People don't know where to place me. Terry Gilliam used me as a quirky cop in 'Twelve Monkeys' and then he hired me again to be an effeminate hotel clerk in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. Another time I was shooting this indie film 'The Souler Opposite' and six days a week I'm playing this big puppy dog then I come to the 'NYPD Blue' set and become this scumbag.

I don't feel I was ever a 'famous' child actor. I was just a working actor who happened to be a kid. I was never really in a hit show until I was a teenager with West Wing playing First Daughter Zoey Bartlet. In a way that was my saving grace - not being a star on a hit show. It kept me working and kept me grounded.

But just playing the partner of someone famous I had a lot more freedom.

You've got certain guys that just want to be famous and then you've got the real musicians that just love playing music.

Know the names of past and current artists who are most famous for playing their instruments.

I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction.

Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies and I had played a little at school and at camp. My parents would drag me out to perform for my family like all parents do but it was a hobby - nothing more.

In spite of reports about playing with various teams I'm enjoying retirement with my family and have no plans to play football.

Family involvement is a valuable thing and playing together actively can be the '90s version of it. Instead of just watching you can do it together... something we don't spend enough time on. We can motivate and excite each other about fitness.

I want to do as little as possible when I finish playing ball - just spend a lot more time with my family.

I still have all the faith and love for my music and yet I'm still playing places for kids.

I grew up playing sports. There is a clear line between success and failure.

The difference between a beautifully made failure and a beautifully made hit is who you've got playing the leads.

One must never assume that a character is sympathetic because of either the actor playing them or the fact that they're a lead. I think that's a recipe for failure actually because if they become unsympathetic you lose your audience.

Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.

I wouldn't say I'm a method actor. I do research when I feel I don't have enough experience for the part I'm playing.

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.

My experience with both my parents is that grief has a lot of down sad things but I was also really emotionally raw in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely my relationships were hotter and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.

It was a great experience for a kid because it was a bunch of kids playing on pirate ships and water slides so looking back on it it was the fondest experience of my childhood.

The most experience I had in the criminology field is playing a thug as an actor. That was my first paid job. The police academy at the college was paying people to reenact the calls that potential cops would get. So I got to play thugs and people who were unruly.

I've learned through experience of playing different characters some of whom were jerks that when you play a character who is pretentious or obnoxious in any way it's important to knock them down a peg.

You can't dodge them all. I got hammered plenty of times through the years. But you just get up and keep playing. I can tell you from experience though. Sometimes it hurts like hell.

The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group cooperative experience.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself and your imagination and experience but actually in the end you're not playing yourself.