I think the potential for man is so enormous, if we can stay alive long enough, we're going to be seeing a lot of what Star Trek is projecting.

I felt like I was a natural [in The Simpsons].

I did learn a lot from [ Felicia Day], though, and I was able to usurp some of her talent.

So we [with Chris Ellis] did [Fresh Hell], and we did the first five episodes as a lark, just to see if anybody would respond or be interested, and we got enough feedback that was positive that we thought, "Let's keep going with this and see if we can flesh it out a bit this season." We've had 10 episodes, and they've been longer and a little more complete.

We were kind of never one of CBS favorites [with Threshold], even though we'd gotten really good reviews for the pilot. We were on at, what was it, 10 o'clock on a Friday night? That's kind of where you bury a show if you don't want it to last. But, wow, what a cast, huh? You could never get that cast together again.

Having spent so much time in a fictional world, I prefer to read about the real world

Earl Mills is probably the best role I've ever been given in a film. And it was a great experience to work with Halle [Berry] and Klaus Maria Brandauer, an Austrian actor who's a hero of mine. Martha Coolidge directed the movie [Introducing Dorothy Dandridge], giving me another shot, and it was an amazing experience.