■ I’m trained in this business my brother Dan since he was four years old because he always wanted a scene partner. As children, we created characters and lived in them for months. We created these two guys, Herbert and Willis, who basically narrated everything that happened in my childhood home. We remained Herbert and Willis for months on end, to the point where my mother began to worry about it.
■ We lived in Evanstonand I would take the train to New Trier (high school). It is a very competitive academic environment and I cannot survive in it. When I was diagnosed with dyslexia, my family’s way of dealing with it was, “Don’t tell people.” It was a different era. I thought, “I know I’m bad at this, and I upset people, and I talk too much, and I joke a lot. The teachers love me in person, but they hate me in their classes. All I do is get in trouble.” Then I got involved in theater and for the first time I said: “Here all these bad habits are rewarded.” If someone forgot a line, I could improvise and laugh. In that environment it was perceived as: “Dude, you saved it.”
■ My Uncle Eddie lived with us for a while. when he was in trouble with the law. He made neon signs. He and I used to go to Clark Street and he was always trying to sell people things, but he never had a finished product. I’ve always adored guys like that. I had to experiment with this idea when I was doing the show. Minx.
■ Mister Shaw was everything to me. A friend of mine in Minneapolis had VHS tapes of this movie, and I remember saying, “This has got to be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” The way they did the transitions, the way Bob (Odenkirk) and David (Cross) played three-dimensional characters, the tone of the comedy—it was punk rock. Mister Shaw was the seed that started my career.
■ My father owned a city Chevrolet on the south side of town. He had a big mustache. He was in a commercial with Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant where he threw the ball behind his head and said, “That’s a City Chevrolet. That’s a sure shot.” He was gone from the time I was 2 until I was 18. Later, when he got sober, we became close friends and I heard him talk about how much he missed those years. I’m reading Buried Child Sam Shepard, and there is a monologue where a guy is driving and (in the reflection of the windshield) he sees the bones of his father in his bones, and the bones of his grandfather in his father’s bones. And you realize, “Oh, you are your family.” I was afraid of this, but I really wanted to fill this hole. On my first date with my wife, I said, “I want kids,” and she didn’t. I had to convince her.
■ David Mamet Red belt was one of my first loans. Then he put me on his TV show Group. I loved working with Mamet—he’s such a kind man and has a great crew—but I felt like I probably should have been somewhere where I could improvise a little more. His principle: “Give less and just say it perfectly.” My idea is, “I want to give a little more, and it’s okay if I don’t say it perfectly.”
■ I don’t consider myself famous. I consider myself familiar. If I go to a restaurant, the whole place doesn’t close. On two tables it will be written: “What’s up, man?” Then maybe someone will send over some nachos. This is wonderful.