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All Quotes by author - William Devane
" And all of Laura's stuff, what they wrote originally wasn't as good and Constance wound up doing that herself. That was all her stuff, reading to the child, because she had children herself and that's what she would have done. "
Children
Child
Reading
" And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon. "
Story
Time
Over
" A show like Knots or any other show that can be called a soap opera does terribly in syndication because if you're a viewer and you miss a week you don't know what's going on. "
Know
Week
Soap
" At one time, whenever the hell it was, they wanted a character to come in and stir up the pot. They brought me in for 8-10 episodes and said we'll try it for that. "
Hell
Try
Character
" Clint Eastwood is aging beautifully. But someone like Burt Reynolds and others are practically destroying their faces in the amount of work they have. "
Someone
Like
Work
" David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character. "
Writing
Actor
Trust
" Donna Mills came on the show as a female antagonist, about a year before, so now they wanted to have a male antagonist. I was cast as a Senator to shake things up. "
Now
Before
Up
" Even though shows like NYPD Blue are soaps in my opinion, but they're individualized to an extent that you can still follow what's going on if you miss a week. "
You
Blue
Like
" I didn't care about that because I'm not a diplomatic person to begin with. I just went along with things and did what I wanted to do because I knew they had to shoot their 12 pages a day. And when they realized that I didn't alter the text they really didn't mind what I did. "
Shoot
Day
Care
" I don't play polo anymore because I am too old. But we still have a half a dozen horses - a couple of young horses we are teaching how to play polo and older horses that are real trustworthy when you get them up in the mountains. "
Play
You
I Am
" If you watch Cheers, in 12 years they didn't age a day. "
Years
Watch
Day
" I knew with The West Wing that that wasn't going to be for very long, that I was just the red herring. "
Going
Just
Knew
" I like working fast, but I got to the age where the real difference between television and the movies is, I'm not smart enough to be in the movies. It's a very political world. In all modesty, I can say that I'm a much better actor, but that doesn't matter. "
Smart
World
Political
" I live out in the desert, in farm country. I'm around a lot of farmers, guys with packing houses, that sort of thing. Half the time, these guys are in their pajamas or in their slippers. It's their place. "
Time
Farm
Desert
" I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood. "
Grew
Up
Neighborhood
" I'm trying to find a character that's my age and I can sustain week after week. I'd like to do a series. "
Week
Age
Character
" I try to watch only real things, which basically amounts to C-Span for me. I like real people in real situations. I learn from that. "
Learn
Watch
Try
" It worked well because Don Murray didn't want to be on Knots anymore. "
Well
Want
Knots
" It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige. "
Mature
Grow
Relationship
" I would fix other people's lines if they asked me on occasion. The hard part of writing is the architecture of it, getting the story and structuring it. Not the tweaking of lines. "
Me
Architecture
People
" Joey, my older brother, had his own TV show in the '50s, along with Cathy Callahan. "
Along
Brother
Show
" Networks don't want a show with a continuing story. There's no backend potential. "
Continuing
Want
Story
" The business is built on slowing or even stopping the aging process. "
Stopping
Business
Aging
" There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes. "
Certain
Sometimes
Writers
" The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers. "
See
Year
Line
" The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are. "
Feeding
West
Seems
" Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest. "
Contest
Emmys
Popularity
" What I would have liked to do on that show was play a secretary of state who has huge personal business interests throughout the world. That, to me, seems to be more in synch with reality. "
Play
Business
World
" When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said. "
Tried
Always
Bring
" Writers are not always right however, but then again, I've been on shows where the actors have complete control and change everything and it's terrible. "
Right
Always
Again
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