[Townies] was a great springboard, obviously, because Jenna [Elfman] went from that to Dharma & Greg, and a few years later, Lauren [Graham] went to Gilmore Girls.

Mental illness is the last frontier. The gay thing is part of everyday life now on a show like 'Modern Family,' but mental illness is still full of stigma. Maybe it is time for that to change.

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.

Often, particularly with voices, you're hearing horrible things, demon voices, and voices telling them that they're not worth it or that they're going to kill somebody. In those moments, they're overcoming things.

Every actor has periods of their life that are a little less busy than others, and that was just a time when I needed that. And to be back on a sitcom stage, with Julia [ Louis-Dreyfus], was really, really fun.

When we started the show [Lonesome Dove], Suzanne De Passe - who had done the original miniseries and still owned the property and was turning it into this series - she brought in a lot of old friends - Diahann Carroll and Billy Dee Williams and Dennis Weaver. And we had an interesting collection off the top of these old seasoned actors. Billy Dee was lovely and iconic.

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.