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".

You take for granted the details that make something look real. It can still look fabulous, but if you add a light switch, a vent, or the notion of air conditioning, it can look real.

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

My approach is to 100 percent get the concept and the visual right. Get the client to love the space. Once they love the space, everything's possible.

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.

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 was a child of a single mother/art teacher, and a father who was an architect, so I've always been around the combination of art, fine art, and architecture my entire life.