"Brothers & Sisters" cast at TV Festival...

I was bogged down with work last night and completely forgot that it was "Brothers & Sisters" night at the 24th Annual William S. Paley Television Festival at the Directors Guild of America theater in West Hollywood! But I've searched around and found some pics and some of what was said and have cobbled together a bit of a posting for you. It doesn't have my usual "I was there" flavor because, well, I wasn't!
I'm told basically the entire cast was there and that prior to a panel discussion, the episode "Valentine's Day Massacre" was screened. Jason Lewis, who plays Kevin's closeted lover Chad, was present but sat in the audience and not on the stage.
Each of the cast members were asked why they took the job on the show and here are their responses as reported by LA.com:
Calista Flockhart: "It affords me to be in LA," she said. "I have a kid and he's in school." "I have to admit," she later said, "It hasn't been that challenging. It's all in the writing. I just have to say my lines passionately and fool everybody."
Sally Field: "I wasn't here for the original pilot. [Baitz] said he wanted to make a story about a matriarch, to explore a middle-aged woman aging in this society. I said, 'Whoa. Certainly no one is doing that.' There was no script, just a pilot. It was a leap of faith."
Patricia Wettig: "There was some family pressure." (Her husband Ken Olin is a producer and director on the show, her 23-year-old son Cliff is one of the writers and daughter Roxy has been in a few episodes as Jason Lewis's girlfriend. Wettig says of her character: "Is she good, is she bad? Is she telling the truth? This is not a pigeonholed character."
Sarah Jane Morris: "I was doing the pilot season grind like all the other lunch pail actors in LA. The real draw was having a job. Let's be real."
Balthazar Getty: ""I was excited to play a regular guy, not someone jumping around, shooting." (He was on "Alias" before "Brothers & Sisters").
Matthew Rhys: "I was about to be deported to Wales. "Like so many Brits, we schlep out here year after year to try to steal jobs." Rhys admitted that his accent does slip at times: “Ken Olin was directing the last episode, and [in the middle of a scene] yelled, “Cut. Can you not sound like you’re from Middle Earth?”
Dave Annabelle: "[Playing an Iraq vet is] one of the reasons [he wanted to be on the show], besides getting to meet Harrison Ford."
According to E! Online, several fans called attention to the character of Kevin and how much it means to have a homosexual sibling portrayed as just any other kid. Creator Jon Robin Baitz gave much of the credit to ABC and Touchstone. “They’ve been wildly encouraging. No one ever said 'Less guys kissing.' We’ve come a long way.”