I look a little like Beaker. I think I'm a cross between Beaker and The Count. My hair looks like Oscar the Grouch. It's Muppety hair.
What I like most about directing is creating a world more so than anything. To me, the music is the wrapping paper on that world.
I'm a control freak, and anytime I direct something, I try to make it as homemade and handmade as possible. I feel like that's my favorite type of filmmaking, where you can see the seams, and it doesn't feel like a swiftly produced, whole seeky-eyed event.
I never thought I'd be making a living off of acting - it's still kind of a shock for my family and friends to see my face on TV every Wednesday night.
I'm as happy entertaining one person as I am entertaining a million people.
A fantastic actor in a scene that's just closed off will be good. But when working with a director who knows little tricks - correct music, slowly pushing in - that stunning performance will somehow become even better. I've always seen it as a symbiotic relationship.
I think I veered towards filmmaking because there's more of a sense of control in it. You're not waiting to be picked. That said, in film school I acted in probably 6,000 student films because no other filmmakers knew anyone who wanted to act. It was all a big beautiful snake eating its tail, progressing along the way.
I really cite Walt Disney as teaching me everything I know. It sounds crazy, but I'm serious! In 'Bambi,' the mother dies, but you don't see the corpse. You see the father, the stag, come up and you see 'Bambi' alone, and that has so much more impact than seeing a mutilated deer.
It'd be cool to chipmunk-ize 'The Virgin Suicides' soundtrack. All this ethereal French music, I think that would be unique to listen to.
I just love entertaining. I will do anything - stand-up comedy, video games, fencing, internet shorts - I just want to keep being lucky enough to entertain people anyway I can. I try never to limit my art to a medium.
I would love to be on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I'd love to be on that. A lot of my favorite shows get canceled really early on. I liked 'Twin Peaks.' If I had a time machine I'd be in that.
I've always been a fan of Andy Kaufman.
I get really sad when people say, 'I'm no good. I haven't been cast in a pilot.' It doesn't mean you're not good; it just means someone hasn't seen you yet. It doesn't mean that in real life you're not the greatest actor.
I like haunted things.
I am embarrassingly 1920s in style.
Being on a TV show is incredibly daunting.
I'm not the best singer.
Tisch has a great film program and a great acting program, but they are segregated; you don't really intertwine. My peers knew I liked acting, so they'd be like, 'Go get that guy Gubler. He'll be in your student film.' I was in the same building. I became their go-to guy. So I left NYU having been in probably one thousand short films.
For whatever reason, all my friends are musical wizards and in great bands, but yeah, it really skipped over me. It's one art form that I can just sit back and appreciate and no have thoughts on. If I watch a movie, I always think, 'Oh, I'd have done this.' But with music, I can just sit back and think, 'All right, this is great!'
My dream is just to make zero-budget movies for the rest of my life, because I love that environment.
