I was definitely raised this way. My folks are very grounded, normal people, and I wasn't raised in the entertainment industry. I just grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, in a very normal family. I wasn't a child actor or anything like that.

Even in college I tended to get cast in the comedies more. It was what I liked doing.

I had a teacher who said something great. That was, 'Go out and collect your nos. Once you get fifty nos then you can start wondering when you can get a yes.' He said, 'It is not your job to get the job; its your job to do a consistent body of work. So, every time you go in there, just go in there and be consistent, and eventually it will get noticed and someone will hire you.'

I think we all spend, sometimes, more time at our jobs than we do at home, and there are people that we wouldn't necessarily choose to spend so much time with. So those irritations and those, just those situations I think are really relatable.

With "The Office," they said, "We don't want anyone we recognize, so give us unknown actors," and I think that was the break that I needed. Because I went in and I got the role.

I studied theater in college, and I really wanted to be an actress and play a lot of different roles. Then I made landing on a television comedy my main focus.

Well, I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I didn't necessarily need or want to be famous or a celebrity actor.