I loved the domesticity of my life as a struggling actor. When I wasn't going to auditions, I could do things like cook dishes from scratch and take them to parties or be really thoughtful about birthdays and anniversaries.

Tilda Swinton is a great example of a person who completely disappears into a role.

My cat, Andy, has been my best buddy since I was 18, and he doesn't care if I'm on a TV show or if I'm red-carpet ready. He just likes it when I'm there.

It makes it really hard to just go to a dinner party because, in my work life, I'm surrounded by the funniest people, ever. I'm really spoiled. I laugh a lot, in my day.

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 knew I wanted to be an actor, and I didn't necessarily need or want to be famous or a celebrity actor. But I wanted to be somewhere where there would be no ceiling on what I could accomplish, and I felt like if I stayed in St. Louis I might have a really great regional theater career or something, but that I wasn't going to be able to get much further than that. And it felt like New York and L.A. were the two places where you could end up being a TV star or you could end up doing regional theater, which would have been fine as well.

Finally, I was called for "The Office" and I was really lucky, because a lot of the shows that I went out for I would work my way up from, like, an audition with the casting director to the director to the producers to the studio, I'd go through seven auditions, and then they'd give the role to a famous actress.