I think there's a certain objectivity that comes from being Canadian. You're partly British and partly American; you have a good bird's-eye view of both countries. So much of the comedy that comes out of Canada is impersonation - it's less 'look at me' than it is 'look at me playing other people.

I always get a little uppity when I hear the phrase 'TV actor.' It's like saying you're a magazine reporter. I was in the theater for ten years before I ever had a TV audition.

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

I think they [TV productions] were just kind of drying up. I'd done a couple of episodes, but nothing was happening. So I went to Vancouver to visit a buddy and see what was going on, and that year was crazy. Vancouver was on fire at that point. It was all these Stephen J. Cannell productions - The Commish being one of them - and in one I was a bartender, and I think I had five lines.

The Andromeda strain is a killer disease that they've got to prevent from spreading to being 100 percent contagious. It's another one where we're racing to save humanity.

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 three main leads [in Townies] were Lauren [ Graham] and Jenna [Elfman] and Molly [Ringwald], and then Ron Livingston was on it as well. There was a lot of people to write funny stuff for.