Quotes

It was never about sort of being famous. I just wanted to be good at what I did.

It isn't often that an actress gets to spend so much time on ONE job. In the acting business, you usually go from one thing to another.

[on being an older mother] My thing about having another child was, time's-a-wasting! I thought about being an older parent and what that means for another child, but I was somewhat of an older parent when I had Sarah and Jackson in my late 30s. I have an enormous family with many cousins, and Esmé has an older brother and sister. So, I felt it was okay to do this.

I'd been looking for a more dramatic role. I've done comedy most of my career, which I love, but I wanted to expand. And Sons of Anarchy (2008) came along, and is sort of a dream job, really, a dream character to play. It's so different from other roles I've played, and it's been challenging, which is just what I wanted.

[on 8 Simple Rules (2002)] After John Ritter died, we collectively wanted to go on. It was a rock-and-a-hard-place position, where it felt really wrong to just leave and end it, but it also felt uncomfortable to continue. There was just no really obvious right thing to do. And the people who make the decisions made that decision to move forward. I thought it was the most honest thing to do, and a way of honoring John as well. I was happy that they decided to let the story unfold as the family loses the father. I did feel like they tried to get back to the funny a little quick. I understand that's the major thing on sitcoms--you want to get people laughing, but I thought that organically, it could have taken a little more time in telling that real story of the family getting through it. I think we did the best we could. It was just heartbreaking.

[on the sitcom Mary (1985)] That was awesome. I was the last one to know that that show was not doing well. I thought it was fantastic. It was my first job on television, really, and I was with Mary Tyler Moore. And Danny DeVito was the director; he cast me. And I literally had never been on a sitcom, or even near a sitcom. I had not a clue as to what I was doing. And Mary was very loving and supportive; I just followed her lead, because she's, you know, the queen. So for my first experience on a sitcom, it was awesome.