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'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".

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.

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 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.

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

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.