For me, comedy and drama are all the same thing. How the comedy ever even started in my life was that moments got uncomfortable and I felt uncertain of what the outcome was going to be, so I found a way to deflect what I was feeling, or what everyone else was feeling, by creating laughter.

Consciously or subconsciously, we become slaves to debt and social obligation. As a result, we end up more committed to the minutia and less in tune with the bigger picture: our deepest sense of purpose.

My experience in the music industry made me very thick-skinned. Your art is something very personal and there's never a shortage of critics when it comes to art.

I always try to get as personal as I can with the characters that I play, which is a reason why I don't play a lot of characters.

Because I came into acting late, my references come from real life. That's my biggest inspiration. It's probably the reason I moved back to New York. I'm just a lot more inspired by real life than I am by depictions of real life.

Writing a funny story is one thing. But writing a funny story that inspires others to venture beyond their level of comfort in pursuit of their greater good is what makes me come alive.

I'm taking the indie filmmaker's approach to building my career and that approach is developing a relationship with the fans.