How long did Damages take you away from LA?
It was hard; we were just talking about this. Mary and I both went off and made films in Louisiana. It was a tough time - I was commuting from Louisiana to New York. Then we had a month where we had a break and then Mary got a film in LA so it was like two months of commuting from one side to the other.

But there's something, and this isn't true of everything, but some things are intrinsically New York, because of the power and the money. When you shoot it in New York, instead of doing it LA and lying, it's so much better. This is so good partly because it's in New York and it's drawing from a New York crowd of actors. In New York there's this element of always looking to be the student and to be more creative, whereas in LA you're there because you've arrived and what you should do is relax and you'd better do what you did last because career is more important.

In New York you'll do a show or a small part in a soap and you're all over the place just being creative, so you have really great actors in very small parts because they're having fun.

What do you think of LA?
Well, it's a bit unfair of me to have said that in a way because everyone in LA is a New York actor. They're going to and from or they've moved from New York. But it's definitely just a big factory. They don't have theatre which gives you much more of a sense of performing instead of being a celebrity. You're much more part of the publicity factory so you need to find a niche, and you're happy to be in a niche, but people in New York are excited to be in a role.

Did it affect you?
Yeah, I think so. You get used to making decisions for the wrong reasons.

What do you mean?
I think I got used to making a lot of money on Cheers. The decisions start to be wrong. It's not do I want to go and do that, it's can I afford to go and do that, which is probably a bad decision. It should be, "Can I afford not to go and do that?"