My family is from the South, and I can remember all those ladies I grew up with, like my great-aunts, who had handkerchiefs. There's something sweet about them.

Theater is the foundation of how I live my life, actually. My father was a playwright, so I was around it all the time and loved to talk shop with him, just loved it. And basically everything that I hold to be good and true and worthy, I learned in the theater. So not even just about the work, but just about life. Discipline, problem solving, creativity, how to get along with people.

Most scripts are written to be green lit. They're not written to be acted. And a lot of writers with the greatest intention in the world don't write for actors. They don't understand the architecture of what an actor needs to get from point A to point B.

There's a real passing down in the theater, almost ad nauseam. You have to listen to older people talk about their experience, but it makes you very aware of what has come before you or what is coming after you - that you're a part of a link in a chain. It's not all about you.

Comedy is a way to make sense of chaos. It's a way of dealing with things that are overwhelming, that threaten you; it's a way to survive and get closer to the truth.

Ask "why" until there is no more "why."

I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word.