First, I wanted to be Chris Farley. When I was growing up, Chris Farley was still on the stages and fun to us. In my house, John Belushi was king. I didn't grow up when he was - I was born in '78 - the reruns of Belushi in 'Animal House,' and knowing he was at Second City, he was viewed as a king in my house.
I knew I wanted to be an actor for a long time, but I was based out of Chicago and then I went to New York and I did 'The Upright Citizens Brigade' out there. I had a two-man show with a guy named Oliver Ralli who's now in the band Pass Kontrol, which is a big band out of New York.
My dream career would be to be in things that have real heart and are telling real stories but while doing that, you're getting really big laughs. I don't necessarily love the straight crazy comedies. 'Caddyshack' is amazing, but there's not a lot of new 'Caddyshack's.
Everybody has their different tastes with television - there are some characters people like, some characters people hate.
I was really into classifieds for awhile. I'm a big negotiator. My father owned a car dealership when I was younger... it's just in my blood.
I don't have an interest in being a director-for-hire on sitcoms - but if it's a really cool show that I thought I could bring something to, I would love to do that.
My day job is acting - I wouldn't direct something if I didn't feel passionate about it.
The craziest thing about TV directing is I turned in a version, and then they made their final changes - so I don't know what they are. So I'm like, "Ooo, I'm dying to see the final print."
There are a lot of comedic actors who are just out to be the funny one and get all the laughs and they'll sacrifice your joke, the scene, the story just to be the star. All they want is attention and to be number one. You can spot those guys from a mile away and they're the worst.
I'm not a guy who sees the desire to transform with each part; I'm not a piece of clay.
Problem is that my athletic abilities in my mind are greater than what my body can accomplish. And my level of fear and anxiety of getting injured is greater than my courage.
I got really into writing plays. I did that for years and years and got some produced and didn't like it as much when I wasn't able to control it.
I was in a two-person show [with Oliver Ralli] called the Midwesterners where we wrote all of our own stuff and we traveled the country with it. That's what eventually led me to L.A.
All of a sudden Mindy [Kaling] was writing on The Office and had sold a TV show. When we'd try to write shows, we'd jokingly call the word documents "Hit Show." We just couldn't crack the code.
It's a really weird feeling when you write something and you really know it and then you watch actors come in and do it.
I think a lot of people are very good, but I don't think anybody could do my rhythm. I was thinking, "If you want my rhythm" - and when I was writing, I was writing them for myself - "why am I watching another actor doing what I should be doing?" It was just a really unpleasant experience.
If I'm not directing it, I need to be right in the director's ear so we can be talking about this." You do something like use the wrong music, the tone's off, and everything feels off". And I was like, "I'm not going down with this one. I wrote it, but I don't like that play." Then I thought, "Well, no one's producing my stuff, letting me star in it, and direct it at these theaters, so I'll just do them in comedy clubs."
We didn't make money but we never lost money. We'd sit around Times Square with fliers, walk around the Village and try and get people to come. Now you'd just tweet it, but that was the beginning of emails, or the beginning of me doing emails - I'm sure there were people in 1986 who were doing emails.
We tried to do a show once every three weeks to a month. We'd always do a new show. It was not successful. It did not become the Matt & Ben show, but it taught me what I like to do as an actor and what I like to do comedically.
If I were a teacher, I would like to teach freshman English - so I could be the Robin Williams type in Dead Poets Society. I wanna be that guy. I couldn't teach seniors because they'd be smarter than me.
I had spent 10 days of my life digging for garbage.
I try to collect money and I keep it in a special place called the bank. I collect a bunch of things called money, dollar bills, and I keep them in a safe under my bed.
If I'm in a bar and I gotta be sitting next to some clown who's like, "It's my tune," I don't want to hear you belt out Bruce Springsteen. That's why we have jukeboxes! Let's let Bruce be Bruce.
I don't believe in karaoke. Let's let the singers sing.
I've always been, in games, the bad guy. If there was ever cops and robbers I was always a robber.
