Thomas Schlamme

I'm engaged: I'm interested in other people. I think that's just as important as knowing how to do the job.

When you're part of history, you don't know it. You're just sort of living your life.

Survivor' was, to me, an absolute reaction that the audience was having to the sort of staid nature of narrative drama on television.

I'm a voyeur. I say that with no embarrassment. If I could have a superpower, being invisible would be it, no question. I'm fascinated by human behavior; observing people and seeing how much story gets told without a lot of dialogue, and how much our brain fills in.

When we were doing 'Sports Night' and 'West Wing' at the same time, I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world because my two interests were politics and sports.

I think 'The West Wing' hit at a moment in time that was just right for that show.

I worked as a production assistant on a couple of films, and finally, I got a job at an animation studio as an editor. After that, work begat work. I got into directing music videos and commercials.