I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said 90 percent of successful moviemaking is in the casting. The same is true in life. Who you are exposed to, who you choose to surround yourself with, is a unique variable in all of our experiences and it is hugely important in making us who we are. Seek out interesting characters, tough adversaries and strong mentors and your life can be rich, textured, highly entertaining and successful, like a Best Picture winner. Surround yourself with dullards, people of vanilla safety and unextraordinary ease, and you may find your life going straight to DVD.

I remember Tucker Toomey was named so because "T's are funny!" And if Garry Marshall says it's funny, by god, it must be so.

The script was given to me by one of my agents and they didn't tell me anything about it. My first reaction was, "The West Wing? Is it about a squadron of fighter jets?" Then I turned the page and saw, 'by Aaron Sorkin' and I knew it was going to be something good.

Show me someone who doesn't have some sort of experience that they would be uncomfortable for people to know about and I'll show you a dullard.

I have never felt at any point in my life, good or bad, any ill will ever from the man or woman on the street.

I was sick of playing high-school kids. I liked being a teenager, but I would not go back for all the tea in China.

What people do in their private lives is their business, and shouldn't be anybody else's business.