Frankly, to be honest, I hadn't worked for two years before 'Murphy Brown.' It's a nice illusion now to think of all of us as terribly successful and talented people at the top of our profession, but that's hindsight. I had to pray for a job like this.

When you're starting out as an actor, you keep raising the stakes. First, you just want to be a character who comes on stage and gets a laugh or two and exits. Just five minutes on a stage, not even Broadway. But every time you say your little prayer at night, you place more demands.

I've always been slightly self-conscious as an actor, and I guess that sometimes reads as pomposity. Starting when I was 30, I somehow gave off an impression at an audition that had them mentally put me in a three-piece suit or put an attache case in my hand. If there was a stiff-guy part, the director would brighten up when I came in.

I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western.