Producers are looking to me to concept full worlds for subjects to compete, play a game show in, win an award, blah blah blah.

I treat every show, every production, like its own individual human organism that's grown up in a certain way, and they all have crazy habits and do different things.

If you can give your walls history, it supports the action that's happening in front of them.

There was a period there where I was like, "No, no, no, this is crazy. I don't want to take any more drawing classes and talk about what looks best. I want to study math and psychology and physics and all these nerdy things with computers." That was fun and great, but that didn't work out. At the end of high school, I was like, "Uhh, what's easier? Drawing is easier, I'll do that".

Once we have a nice, conceptual sketch and rendering and design approved, then it's really about pinpointing what's functional and what's not, because functional equals expensive.

I think unscripted variety television may or may not get a bad rap now, but it is a fabulous environment. It is exactly who I am, and there's so much creativity there to express.

I was applying to the art school, but there was a checklist that said I had to do either production design or stage management or acting. I thought, "I don't want to be an actor, but I know production and stage management take acting classes" - this is literally my internal monologue. I was like, "Designers don't have to take acting classes. Cool. I'll check that box".