Being a day player, period, is one of the hardest things you can do as an actor.

I don't have spare time.

I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.

Hollywood has known this for quite a while: Cable is the place to go because they truly have a supportive network and they want to do things that cannot be seen on broadcast. That stimulates the writer-producer. Cable is king.

Actors are inherently self-centered. We're trained to focus on who I am. What do I want? Who is in my way? How do I get this? That's how we're trained. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills over into real life. But it's all very subjective. You just try to portray someone beyond the surface, the different layers.

In order to be an actor you really have to be one of those types of people who are risk-takers and have what is considered an actor's arrogance, which is not to say an arrogance in your personal life. But you have to be the type of person who wants the ball with seconds left in the game.

I realized, "Oh my god, this is an enormous play. And it's almost all me. Big. big chunks of speeches, speeches, speeches." And I started to panic.