When I started on 'The West Wing,' that was at a time when this was still a stigma, because movie stars didn't do TV. Now, every movie star is desperate to find their 'True Detective.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I guess at the age of 15 was the first time I made a goal of wanting to be on television, and I didn't get a series until I was 23, which was 'The West Wing.'
My experience on 'The West Wing' was, I think, now rare in that I was pretty young, and I walked into this environment where Aaron Sorkin was giving me a script every week, and Thomas Schlamme and John Wells were keeping the studio off my back, at least as best as they could.
I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside.
In the 1970s, there was a trend for all detectives on TV to have some quirk or gimmick, and this was often physical.
When I first did a U.S. pilot season, there were very few British actors schlepping around town trying to get into television. That was 1999.
A show like 'True Detective' is definitely a drama.
The stigma that used to exist many years ago, that actors from film don't do television, seems to have disappeared. That camera doesn't know it's a TV camera... or even a streaming camera. It's just a camera.
I didn't expect anything crazy to happen from 'True Detective.'
Well, all these stars have their houses swept quite regularly by people who work in the surveillance security business. They come in and they look for bugs and things.
When I was younger, I watched all the detective shows.