I had run into Kari Lizer at an airport, I think, and she said, "Would you come on the show [ The New Adventures Of Old Christine]?" And I said, "God. Absolutely."

[Trust Me] was TNT, and they were really supportive of the show, but in the end they just didn't feel it was their audience. I never really understood why we didn't get a longer run at it, because it was Griffin Dunne and Monica Potter. Just a really strong cast.

So this ["Grant MacLaren"] was a chance to sort of go back and do a more leading man. But instead of just solving crimes like a CSI show, this leading man is, like the other travelers, not who he appears.

The things had been made a half a dozen times from silent pictures through the '30s and '40s. In fact, I think there's a version in the '50s. And then, of course, Spielberg eventually did a version of The Lost World, but this [filming] was '91, I think. And we shot it in Zimbabwe.

[Townies] was a huge cast. It was a bit ungainly, I think with 12 regular characters they had to keep writing for.

Brad Wright, who created Grant MacLaren, had me in mind. We'd actually worked together 20 years ago. He wrote an episode of The Outer Limits that I was in in '96 or '95? So we'd been aware of each other for years. I'd lived in Vancouver off and on, where he's based. And it just came to me, and I'm always looking for something different. Perception was a different show than Will & Grace.

Whenever I see Tom [ Cavanagh] - we're good friends - we just mourn that we didn't get a longer shot.