It's a very collaborative environment [making The Office]. We always do takes of how it's scripted, but then we also mix it up a lot too. And it's kind of a crapshoot, you never know which one... I mean a lot of time improvisation doesn't go anywhere and it's not good at all but, so what was written is often times better.

People who grew up in New York City or Los Angeles tend not to even understand what goes on in the rest of the country. I'm really glad to have grown up in an environment where I actually was kind of a weirdo because I was obsessed with comedy and movies and stuff.

There is something beautiful in the mundane if you take enough microscope to it and focus in on something that seems innocuous to begin with.

A lot of kind of like the way that Andy [Bernard] talks, you know, the writers pick up on those things - little moments that I inject and then they start to write it in later. It's hard to say if a whole storyline is spun out of an improv. I feel like it has happened on The Office, I just can't think of it.

My friend and I sang an a cappella rendition of Extreme's "More Than Words" at one of our football pep rallies in a desperate attempt to look cool. For a while, I wore pink Converse All Stars because I thought it made me seem daring and irreverent.

It's a fascinating culture [the South in the Civil War period] and so rife with comedic possibilities. And not in a way that...I have no intention of making fun of re-enactors. I think it's more just a celebration of their passion and enthusiasm, which is so infectious and maybe at times a little misguided.

When you're in New York City or Los Angeles, even if you're not dealing with show business, there's still this sense that it's the center of the universe. And I think that's a really dangerous, limiting mindset.