Cal Ripken is steady, he focuses on his job, and he's a good guy.

My joke about Aaron Sorkin is that The West Wing was a great show about democracy, run by Kim Jong-Il!

I can't believe George Bush might be president.

Early on in my career I got a part in Revenge Of The Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't have met Tim Busfield and if I hadn't met Tim Busfield, I wouldn't have met Aaron Sorkin. So Nerds II took me straight to the White House!

Whatever you do, make sure you want to write more than you want to be a writer. Make sure you want to act more than you want to be an actor. That is what will sustain you.

I am an old, old friend of Aaron Sorkin's, who is the executive producer and writer. He had been talking about doing a political show for a long time and I had been interested in it for a long time. The moment I became available, he called me last year and asked me if I wanted to do it and then I just had to audition for the powers that be, and I got it.

I used to defend the West Wing show from the charge of sentimentality or wish-fulfilment, because I think if you do go into the Barack Obama White House you will find six or seven people around him who are true believers. We make these people climb this filthy rope and then we stand at the bottom and say, "Hey, your hands are dirty!" To show heroic, progressive, democratic politics at work was more than I ever expected.