I have a real problem now when I go onto Netflix: it takes me a half hour to pick something out. They've got to figure something out, whether it's their algorithm... Maybe if they had it curated like a video store: 'Will Ferrell recommends this movie' or 'Jennifer Lawrence recommends these 10 movies.'
The comedy world is like a small pond; we all know each other.
Sarah Silverman makes me laugh out loud every time I see her.
Even though the show is called 'Childrens Hospital,' we don't use kids a lot. They always want a juice box or a fruit roll up or a nap.
I have two brothers, and we used to always laugh at oblivious people. People who are so cocky and full of themselves that they just don't realize how stupid they are. And those kind of idiots really make me laugh.
The cool thing about 'Transparent' is that the show is funny but not like a sitcom is funny. It all comes down to the writing... The writers on that show are so good that you don't have to worry about anything. There are so many things that can go wrong making a TV show or a movie, but if the writing's good, that's, like, 95 percent of it.
We're going for the joke on 'Children's Hospital,' and we're going for the joke on 'The League.' It's fun to go between shows, but you have to mentally remind yourself what show you're on.
I kind of got really lucky a couple of years ago: I got to do a part in 'The Descendants,' in Alexander Payne's movie. I just had a small part, but I got to do a few scenes with my best friend George Clooney.
Comedy people like other comedy people. People hang out and are friends and do shows together, and when you get something going like a TV show or a movie, you want your friends to be in it and make it funnier. That's just the way it should be.
When I first started out, I kinda just wanted to do comedy stuff, and thankfully, I had a fair amount of success. I've been able to be on, I think, almost virtually every American sitcom.
Conan O'Brien's the best. I'm glad he's in L.A. because I want to move in with him. I was a guest on that show one time to promote 'Human Giant,' and he was the coolest, funniest guy. I was really impressed. He's also eight feet tall and can shoot lightning from his fingertips.
During the first season of 'Human Giant,' I remember the people at MTV were all over us. They hadn't really done a live-action short-film comedy show, so they didn't know what it was going to be, and they were worried. But after that, they let us do whatever we wanted.
A comedy scene can't really have two weirdoes in it. It doesn't make any sense that way, so you need someone to ground it and call out what's unusual about this person and this scene. Early on, I got pretty good at doing that, and I felt pretty comfortable doing that.
I hate hospitals. Even if it's a joyful occasion when a friend gave birth. It's like, 'Oh, look at the beautiful baby.... and all the disease on the walls...'
The first concert I ever went to was the Bee Gees.
Alexander Payne is one of those directors who is completely in charge and knows exactly what he wants, which is really fun. It's fun when a director is very specific. He knows totally the tone that he's going for. It makes it easier than if everyone's just guessing and trying to figure it out.
George Clooney is exactly what you would expect. He's annoyingly good looking, insanely funny, and super smart. So you just feel really inferior around him all the time. You end up feeling really bad about yourself, but you walk away feeling really great about George Clooney.
Can I play a southern character? You betcha. Can I do the voice of Tourist Dad and Carnival Barker? Ya betcha. Can I do Fix-It Felix? Ya betcha. But I don't want to just play southern characters, so I hide it; I bury it. I tamp it down like a secret. Like a dirty little secret.
Every other show that I'm on, they're always rushed, and you feel this pressure to hurry up and get out of the scene, but I don't feel that way on 'Transparent.' They like to linger in these scenes.
I think there are a lot of really funny things in 'The Descendants,' but there're a lot of different tones in that movie, in the same way that 'Transparent' has a lot of different tones.
