I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There’s an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself – and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame.
Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, ‘I will be a comedic actor.’ I just thought, ‘I’ll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.’
I’ve waited my entire life to be busy. Whenever I hear actors complain about being busy, I think, ‘shut up.’ Because you do, you wait to be successful or to be able to work.
There’s plenty of room for all sorts of movies and all sorts of comedies, so I never saw that as a competitive thing. I think there’s room in the marketplace for everything.
It’s interesting when you’re trying to create a character in animation. It’s really a communal effort.
I’m listening to a lot of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna. A lot of pop female artists. I have to say I’m pretty well-versed in the pop female category.
You never saw Peter Sellers the actor trying to make you laugh. All he was doing was the character. What I’m saying is that I don’t think you should know you’re in a movie. I don’t like it when actors are winking at the audience and saying, ‘Right, isn’t this funny? Are you with me?’
I was sort of traumatized by girls in the third grade. Because there was a girl in my third grade class I had a crush on. I bought her a box of Valentine’s Day chocolate. And I put it in her cubby with a note that said something like, ‘I am deeply in love with you, Your Secret Admirer.’ And I didn’t sign my name.
If somebody takes the parking place you were waiting for, I tend to kind of let it roll off my back. Maybe I’m harboring a lot of something and it will all explode somewhere down the road, but I tend to just let it slide off my back.
Everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and is culpable.
My father is Italian, and I never met my paternal grandparents. The family name was ‘Caroselli’ and it was changed in the mid ’50s. I think they wanted to assimilate, which was pretty common, although I love the name ‘Caroselli.’
The best food is in Chicago. There are great restaurants everywhere, from fancy places to burger joints.
Like most people, I have painful memories of trying to fit in as a child. I wore, said, and did pretty much what everyone else did.
Everybody should be normal. Everybody should be nice. I think they go hand in hand, and that to me is the default setting.
My maternal grandma was a tough, tough lady and a stern woman, who lost her husband young and raised six kids by herself. She lived in a mining community in Upstate New York and ran a boarding house for miners. She took care of an entire family and miners who lived in the house as well.
Talking to my wife, we stare at each other, saying, ‘How is this happening? Why is this happening? Why now?’ It’s nothing I ever aspired to.
Everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and is culpable.
I had, like, two goals in my career: One was to try to get into ‘Second City.’ When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to try to work at ‘Second City.’ And beyond that, my goal was to make enough money as an actor to not do anything else but act, not have to go and wait tables again.
I don’t think of myself as funny – I don’t fill up a room with my humor… I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.
In the United States, there is a restaurant called The Outback Steakhouse, and I could survive in there for several weeks at least, sustaining myself on bloomin’ onions and, I’m sure, their legitimate and very Australian cuisine. In the real Outback? I give myself about 14 minutes.
A healthy body means a healthy mind. You get your heart rate up, and you get the blood flowing through your body to your brain. Look at Albert Einstein. He rode a bicycle. He was also an early student of Jazzercise. You never saw Einstein lift his shirt, but he had a six-pack under there.
Divorce is fairly common these days, and I think many times people disregard the emotional impact that divorce has on a couple and a family, because it happens so frequently.
I think in most relationships that have problems, there’s fault on both sides. And in order for it to work, there has to be some common ground that’s shared. And it’s not just one person making amends.
When someone is good, but it doesn’t seem like their world will collapse if they don’t get the part, it’s more appealing. It’s like dating someone: You don’t want someone who’s too into you.
I’m not unattractive, but I’m not a matinee idol. I think I have a very non-threatening look – I’m fine, I’m right in the middle.
For me, at least, all of my career goals, all of my focus, everything just shifted and the importance was my children, and that’s where all the joy came from as well.
People say, ‘What’s the secret to a marriage?’ There’s no secret – I think you get lucky.
I had, like, two goals in my career: One was to try to get into ‘Second City.’ When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to try to work at ‘Second City.’ And beyond that, my goal was to make enough money as an actor to not do anything else but act, not have to go and wait tables again.
For the better part of my adult life, I proudly avoided nerd/nimrod/goober status. I was always just cool enough.
My father is Italian, and I never met my paternal grandparents. The family name was ‘Caroselli’ and it was changed in the mid ’50s. I think they wanted to assimilate, which was pretty common, although I love the name ‘Caroselli.’
If I’d had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.
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