In the right situation, acting on television can be extraordinarily satisfying creatively. But that’s incredibly rare. Otherwise, it can be like working in a really remunerative coal mine. That’s the down side.
The issue for my character, and the issue of the show is, how dirty do your feet have to get without suffocating yourself in the mud in order to get an inch of what you really want done?
Being an actor, you always feel like you’re swimming upstream. People are going, “No, they don’t like you. They don’t like the way you look. They don’t like how old you are.”
We’re telling a story. And the demands of that are different from the demands of a documentary. The audience must believe in order to keep faith in the story.
I grew up in a family where the internalized understanding was that the kids were going to grow up into a better world. I worry, because I don’t think my kids are going to have that.
Aaron is a very passionate, maniacal writer so the scripts really come from him, but he is very open to… y’know, we’ll plan ideas and we’ll certainly tussle about stuff when the script comes out.
I was at the vice president’s Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day.
I used to defend the West Wing show from the charge of sentimentality or wish-fulfilment, because I think if you do go into the Barack Obama White House you will find six or seven people around him who are true believers.
Take action. Every story you’ve ever connected with, every leader you’ve ever admired, every puny little thing that you’ve ever accomplished is the result of taking action.
We make these people climb this filthy rope and then we stand at the bottom and say, “Hey, your hands are dirty!” To show heroic, progressive, democratic politics at work was more than I ever expected.
