When I went in for 'The Good Doctor,' I had just been released from 'Berlin Station.' And when I got the initial role for the 'Good Doctor' pilot, her name was Allegra Abe. That was the script.
People assumed that I wasn't open to doing TV, probably because I was doing a film and reality shows. I have become choosy and want to take up substantial roles.
I got to portray a park ranger on 'Gilmore Girls,' the reunion films. And when I was a kid, that was one of the things that I wanted to be - I wanted to be a forest ranger or park ranger.
When I first did theatre, I was always doing comedies; it was always my first love. But it wasn't what I was picked for at first, for films and TV.
I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.
I don't really know if I'm writing the kind of roles that Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore would play. Jessica Lange on 'American Horror Story' is a little bit more my cup of tea.
In Hollywood, you play a mom and instantly, you've got osteoporosis.
There was a time when I was offered two episodes of 'Alias,' that show with Jennifer Garner which J.J. Abrams did back before he became the mega producer and super successful director. I instead decided I wanted to play this family guy on a short-lived UPN 'Second Time Around.' It starred Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker.
I was lucky enough to be in some movies where I had powerful characters or I got to be the president on TV for a little while. Very short administration.
Fred Silverman, the head of ABC, he offered me a lot of comedy series but I told him I'd already been the best comedy series around, "The Odd Couple," and so when he saw that I did Quincy he called my agent and said, Jack turns me down? All my good series and he ends up playing an undertaker." And this was the HEAD of ABC series.
I had to say no to 'Fantasy Island' back when I was doing 'Bosom Buddies.'
In TV, kid roles are like this: You're either in a couple minutes of an episode playing somebody's kid, or you get in these procedurals where you're crying or you're playing a witness or you're playing a crazy person. Every once in a while you get a big guest star role, but there's a formula to those TV shows.
I've been in various roles in TV - writer, producer, associate director.
I play mostly bad guys on TV and mostly good guys in movies.
I remember always feeling lucky with Zoey on 'Nurse Jackie' that... she was new at the very beginning. So that gave her everywhere to go.
I want to be able to follow the example of those extraordinary British actresses who move effortlessly from film to TV to theatre roles.
When I was doing theater for all those years in New York, I did a lot of classical theater, wearing big corsets and big dresses and doing dialects. It's interesting that once I moved to TV, I'm playing these scrappy, contemporary toughies.
Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there's a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.
I think it's just important to be always bouncing between TV and theater, and hopefully I'll get to do movies at some point.
Genuinely my big thing and the reason I'm in 'The Miser' is because I always ask myself one simple question when I'm offered anything: Will it get me nearer to being 'Doctor Who' or further away?
I replaced Jim Garner in 'Maverick.' I replaced George Sanders in 'The Saint.' I've replaced everybody.
As far as playing different characters within the character, I think that's fun. Very rarely, on TV, do you get to do that on such a regular basis.
I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.
When you're a regular on a TV show, they give you more of a backstory, so with these recurring gigs, you have to make up your own backstory.
To go from 'Generation Kill,' which is a very real, dark, gritty series, to 'True Blood,' which is flamboyant, crazy, way out there... I couldn't ask for two better jobs.
