I've been very lucky not to have turned down too many roles that I've later regretted.

Surviving the grind of 18-hour days and getting up at four in the morning to work out for an hour so I'd have the energy to do it again the next day. I did not know I had that discipline. I did not know I had the discipline to learn a seven-page scene in three hours to shoot that day or the next day. I didn't know that I was capable of realizing that potential.

Things happen to us and reaction is sometimes tough to measure.

If you go to the real West Wing in the White House it looks like a boring law office; there's really not a whole lot going on in series. The moulding is frayed, the carpet is a little dirty; it's not exciting.

I would love to be in the position where the role is challenging enough that I need three months to prepare for it and then six months to live the life of character.

There's a genetic memory that stays on your bones. What you experience when you're young, I think it stays with you.

I fell in love with my wife twenty years ago. I am only now, it seems, getting it through my very thick skull how lucky I am.