[The Lost world] was a learning experience. I remember we were shooting a scene in which I dive out of a boat into a river to save the kid that's in the movie. And there's no mention of a stuntman, and I was like, "No, I'll go in." Nobody questioned. I never asked if maybe there was malaria in the water. And I was wearing these tall boots.

I was working with David Warner and John Rhys-Davies, who is from the Indiana Jones movies.He's a very strong, strong presence, and so I had to assert myself.

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.

I have accomplished a lot, but it didn't happen overnight for me. I was 35 when I got the show, and had been working professionally for 15 years. It would be a lot weirder if I were in my early 20s and stumbled into it.

Growing up, my father was a financial analyst for an oil company. He was just a regular dad. And when I would say, Hey, come see my play, hed say, Sure. Hed see one, Oh, good play - you know, very typical dad reaction.

The thing you realize pretty quickly, though, is that being in front of an audience whose job it is to laugh is a big pressure if the writing is not hilarious.

That was my big break [Lonesome Dove]. My first real kind of adult role on something really well-written. It was a spin-off of the miniseries, and I played Col. Mosby, a very dangerous, Southern colonel in post-Civil War, wandering the West.