Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.
I've always had an inquisitive mind about everything from flowers to television sets to motor cars. Always pulled them apart - couldn't put 'em back, but always extremely interested in how things work.
Devices are getting smarter - your television, your car - and that means more data spread around. There needs to be a fabric that connects all these devices. That's what we do.
I never really saw my dad as entertained as when he was just completely blown away by somebody on the television screen or at the movies. I think that's the real reason that I went into acting.
I can be a rock star with a television show and still have a self-esteem problem. So it's nice to have your dad go, 'Hey Melissa, I'm proud of you - you're doing good.'
It's funny: All my friends back home are always wondering why every television show I'm on is a drama, but all the comedy pilots I did died a slow and painful death.
First and foremost, I'm a decorator and product designer. Everything I do, the television shows, the books, that comes from the design work. It's what I love.
If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.
That's what's so great about television. You're able to tell this long story, where you couldn't really do that in a film because you have to tell a story in an hour and a half or two hours.
After college, I funded my short films with acting roles in film and TV. I learned my craft through the great opportunities British television gave me as a director.
For me, there's nothing that beats playing. When I'm not playing, I'll watch games on the television, watch stuff on You Tube, everything. I just live for football, love watching great players.
A lot of TV is put together by teams, by writing staffs and several different directors. It's a great, very smart way to make television. It's worked for however long TV's been around.
I think if you look back at all those great comedies on television in the past, it's all lovable losers that gathered together - 'Taxi' and 'Cheers,' 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends.'
I've been really lucky to work with some really great film people in the past, but television works on a much quicker schedule, and it's the TV directors I've worked with that I looked to and became a big fan of.
Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.
Even though the vast majority of my work was outside television, the amount of creation and inventing that went into the TV shows was non stop and, unknown to me, a great strain.
It's a word called symbiotic, you send the messages and it comes back in return. Together, it's a wonderful thing, it's why television is so great and film can never reach.
The entertainment world, television, movies, social media, YouTube stuff, we're so bombarded with so much imagery and such a great sense of inhumanity, and there is a coarseness, a coarsening of interaction.
In the evening, since I have a lot of friends in theater, we might take in a Deaf West production in North Hollywood, or, since I'm a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, they have screenings that are really great.
I have always been of the mind that good work is good work, whether performed on stage, on television or in film and, like any reasonable actor, I keep my options open.
I don't think anything connects with an audience as deeply as a long-form serialized drama, and much as I love television, I've always found a good ongoing comics series to be much more immersive.
