If you have a character that doesn't have anything wrong with him, there's nothing funny about it.

I mean, I gotta say one of the greatest victories on that show was when we got picked up for the back nine of the first season, and they made it a full order.

But as a result of that, there was, once the show ended, there was this talk for sort of four, five months about what was going to happen, and if we were going to move to Showtime, and if we were going to be bought by ABC or whatever.

I often get, 'Oh, you always play the asshole.' An asshole is somebody who knows that they're doing it, but continues to behave a certain way. The one sort of common thread to me has always been that these are imperfect people.

Yeah, you know, within the context of TV families, these are pretty unsavory characters.

The idea of the straight man is very important. But I'd rather it be somebody else, because it's not as fun. And when I say somebody else, of course I mean Jason Bateman. He's born to play boring characters because he's such a bore. He's one of the most boring human beings.

This pilot, by far, was the best I ever read - and I hope that insults every other pilot I worked on.