Actor

I ended up doing a lot of prank shows in my life or prank theater, but I always got fairly nervous about doing 'em.

Well, politics is much more severe than entertainment. You have to hit those points, in politics, word for word. You have to remember the date. You have to remember the website. You have to rehearse stories that might be asked, have anecdotes ready for questions that might come up.

Stylistically, in improv, I don't think you can have as many camera tricks; I think you're kind of shooting more like a documentary: you don't know where it's going, so you have to hang back a little more.

There's something outrageously funny about the bold-faced lying that's going on, in a general way. Just the blatant denial of facts, whether it's climate change or crowd sizes. Every day, there's another blatant lie. I think there's comedy in there somewhere.

I spent a lot of time in Chicago at a place called The Annoyance Theater, where we would develop one-act plays through improv, and you would just improvise scenes and then discover something about the character and use it in the next scene.

You can't be controlling in improv.

Authentic discovery, when captured on camera, I think, is tremendous acting.

I think people who can do comedy well don't get enough credit. It can be harder than drama.

I'm a huge fan of Chicago sports and Chicago food, and I love going home and my family is still there. I guess it's pretty easy to have a normal life in Chicago.

I've seen a little 'Mighty Boosh.'

I had a small part in a storm-chasing movie, so I did some research into storm-chaser culture.

I make a mean Irish soda bread every Christmas and give it out to friends and family.

I've always loved improvised movies like Christopher Guest and the 'Spinal Tap' era of comedy.

Improv is a disposable art form, but it's kind of freeing in that way, too, because things can fail, and the audience is a little more forgiving.

Improv Olympics, Second City are some of the most tolerant, accepting people. They're like circus folk. They're freaks themselves.

The thing about 'Veep' is that you never really know where the camera's going to be. So you're not really just saying your line and then just watching it: you're trying to act the whole time just in case the camera is watching you.

Of current British stuff, 'Brass Eye' was one of my favorite shows.

When I first started doing press interviews, the big question was, 'Do you think women are funny?' People would ask you that in an interview. In an interview! It's like, of course they are.

I've seen several funnel clouds as a kid, too. They're cool if, you know, they're, like, two towns over, but they're scary as hell if you know they're coming your way.

When I came into improv, it was almost like an outsider art form.