I came out of school just at the time regional theater was first expanding. All of a sudden, lots of new companies needed actors.

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.

It's funny because all through the '80s I didn't do TV and movies very much. I prided myself that I was making a living in the theater.

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.

I didn't want to break with my family. I wasn't about to make waves. But I had this feeling I wanted to do something that I liked to do. Acting's what I liked to do most. There must have been a moment when I felt, 'Oh, my God, I like this and what am I going to do about it?'

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.

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.