BY SARAH SCHAFFER
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT ASCROFT

CAPITOL FILE: So you were recently in DC to enjoy some of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and affiliated parties. Tell me about that experience.
KATE WALSH: It was incredible. I had been invited in previous years, but this is the first time I really wanted to go. I thought the president’s speech was fantastic. I appreciated his self-deprecating humor. And Wanda Sykes was hilarious. It was great to get to meet (and geek out over) so many of the Washington press and politicians, too.

CF: Tell me about what you have going on professionally.
KW: I’m about to embark on an extensive European press tour, promoting the show abroad, and then finally take a vacation afterward. Private Practice will be on Thursdays after Grey’s Anatomy again in the fall. I also have a movie coming out in early 2010 called Legion.

CF: I know you campaigned for Obama and have been active with charitable groups. Did your time spent in DC spark any political dreams or ambitions?
KW: Campaigning for the president was a fantastic and rewarding experience, to be sure. I especially loved meeting and connecting with so many people across this country who got out, volunteered and campaigned passionately. I think there’s a little part of me that fantasizes about serving in public office.

CF: Will we see Senator Walsh a few years down the road?
KW: Ha! Maybe Senator Addison Montgomery! [Walsh’s character on Practice]

CF: What was your impression of the Washington scene and the political scene as someone who has been on the campaign trail—and as someone familiar with Hollywood instead of “Poliwood”?
KW: To see people participating in democracy, and effecting change is incredibly exciting. I think Washington is a very exciting, sexy place... can I say sexy? Yeah, I just decided: sexy. So many of the most important decisions and contributions to the country and the world at large are made in DC. How can that not be magnetic?

CF: Any secret hobbies or passions?
KW: I play the clarinet and the drums. Yeah. Dig it.

CF: If we didn’t know Kate Walsh as an actress, we’d know her as...
KW: A person who’s not comfortable going on and on about herself in a magazine article!

CF: Are you more tech or touch?
KW: I’m a total dork, technically.

CF: Do you Tweet?
KW: No.

CF: What is your take on social networking and putting the mundane actions of your life in an e-post for everyone to read?
KW: I think it’s fine if you are promoting work, but otherwise I think it’s symptomatic of an increasingly narcissistic and self-indulgent culture. I say write in your super-top-secret journal and keep it under your pillow. Oops, did I just basically blog?

CF: Those Cadillac commercials you did gave such sex appeal to the historically masculine brand. Are you someone who likes to put the pedal to the metal or are you more into Sunday drives in real life?
KW: No matter what I say here is going to sound like sexual innuendo, so here it goes: I like to go fast, but slow has become more and more appealing.

CF: What is your goal today, and where do you want to be 10 years from now?
KW: I want to continue to create and hopefully be of service in some way to the culture. I can’t imagine where I will be in 10 years.

CF: Who inspired you to act?
KW: Glinda the Good Witch of the North.

CF: Do you think you have arrived?
KW: I don’t believe in “arrival” (I say this as I type on a floatie in my swimming pool, sipping a mojito... kidding).

CF: Define happiness...
KW: Ever-changing.