I've been through some very dark times in my life and I've been through those very dark times that's affected my world view, the lens that I see people through, so I can relate to that.

I think that doing comedy and playing Dwight is a service. Not to get grandiose about it, but I have a talent for playing oddball characters and I can make people laugh and that can help bring families together and people will really enjoy it and it puts a smile on their face and I think that is a really great thing.

I can relate to someone whose life is falling apart, and they are doing the best to get by, using humor to survive. Backstrom really wears his heart on his sleeve and his life is unraveling... I would much rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who has all the answers... it's human, it's frail, it's interesting.

There's like ten minutes when it's like, 'Okay, wait, who is this guy again?' And then, you know, I just put on the calculator watch and the glasses, and just be all, you know, inappropriate. And then it just works out fine.

I was a total dork in high school.

When I grew up in Seattle, by the way, in the 70's, it was a fishing village. There were loggers and fishers and my dad had a sewer company and it wasn't the way Seattle is now. Culturally, it was very different back then.

I think creative blocks come from people's life journeys. If you don't know who you are or what you're about or what you believe in it's really pretty impossible to be creative.