Scripted Drama Quotes

After six years of doing it, the weird thing on 'Towie' is that we can't explain to people that we're famous. We're doing a show where we have to act like normal people.

That's what we do in the WWE: we tell stories; we're characters. We go into the ring, and my character is telling a story in the ring against another character.

There's a difference between reality TV and reality. There's a big difference.

I'm acting in a new show on NBC with Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, which is definitely the scariest thing I've ever done.

I like 'X Factor' as much as the next person, but I do get overwhelmed with the amount of reality TV. It's such cheap programming and such a load of rubbish, most of it.

My dad became a soap opera actor, and I was an extra in a skating rink scene on the soap. I didn't audition. It was nepotism all the way.

I have a recurring role on 'NCIS' and that's been a lot of fun.

'Deadwood' proved that viewers are smarter in terms of grasping intricate dialogue than they had been given credit for.

While at college, I did my first lead on a network TV show, Medic.

I have been very, very fortunate on this show, on 'Suits,' where the writers do come to me, and they ask my comfort level and, if they want to push an envelope in a certain direction, if I'm okay with that. And, by and large, I am. I think it's important.

To go straight to 'Scandal' and get to play the larger-than-life guy who has the page-long rants and gets drilled in the leg with blood flying everywhere, it was a blast. It's really been a nice counterpoint after the first season of 'The Carrie Diaries.'

I would have loved to have been on 'The Walking Dead' longer, but it didn't happen.

I'm trying to write a TV show. Ideally it would be just a reality-TV show, getting the guy who played Eddie Winslow and Kirk Cameron to live in a house. The Jehovah's Witnesses would come to the house a lot or something like that. I kind of like the idea of Scientologists and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses trying to convert Kirk Cameron.

I barely watch TV apart from the news. Most of it is rubbish. There's all this reality nonsense and dross. I think there's a market for a well-produced, well-written melodrama like 'Dallas.' It's pure entertainment.

When you're on a long running series, you reach a very rarefied, high oxygen area and after a while to keep a show on the air they have to make some very drastic changes.

I've been incredibly blessed with good roles the past few years, but none of them compares to the experience of playing Ellsworth on 'Deadwood.' There are times when I've had as much fun or had comparably great material, but as a body of work, playing Ellsworth tops anything else in my lifetime.

'Coronation Street' was my first job, Zoe was a controversial character, and I wasn't used to everyone looking at me.

In TV, kid roles are like this: You're either in a couple minutes of an episode playing somebody's kid, or you get in these procedurals where you're crying or you're playing a witness or you're playing a crazy person. Every once in a while you get a big guest star role, but there's a formula to those TV shows.

I would love to be able to play some characters on television that are similar to some of the indie film roles I've done, that have been so close to my heart.

People think what you are doing is real, on a TV show.

I really like scripted dramas. My favorite show of all time would have to be 'Lost': I loved how the writers and producers were able to weave the different storylines together; and the acting in that show was incredible.

To act alongside a TV idol of mine, Peter Krause, was phenomenal. I watched him in 'Six Feet Under,' I watched him on 'Dirty Sexy Money' and I'll carry on watching him, and I've been lucky enough to be a part of that world with him.

I recurred on 'Grey's Anatomy' for three years, and at the same time, I recurred for eight episodes on 'Rescue Me'. And I'd recurred for nine episodes on 'The Practice'. Frankly, the guest star is often the most compelling character.

I was fortunate enough to do an HBO show, 'Rome,' in which my arc was built in by historical fact, and over the course of 22 episodes, we were able to tell the stories of these people. We had a beginning and middle and end, and as we went on, you changed every week.

In my mind, everything is too sanitised on television - what is wrong with things going wrong?