Scott Adsit

I think most of my tastes were British, as far as comedy went, when I was growing up.

I think the longer a sitcom is on the air, by necessity, the dumber the characters have to get: otherwise, they would be learning and growing, and they won't be funny, so they have to get more and more extremely whatever they are.

New York has surprised me a couple of times. I was a snob about pizza, but I've found one or two places that allow me to forget deep dish for a while.

Most sitcoms and cartoons, especially, you can rely on, because they go back to square one at the beginning of every episode.

I came up through Second City, so I'm used to playing 20 characters every night who are very different from each other. I wouldn't want my career to be any different.

You know you're an actor in New York when you're on 'SVU.'

I'm afraid of my mother's paranoia. The more she watches Fox News, the more afraid she gets.

I think it's all the same animal for me. There are actors who sing, and there are actors who direct, and I also improvise. That's one thing I do as part of my acting. I don't really separate the two.

I was doing a show in L.A. called 'Celebrity Autobiography,' where celebrities read excerpts from other celebrities' books and hang themselves with their own rope.

I've heard New York actors say Chicago actors intimidate them because apparently we're the real nitty-gritty actors who're in a town where being onstage doesn't necessarily get you anything except your craft.

I might've been witty, but I didn't have a shtick. So, I never considered myself a comedian.

What crushed my soul was hanging out with bitter, desperate comics backstage. They're a different breed than the bitter yet eager psyches in the wings of an improv theatre. Struggling stand-ups have externalized self-loathing into an art form. They're a hunching, quaking, unshaven lot.