I'm always looking for the idea in a scene or the philosophy that makes a scene worth existing beyond exposition.

You are what you worship. There's something so true about that, with how we're operating as a culture in America. People believing in a wide variety of things, and rarely believing in the same thing. It gives us an opportunity to have a conversation: What is faith? What is belief? What is your personal responsibility for how you see yourself in the grander scheme of the universe, and life, and your contribution to it?

It's such a surreal experience, being shot out of the cannon for any kind of first season show. It all seems very dreamlike.

What I enjoy about my work is that it's all things that I wanted to see as an audience member so there's part of me that understands what an audience wants to see in that respect.

I'm very hard on myself when it comes to writing.

Growing up, there were a lot of funerals that I attended, and the adults at the funerals went out of their way to make sure that I wasn't traumatized or overly depressed by them. So death is always a celebration of life for me, and it's also hugely dramatic.

I, as the writer, can be very clear that I am writing a work of heightened fiction, as opposed to documenting horrible things that happen every day in the world. Which I have no interest in doing.