Take action. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes but at the end of your days, you will be remembered for your gallop, not for your stumble.

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.

When you act, you're always playing a version of yourself. You can't bring more to the role than what you are

I was at the vice president's Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day.

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

Infuse your life with action.

You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.