If you look around anywhere, layers are an important part of, not just the story and the concept, but the world you're in. If you just turn around and look at your office door, there's a door, and there's something behind it.

I was a gay kid in high school in the late '90s, and I was in theater club. I was never a thespian. I was much more of a lighting guy or a backstage guy. Because I wanted to do something easy for the rest of my life, I thought, "Maybe I'll go and apply to colleges that specialize in theater set design. I'll do that. That's what I want to do". With theater, really, I'd be around the gays.

I'm being totally honest, but I really do get chills every time I see something that I designed, painted on the biggest stage in Universal, standing proud there among all the other stages. I think, "That is so amazing that I did this".

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".

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

I'm 36, and sometimes I'm working so hard I don't realize how much I've gotten done.

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.