I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood.

If you watch Cheers, in 12 years they didn't age a day.

And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon.

Writers are not always right however, but then again, I've been on shows where the actors have complete control and change everything and it's terrible.

When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said.

The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are.

Even though shows like NYPD Blue are soaps in my opinion, but they're individualized to an extent that you can still follow what's going on if you miss a week.