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I made a conscious effort to focus on television so I could stay in Los Angeles, so I wasn't on a location all over the world doing movies.

Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did.

And then I went into television; and then television moved from the East Coast to Hollywood.

I remember meeting the likes of Johnny Carson and Jimmy Stewart for the first time and being completely starstruck.

The press was all over to get a picture of me. It got to the point where they were all over my house, following me to work... Then Tom Brokaw and everybody else was doing stories, 'A star is born.'

When I moved to Los Angeles, I was cooking with two guys who became celebrity chefs, if you will. I became their sous chef for awhile. We'd go to all the big names in Hollywood.

Johnny Carson was a big influence on me - all of those shows I did with him over the years, like, 100 of them, they made a bit of a name for me at the time, so that part of my life was very good.

The first time I went to Johnny Depp's house in LA is when I realized what I was getting myself into. I knew he was famous, but I didn't really know what that entailed.

I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.