■ I’ve been trained for this business by my brother, Dan, since I was 4, because he always wanted a scene partner. As kids, we would create characters and live in them for months. We created these two guys, Herbert and Willis, who essentially narrated everything happening in my childhood house. We would stay as Herbert and Willis for months on end — to the point where my mother would get worried about it.
More Top Picks Best Immersion Blenders
■ We were living in Evanston, and I would take the train to New Trier [High School]. It’s a wildly competitive academic environment, and I wasn’t surviving in it. When I was diagnosed with dyslexia, the way my family decided to handle it was, “Don’t tell people.” It was another era. I was like, “I know I’m bad at this, and I’m frustrating people, and I talk too much, and I’m making a lot of jokes. The teachers like me personally but hate me in their classroom. All I do is get in trouble.” Then I did theater, and it was the first time I was like, “All these bad habits are rewarded here.” If somebody forgot a line, I could improvise one and get a big laugh. In that environment, it was viewed like, “Dude, you saved it.”
■ My uncle Eddie lived with us for a while when he had legal trouble. He made neon signs. He and I would go on Clark Street, and he was always trying to sell people things, but he never quite had the product. That type of guy, I always adored. I got to play with that idea when I did the show Minx.
■ Mr. Show was everything to me. A friend in Minneapolis had VHS tapes of it, and I remember being like, “This might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” The way they did transitions, the way Bob [Odenkirk] and David [Cross] played three-dimensional characters, the tone of the comedy — it was punk rock. Mr. Show was the seed that started my career.
■ My father owned City Chevrolet on the South Side. He had a big mustache. He was in commercials with Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant where he threw a ball behind his head and said, “It’s City Chevrolet. It’s a sure shot.” He was gone from the time I was 2 until I was 18. Later in life, when he sobered up, we became close friends, and I heard him discuss how he felt missing those years. I read Buried Child by Sam Shepard, and there’s this monologue where a guy is driving and [in the windshield reflection] he sees his father’s bones in his bones and his grandfather’s in his father’s. And you realize, “Oh, you are your family.” I was scared of that, but it was a hole I really wanted to fill. On my first date with my wife, I said, “I want kids,” and she didn’t. I had to convince her.
■ David Mamet’s Redbelt was one of my first credits. Then he put me in his TV show, The Unit. I loved working with Mamet — he is such a kind person and runs a great set — but I felt I should probably be somewhere I could improvise a bit more. His thing is, “Give less and just say it perfectly.” My thing is, “I want to give a little more, and it’s OK if I don’t say it perfectly.”
■ I don’t view myself as famous. I view myself as familiar. If I go to a restaurant, the whole place doesn’t shut down. Two tables will go, “What’s up, man?” Then maybe somebody sends nachos. It’s perfect.