Thank God for television. I've been able to consistently work in television even when people say, 'Oh my God, I haven't seen you since this film or that project.' At least I'm working. It's very difficult to get that next movie role. I'm grateful to have the television world accept me.
I've had job stability for years at a time. You really develop great relationships with the people you work with.
I've been very fortunate and never not worked.
I think every actor, you can say, has at one point decided to slack, phone it in. But Sean Penn shows up every day and does his job, and the character's always different. Always. 'Carlito's Way,' 'I am Sam,' 'Sweet and Lowdown.'
It's not at all uncommon for a writer to get a ton of publicity for one book and then not get as much for the next one. I don't worry about that because I try to worry about the one single part of the job I can control: the writing of the book. If I do that well, I feel, good tidings generally will follow and readers will stick with me.
I've been on the road since 1983. Nothing ever changed, even when I was doing TV and movies.
I try to play in one way all my career and here, with high pressing, but it is different in England. Many times the ball is more in the air than the grass, and I have to adapt.
Historically, I've done movies, but I've got a family already. I've been doing this for many years, and the idea of working consistently on something that I really, really love, and the steadiness of it, was really appealing.
Hopefully I've gotten better as an actor as the years have gone on, but the type of work I want to do has never changed.
I look at it like this, this is what keeps me going: You see a lot of guys who are being traded and they get waived once they get to the team. That's never happened in my career. So once I've gotten traded, I've been able to sustain a role. I've been wanted.
But the idea that I should be a teacher and a researcher of some sort did not vary over the years.
And I love having the job to go to every week. With movies, there's a lot of downtime. I like working, and television really does that.
I wanted to finish my career with one team, in one city, one mayor, one park, one owner. I did that. The Wrigleys owned the team. We played all of our home games at Wrigley Field during the daytime. So my career was very unique, and I am proud of it.
When you stop to take a minute and look at Queen Latifah's career, she came out of the box right. You know, 'Ladies First!' And she's been consistent with that message of female self-empowerment. She really has!
It's difficult to get an audience to want to keep up with you, stay present tense. But there's never been a big lag in my career between product. I've constantly tried to pull my audience up into what I'm doing present tense, and they've been usually happy to go there with me.
'Grey's Anatomy' has given me a lot of security, especially as my kids have grown older. Plus, for the last eight years, I didn't have to get on a plane and go to do a job out of town or in another part of the world.
And I've been lucky in that I haven't had another job besides acting in the last five years.
An actor is working steady if he's active four to six months a year.
Cue actor platitude, but I've been very fortunate and worked pretty consistently and have felt rather annoyingly grateful that I got to do what I got to do.
My perspective was always being on a number one show doesn't mean anything if I'm not still working consistently at 40 to 50 and 60 years old.
I was never a glamour puss whose career was really based on a look or an attitude. I've been basically playing the same parts I am at 55 that I was at 35. I get cast as strong women, and that can be a mother or a judge or anything.
