As a person navigating the waters of public scrutiny, you are often unable to hold on to personal heroes or villains. Inevitably you will meet your hero, and he may turn out to be less than impressive, while your villain turns out to be the coolest cat you've ever met.
I'll be sober ten years and married nine soon.
I had had some successes in the '90s, always made money, but the truth was I was like a man pushing a boulder up a hill. A huge, heavy, difficult boulder made up of some career mistakes, projects that didn't meet expectations, and twenty years of being a known quantity.
Guys are really lucky. We become our authentic selves the older we get.
Somewhere in my callow, misspent youth, I was smart enough to marry my best friend.
I had met my now wife, Sheryl, and was attempting my first try at monogamy, which was not really in my nature at the time, and I wasn't able to do it.
I never get bored talking about themes dealing with ambition, leadership and what it means to be an American. I love that stuff. I just love it. I've loved it ever since I was on 'The West Wing.'
My son Matthew's beloved dog is a Jack Russell. His name is Buster. Matthew picked him as a puppy, when he was tiny himself.
I love anything by Joan Didion. Incidentally, she was one of the local moms when I was growing up in Point Dume. She always reminded me a little bit of my mother, so I feel a great affinity. I love the precision of Didion's writing. There's a construction and a craftsmanship to her sentences that's imbued with so much emotion.
Fame is not a natural condition for human beings.
In acting, there's a type of courage you're recognized for all the time. You lose 100 pounds and play a guy with AIDS, and you get rewarded. But, in life, doing what is courageous is quiet, and no one knows about it. Courage is someone making sacrifices for their family or making selfless decisions for what they hope or feel.
I have a lot of great memories, but I can't imagine anything more exciting than the life I have now.
I'm a sportsman, you know, and I shoot skeet, and I grew up in the Midwest, so that's a part of my culture.
There is a movie called 'My Dog Skip,' starring my 'Outsiders' costar Diane Lane. I do not recommend it. If you have a child, particularly one about to leave home, watching this film is to be emotionally waterboarded.
I didn't go to Ivy League schools. I dropped out of college to go into movies.
I'm a true centrist: my beliefs put me in the middle... You know what happens to people who drive in the middle of the road? They get run over.
Eleven days before 9/11, I was on a plane with the 9/11 hijackers who were carrying out a dry run.
I have had a lot of blessed, interesting things happen to me and have bumped up against some amazing people.
When I started on 'The West Wing,' that was at a time when this was still a stigma, because movie stars didn't do TV. Now, every movie star is desperate to find their 'True Detective.'
My parents did divorce, but my dad has always been present for me and loving me and my mom as well when she was alive.
