I was a little nervous coming in mostly because my first scene was with Martin Sheen, who I'm a huge fan of.

I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out what will happen in an acting career.

There is no handbook about how a career is going to go.

In Washington, there are jobs that have official titles: chief of staff, campaign manager, director of communications. Then there are all these vague and murky headings over people who are just special consultants or advisers. We really don't know what their gig is.

There's nothing like the peace of the countryside, the quiet and the lack of distraction. It helps you to focus your mind.

People don't remember that during the Fifties and Sixties there was a Cold War, and kids were getting under their desks during school because they thought they were going to get bombed. So it wasn't really that ideal at all.

I've been giving free money seminars for the troops at Walter Reed Hospital and one of the Iraqi War Vets realized that the military wouldn't pay for the dental work he needed.

The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago.