Growing up in Chicago, I was a theater nerd. That might be very cool on the East Coast, but in Chicago, it's really the athletes that come in No. 1 on the cool scale. Maybe musicians after that. Community theater? That's way down the list, my friend.

I was a huge theater geek growing up, and that was not the easiest thing in the world, especially growing up in Chicago, where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night, from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

People always ask about learning all of your lines as an actor, and it's generally the easiest part of the job.

When I started on 'Roseanne,' it was a great achievement for me at the time. But I wasn't a part of building it; I wasn't a carpenter in creating that juggernaut.

I'm not very into politics but I love watching shows like 'Last Week Tonight' - people come for the comedy and they stay for the interesting questions.

I used to do stand-up, actually. I had a ten-minute routine I did for a thing called 'Stand Up for Labour' where we'd go around different seats and use comedy to raise money. I stopped doing this routine when I started running for mayor.

I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy.

The Office' is less a comedy than so many other 'comedies' that have been on the air. It's really about the balance between what is real and what is comic.