With so much of what I write, I'm just constantly wondering out loud, 'Do other people feel this way?'
I remember watching Quentin Tarantino accept an Academy Award for screenwriting for 'Pulp Fiction.' If I'd known then that 15 years later one of his movies would again be nominated for an Oscar and I'd be in it - that would be pretty crazy.
I'm sure that it's a universal experience, but I wonder if it gets exacerbated more in Los Angeles, where people are constantly looking over at the other people, going, 'Why don't I have that? I want that. Their table looks warmer.'
Judd Apatow and Paul Reubens are two people who I'd be more than happy to learn from because I think they're geniuses at what they do.
I'm married now, but I fell in love with my wife because she was talented. Talent - it's the big one.
It's funny; before I started writing professionally, I had a job logging video footage for behind-the-scenes footage for special features.
A lot of the time, a comedy script is just dialogue, and that's the main thing you have to worry about.
The thing I always liked about 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' was Pee-wee's, obviously, an oddball, but nobody in that universe points a finger at him and goes, 'Look at the weirdo!' I think that's why weirdo, arty kids like it so much: because it's sort of like a utopia.
My mom did this really cool thing: when 'Pulp Fiction' came out on video, she made, like, a 'mommy edit.' She took two VCRs and dubbed 'Pulp Fiction' from one tape to the next and edited out all the parts she thought were unsuitable for a kid. It was basically, like, the opening and ending credits.
I watched 'Freaks and Geeks,' and I was like, 'Oh, if you write about your own personal experiences, and if you're specific about it both in what happened and how you felt about it, it can make for scenes that are really compelling.' For the rest of college, I was basically ripping off 'Freaks and Geeks' with plays I wrote and stuff like that.
I love watching movies. That's, like, my favorite thing to do with friends.
I think it's sort of rare in TV shows or movies to see people being vulnerable. That's sort of scary to an audience.
It would be easy for someone to think growing up in a small town would be like 'Footloose' or something, that it would be, 'No dancing allowed!' all the time, but it was quite the opposite. People always got excited for me and my successes and supported me even though I was a little weirdo goofball.
Most relationships probably start with people going, 'Meh, it's probably best not to be embarking in this relationship.' We do it, though, because our brains are wired to make babies or whatever.
Probably around junior high, I became obsessed with films.
With Quentin Tarantino, he makes movies imagining himself as the audience. To be specific and true to what he wants resonates to people who like his movies.
At one point, I just decided that it might be more creatively rewarding to put my time into writing on stuff that I could really be proud of rather than trying to get a one-episode part on 'Modern Family' or something.
I come from standup and improv.
It's a lot of people's goal to be the lead in a movie, and that was never my goal. I just wanted to be the third banana in an ensemble comedy.
The thing that I get most excited about is that it does feel like a new realm of storytelling is being created before everybody's eyes. You can do something that's not exactly a movie and not exactly a TV show, something in between.
