Then I got the offer to play Buck Rogers, but I turned it down thinking it was a cartoon character. Well I was wrong, it wasn't at all. So I read the script and decided I liked the character, it had a good concept.

I have a project at HBO and one at the Family Channel coming that are being looked at. Aside from that I am not doing much more than playing golf and some skiing.

Some writers and producers are currently writing a sitcom for me, so we'll see what happens there. I'm somewhat reluctant to talk about some of the upcoming projects that I'm working on; I've a lot of stuff on the go, including five pictures that I'm looking at producing.

Yes, I did some rewrites of the show as some of the stuff was not very good and I worked my butt off to make it something that the audience liked and that I could be proud of.

It's more fun having him as everyman in the 25th Century. It is better to concentrate on what this planet will be like 500 years from now, and not be dealing with little aliens in space and all that related stuff.

I'd always wanted the show to be more reality based science fiction, something along the lines of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which I consider to be the classic science fiction film.

I think people connect better with TV. stars over film stars.

People would say I really loved Buck Rogers until the Hawk guy came on.

I have a superstition about saying too much about what I want to happen, just in case it all disappears, or someone else comes along and beats me to it.

I brought my personality and sense of wonder and I think they wrote as much of my personality as they could. I do not go around kicking butt and saving the universe all the time but they tried to capture me as best as they could in the character.

The show originally started out as a ten hour mini-series. We shot two hours and then were excused for a while, for no apparent reason. Things went very quiet for a time and then a few months later we were called back and told that it was going to be a full season.

I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had over the past 36 years for anything.

Other effects in the show included models of the ships which were extremely expensive to make. We used to do our shots in front of a blue screen and they'd put the effects on after.

No, I was talking to the network and Universal about plans for a third season where Buck would go back to Earth and would focus on stories around the planet and show what it was like 500 years later.

The basic answer is that I wasn't happy or fulfilled by the job I had and I wanted my life to mean something to me, so I searched my life experience and realized that acting and performing were activities that I enjoyed all aspects of.

I liked working with Tom Christopher as he was great as Hawk, and Wilfred Hyde White but I wished it were in a different context as the changes really tuned off the audience.

Then I got the offer to play Buck Rogers, but I turned it down thinking it was a cartoon character. Well I was wrong, it wasn't at all. So I read the script and decided I liked the character, it had a good concept.

Although there were only about 24 episodes made it seems to run forever. They take a couple of episodes and put them together, making a feature film once in a while. I had good fun making the series.

I've now returned to the business again because I finally realised that I really enjoy the creative process.

It is amazing that something I did 23 years ago still has an audience that people respond to and I am touched and surprised that people are still very positive about.

Up to that point I never really knew what my character would be expected to do, and prior to accepting the job I had actually turned down the role three times before finally giving in.

I've just got into the convention circuit in the last couple of years and it's great to see all these people who are still interested in the show. It's so gratifying to hear that so many people enjoyed the work that Erin and I have done.

I'm currently raising a 15 year old son and an 18 year old daughter, which a guess is my punishment for a wild youth!

Prior to that I produced a couple of TV movies for CBS, but the truth of the matter is that I burned out for a couple of years. I didn't do anything for a while, apart from taking up golf, for which I got a four handicap.

I made the character as much of myself as I could.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

I just kind of understood it, and I threw my love for others and love for life into the character, and was having a blast. I loved playing Dharma. I loved it!

I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.

I feel like I'm the most well-adjusted character on the show, even though I'm sure the other actors would tell you the same thing about their characters.

And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.