One of the wonderful things about Portlandia - and I'm not just blowing smoke, although I can blow smoke, but I'm not - is that there is an expansive feeling to each segment. It's not reductive. It doesn't seem like sketch comedy.

In the steel-and-glass society that we live in, the value system would be that the lawyer, with the Mercedes and the fine suit and the Ivy League education, was more valued than the minority without the education. But on the island, the rules are changed. It's the person who can make a fire or who can make friends. A kind human soul is valued.

I said [to my mom], "I want to go to the parachute regiment." She said, "Whew, that's tough. But okay, I understand."

As a viewer I came of age during a time when cast members were prone to fistfights. So I may be carrying a little of that kind of image in my head.

I'm consciously working very hard at not eating.

For each show, we do maybe 15 versions before it goes on air. So I know every show microscopically.

If you are the leader, you don't have the right to say things like "Ugh, didn't eat this week I was so busy." "Haven't slept." I look sideways at those signs of bravado, which are intended to make one feel that the person is working so hard. I don't think that way.