Be willing to work for nothing in things you think are stupid. Make work for yourself. Make your own luck. Don't complain. Hopefully, the work will find you if you are ready.

I'm a believer in the parent first, friend second philosophy, and trying to find that balance.

I'm not one to air my dirty laundry for the whole world.

That character in Solitary Man is probably most like me in real life: a solid person who has a good head on her shoulders and is very driven and practical, and not afraid to set boundaries. That's sort of my center. I come from the same place as the character in Solitary Man.

I'm a lover of lists and five-year plans and Excel spreadsheets. Any way that I can have any control over the direction my life is going, I gravitate towards that.

I'd been out in Los Angeles for about eight years, knocking around. I actually, instead of waiting tables, worked in offices as a temporary assistant.

It's so easy to disappear into your character because there isn't all this fuss around you, and we keep a closed set, and closed off to all crew members, even, unless we're cut. A lot of times, you're doing a scene in a movie and there are literally 35 people standing behind the camera all waiting to do their job, but here they have to be off the stage. On The Office, it is very much just the actors, a cameraman and a boom operator, like a real documentary, like we really are being documented.