This business is the beast and it eats everybody and shits them out. But here's what's funny about the beast: it's a neverending line of people who want to get in the mouth and get chewed up and shit out. It's because, when you get in the belly, you get $2 million a week. And when you get shit out, you're a pile back there. And you have the option to wait to get back in line, and wait to go get back in the beast, and get eaten and shit out! And we line up! ... And I didn't even get to the beast yet. 20 years! See, when the beast pick you up, to put you in its mouth, you shinin'. People see you. Sometimes, see what "15 minutes of fame" is? The beast throws somebody down, they-- that was reali...[Read more]

I love that movie. Getting to play that part was such a gift for me. We had a real balance of genuine emotional resonance, with highly stylized high school life. It's all subject matter and humor that I love. Plus everyone on set and in production knew each other, or were aware of each other over the years, so filming was kind of like a party. GREAT TIME.

I had actually pitched Nathan for You to Comedy Central before I started working on Jon Benjamin Has a Van. It was inspired by segments I did for a Canadian series called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" where I'd interact with real people in an interview setting. I first began doing these segments in 2007. But it's always interesting to watch different approaches to dealing with real people, and it was very educational to work with Jon and see how he operated. You Can't Shoot Here is one of my all time favorite comedy bits.

My favorite part of working on Community was getting to work with Chris McKenna, and learning from him (and from Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan) how to start transitioning from sealed-off, alienated writer guy into connected collaborator guy. Talking to other writers about how to tell a story the best way possible, sharing personal experiences and mining them for premises, and just generally being holed up in a room somewhere on a movie lot with a bunch of smart, funny people working together to try to make a perfect show, I always miss that feeling and it changed my life.

I have to say that the only good reviews I've gotten in my movie life were for The Emperor's New Groove. I really, really liked that movie. It was very hard to do (which sounds crazy, because it's only the voice) but the backstory was, it was originally called Empire of the Sun. And it was myself and Owen Wilson as sort of a prince and a pauper trading places type thing. And we got a year and a half into it, and Michael Eisner from Disney looked at a rough cut and said "I don't like it." And they got rid of everybody but Spade, and they had this dopey llama idea. It sounds like they just made it up on the spot, and he liked it, and somehow those guys put together a whole new idea, and it was...[Read more]

Daily Show was a really intense grind. So much fun, but less about spontaneous laughs and more about building comedy and crafting jokes for the on-air segments. The Office was more about just trying to make each other laugh all the time. So the vibes were very different, but equally rewarding and exciting. And hilarious.

Ok you want the truth? The Cavalcade of Comedy. I didn't feel like I had the time to put into it that it required. I thought it suffered as a result.

I think playing Oliver Sachs in Awakenings was a gift because I got to meet him, and got to explore the human brain from the inside out. Because Oliver writes about human behavior subjectively and that for me was the beginning of a fascination with human behavior.

It's very hard to choose. Because I've enjoyed all of them, really! There's a movie that never really did big in terms of its receipts, but it was called "Funny Farm," and in some ways, it may be my best performance. It was very real and very fun. I think it's because also it had the great director George Roy Hill. He directed me in that.

The pin really did slip from my fingers and catch on my sweater. That was not something that was planned. But what we didn't show in the episode is that I had a second backup pin taped behind my ear with a band aid (skin color so you couldn't really see it). In practicing, the pin was really easy to drop, so I wanted a backup. If the pin hit the ground, I would have gone for my backup pin.

You know, at 14 years old, you don't really contemplate success and that aspect of work, you kinda do things because it's fun to do. We had an amazing crew and cast, and I had the best 8 years of my life on the show. It's not something you can force, it's either something that happens or doesn't. Yeah!