My mom was my English teacher in high school. So to be able to bend the rules and be the class clown and get to take on my religion, my mom, and my town all at the same time was glorious. I think the desire to be funny was a mixture of wanting to be liked but also wanting to throw your elbows a bit. If you're cracking a joke in school, it's sort of anti-authority, but it's in the nicest, "Please like me!" way.

I gotta say, the Catholic Church has churned out a lot of great artists and directors and actors, so if that's all they do, that's fine by me. If they're good at churning out tortured artists, that's great!

Just the way LA is laid out - 30 miles of disparate neighborhoods - adds to the loneliness of the characters. There's a lot more space to feel isolated in. In Los Angeles, you have to meet the person, then walk out separately to your own cars, and follow the person to their neighborhood, and then pray that street parking isn't going to mess things up.

My mom was my English teacher in high school. So to be able to bend the rules and be the class clown and get to take on my religion, my mom, and my town all at the same time was glorious. I think the desire to be funny was a mixture of wanting to be liked but also wanting to throw your elbows a bit. If you're cracking a joke in school, it's sort of anti-authority, but it's in the nicest, "Please like me!" way.

I think "honest" sometimes gets used to describe a real depiction of real life. I don't think that's necessarily what we're doing. We created these fake characters and we're just trying to figure out what they would do in situations they enter into.

I think a lot of nights together have been spoiled by somebody not being able to find a parking spot and saying, "Why don't we just go home?"

Growing up in a small town, in the Midwest, and Catholic: Those are sort of three layers of repression.