Primetime Emmy Tally: Two
How He Got the Gold: For outstanding supporting actor, for NBC's The West Wing (2001), and for guest actor in a comedy, for Amazon Studios' Transparent (2015).
Now for the Noms: Two more supporting actor nominations for The West Wing (2002,'03).
Fave Rave: "My favorite character has to be Josh Lyman [The West Wing]. Being an actor often feels like you're swimming upstream against a current of relentless rejection and shitty material. Getting to be Josh felt like surfing."
Wing Man: "What [creator] Aaron [Sorkin] did [on The West Wing] was unprecedented and will never happen again. Twenty-two one-hour episodes a year — the equivalent of 11 feature films. Complex, moving, funny, substantive stuff. It was a miracle."
Dress for Success: "It was important to me to avoid any cheap laughs on Transparent — and I love cheap laughs! But playing Mark/Marcy, a homophobic married guy who needs to cross-dress, is an emotionally dangerous place to be. I wanted to respect that without losing the joyous thrill of dressing like a woman."
In the Beginning: "Ever since an anti-smoking skit in sixth grade, I was in every play I could be in. It was what I loved. My senior year of college, I applied to the theater program at Juilliard. When I opened the letter that said I got in, I got spooked. It was the moment I realized I was going to try to do this."
Room for Daddy: "I keep my Emmys in my office, which my 16-year- old son calls Daddy's Brag Room. I get no respect at home! Still, I think about my dad and what a kick it would have been for him to see his kid win one of those things. I have been incredibly lucky."
Click for more Me and My Emmy articles.
This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, Issue No. 5, 2016
