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.

I was just fooling around with the piano and Todd [Phillips] was like, 'Hey there's a great spot in the movie [The Hangover] where we need a little bit of a breath in the narrative. You should write a song and stick it in there.' And I was like, 'Well, what should the song be about?' And he said, 'The tiger.' 'Oh, okay.' So I went off and I wrote this song. I came back and Todd and I tinkered with it a little more and then we shot it right then. It all happened in a day.

I happen to think singing is hilarious, especially when it pops out at the wrong time.

It's just one of those things like when you're not supposed to laugh, it makes it that much harder to stop laughing. And for some reason Zach [ Galifianakis] and I get in this feedback mood of giggling, and on the set of Hangover we just couldn't get through stuff.

Sometimes you just create a joke out of thin air in the editing room. So I'm really glad I've had that experience. It gives me a little more confidence in front of the camera.

[I read news] because no one's going to tell me what they really think of something.

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.