Rick Berman, who produced Star Trek, was a big Night Court fan. So he knew who I was as soon as I walked in.

I'm an avid biography reader.

I assumed, "Well, I must've sounded like Conan O'Brien, or a reasonable facsimile or something." And there I am in the movie [South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ]. I was very lucky.

John Logan is maybe the No. 1 screenwriter in the world today, not to mention that he won a Tony for Best Play for Red. So he may just be the best writer period right now. He wrote The Aviator, and I was in New York doing a play, and he asked if they would see me for the film, just meet with me. 'Cause that's what Martin Scorsese does.

Rent Control is not a terrible movie, certainly not for the budget they had. And, again, it's such an '80s kind of thing.

I had a fantastic teacher in high school. I had one of those guys you dream of having, who molds your life and inspires you to go in a particular direction, and he was quite brilliant. His name was Cecil Pickett, and a lot of the kids from my high-school drama class are in professional show business and have done quite well.

One of the things about working on Star Trek that was always so great was that we all got along as well as we did. We really became family.