I love the beige, tan, stucco world where the sun bleaches things out to the point that it can look somewhat ugly.
I am huge fan of Australian comedy. 'Strictly Ballroom' is one of my favorite movies. Definitely the British Commonwealth's sensibility is where I draw a lot of my influences.
Once the big lights come in, you can feel self-conscious. How can you capture the scene without ruining it and freezing people up? You keep it small and lean.
My dad did show me interesting movies at a young age. I remember he showed me 'A Clockwork Orange,' and my mom said, 'I never want to see this movie in my house again.'
With comedy, I've always had a pretty good sense of what I like and how to execute it well, but drama has its own rules.
There's a thing in comedy where you take one step into a bad idea, but if you take 10, then it becomes a good idea again.
Bands on tour are very good cultivators of what's the avant-garde of comedy.
I loved 'Welcome to the Dollhouse.' That was one of the most influential movies ever. You know that genre with the nerdy girl, and she redeems herself in the end. Like 'Napoleon Dynamite.' And in 'Welcome to the Dollhouse,' she doesn't. She sucks. It's like, that's what's real. That's what's heartbreaking.
Nobody sets out to be evil. They're insecure, and they make bad decisions.
With all the outlets, if you have a strong comedic voice, there's a venue to do your thing. It's a bit of a meritocracy, where the best stuff rises to the top.
You see a lot of comedic content that's not funny, and you can tell that it's supposed to be funny, but it's actually not funny.
If you have, especially with siblings, something like the competition for mom's affection, it just never goes away.
Comedy is like horror - you have to shock something in the viewer's system to make them feel it.
Things that people are doing constantly but aren't thinking about. That's the ultimate 'Portlandia' concept.
Everything on TV is perfect, and it's so boring.
My brand of comedy is taking a serious approach to silliness. Small moments of modern life and human behavior make me laugh. At least that's where everything starts, and then my other through line would be a dry absurdity that exponentially spirals out of reality.
I know, especially in my family, people's feelings get hurt over the tiniest things. I'm sure that's true in every family. But, for instance, one year, I came a little bit late to Thanksgiving, and I was supposed to bring a salad. And I just brought a bag of lettuce, and put it in a bowl. Five years later, I heard that my mom was incensed.
Portland is utopia. My favorite thing would be it's earnestness. I am earnest, too.
I like dry-to-the-bone stuff. I don't know what it is. I was raised on PBS showing weird British comedies.
'Fawlty Towers' was a huge influence on me. I mean, it was so slapstick, too. 'Are You Being Served?' was on 15 times a day, it seemed like, and I loved it.
