feel as strongly about.

It's difficult to keep that perspective, I think, as a parent: to know your boundaries as to what's good parenting or just projecting your own expectations on your kids. That's the hardest.

So I was hugely thrilled that my first scene ever on camera was with Hal Holbrook.

Be what you are. Don't change yourself for anything. God made you that way for a reason.

Flying back from New York, the flight attendant said 'God, I wished you were here yesterday, we had a stroke on the plane.' I said, 'If I have a stroke on a plane, I hope the pretend doctor isn't the one on the plane. I want a real doctor.'

I just spent a lot of time on 'ER' for that eight years. I also started working when I was 16, so by the time I left 'ER,' I was 40 years old, I had this incredible experience, my wife had this great company, we had four kids, it was like, 'Let's go to New York and live for a while and make that the priority.'