I was fresh out of drama school and had no idea what I was doing. They hustled me along and Bill Cosby tolerated my rookie behavior. It was great. Once you have 'The Cosby Show' on your resume, you can keep going.

When I moved to New York to act I was no good at working restaurants - hosting, waiting, bussing, dishwashing - I wasnt good at any aspect. But I did have a guitar. So I would sing Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, but you would only hear the chorus because the train comes by every 30 seconds.

The big turn in the late 90s was that I realized I was going to be doing this for a long time. I was fairly sure I was going to be an actor for the rest of my life, which I think calmed me down.

I'm in the process of trying to organize my DVDs into some kind of order and it's taking me weeks. I have everything from obscure 'Antonioni' to 'Terminator Salvation.

When my wife gets mad at me, I remind myself that she is much smarter than I am and so I probably deserve it, even if I don't really understand it!

I've been really lucky to work with some really great film people in the past, but television works on a much quicker schedule, and it's the TV directors I've worked with that I looked to and became a big fan of.

But that was my very first time on a set and they said, you know, you have to stand on a mark. That little piece of tape that you stand on is called a mark. I kept correcting them and telling them that my name was Michael and not Mark. They said, 'No, no honey.' I was a little green.