Kristen Schaal

I think growing up on a farm in a certain amount of isolation, with not a lot of friends nearby, makes you entertain yourself and kind of grows your imagination - being alone is quite good for all that. You make up stories, talk to the animals, let them be an audience, a bunch of cows.

Sometimes I try to sell shows with a female lead to networks, and that isn't something that's been a proven formula for them, so they reject it. I do feel like men get the funniest roles in movies.

Bad improv happens with people who are inexperienced with each other and don't know the craft that well. But bad stand-up is something that could happen to someone at any level in their career.

No one knows who the real me is, so I can be a hundred different kinds of me.

In the U.K., there's absolutely no money for television. So you can do pretty much whatever you want. They're not losing money on any of the shows, so they'll give you a lot of creative freedom. In the United States, there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, so they need a sure formula.

I just really like people, and being a freelancer can be lonely during the day, when you're at home trying to write anything you can. 'Flight Of The Conchords' was so wonderful because I had a family for two years.

Being a correspondent on 'The Daily Show' is some combination of doing a character and doing stand-up. It's a juggling act to find a balance between being you and playing a role.

I probably shouldn't say this about all animals, but at least the farm animals that I've hung out with, and even when I go to the zoo usually, they're like a blank slate. I guess that's why I like them. They're puppets, and you can imagine them being anything you want.

I never really saw myself as a standup comedian. I always just thought of myself as someone who used the eight minutes or 10 minutes she was allotted and had a blast.

Animals in general have sparked a weird depression in me, because as much as I tried, I couldn't layer a personality over them. You know what I mean? I would stare at the cows, and I would sing to the cows, and they would always just look at me blankly.

I love the idea that I have the power to look for the projects I can put myself into, but I'm still at that level of just being happy to have a job.

I would love for people to know that the label 'feminist' is something that everyone should wear proudly, because it just means that you support women.