My choice growing up was the 'Star Wars' role playing game. At that time in the Nineties, they had a pretty robust pen and paper system.
— Thomas Middleditch
When you're an actor who just got his first big chunk of change, and you're like, 'What do I do with it?' you try to look at Silicon Valley, and the learning curve is so huge. Especially on the investor side. I don't want to say it's like Vegas, in a sense, but you do kinda roll the dice on some companies. It's like educated dice rolling.
I'm not saying that comedy has to be a certain thing - I'm not trying to define comedy, where it's like, it can only be silly things. But I think part of what makes a comedy is that at least part of the mantra of the show is trying to make people laugh.
Twitter is maybe the worst thing. It's cool when you can tweet out your show and be like, 'Hey, come see my show,' or 'Check out this Kickstarter,' but it's also this weird 140-character vehicle for insidiousness.
I think my mantra for saying yes to anything is just, 'Oh, I think that'll be a cool, interesting project,' or - sadly! - 'Ooh, this will help my career.'
It's not as if I've never been awkward myself. I'm a big gamer, so I've had access to that type of personality. I used to go to these LAN parties; that was before high-speed Internet. The only way you could get lag-free gaming was to haul these huge computers to people's houses.
In D&D, you're only in that fantasy world. But with GURPS, you can, like, play a game that's Los Angeles film noir, or a game where the premise is you are world-jumpers, and you can go to different worlds.
I need some more followers! I need to get my stats up to a million so I can make any movie with The Rock I want!
My interests in the world of technology are mainly video games, but I like tech as a means to help solve big issues, such as the demands on natural resources.
We thought it would be pretty cool to officially declare ourselves a gang. Our gang name was called the Rude Boys. Of course, any Rude Gang would need a jacket.
I watched Season 1 through 9 of 'Seinfeld' bloopers one day, just having a ball. It's fun to see people having fun.
When you're on film or TV, essentially you're in front of the camera. Unless it's a Tim Burton thing, the desire is to be real and grounded.
I don't want to make some super cliche comment about how much more acceptable gaming is. I think it was always acceptable for me and my peers. But I think it's become more so in pop culture, media, stuff like that - people with money have discovered that they can make money by marketing to us.
I got into performing fairly young and went from, like, a shy kid to a total weirdo.
Part of me wants a bunch of jocks to go to Comic-Con and call them all dweebs so they can be like, 'Pump the brakes a little bit.' But that said, it's all positive. It's just, of course, I'm going to find some cynicism in it.
I laugh at stuff like Snapchat thinking it can change the world.
I wanted to be like 'Kids in the Hall.'
The first home system we had was an Apple II, and I remember playing a game called 'Conan.' It should have been called 'Tarzan' because you were essentially Conan running around a forest with a boomerang, but it was obviously Tarzan.
I wish I was more industrious, but I don't necessarily have that drive.
'Baskets' is incredible - 'Baskets' is so funny and poignant and sad and dark.
All of my guy friends are pretty civil and tame.
In eighth grade, when I was just the school weirdo, my drama teacher put me in a play, and we came up with a few comedy bits. And that very first reaction, for an audience of supportive middle schoolers, I put my head out and pretended I got scared by the audience, and ducked back in. They all went: 'Yeah! That's great!'
I'm cool as a cucumber, baby.
I had this website that, at one point, I listed myself as 'actor, writer, comedian, and fart enthusiast' just because I thought that would be a really clear joke.
I would never say that girls and their bachelorette parties are tame.
I've spoken to people in Silicon Valley, and many times they have said to me, 'X storyline, or that thing that happened in your show - pretty much verbatim has happened to me.' And it's either identical or similar enough to be scary.
The show is not really about finding love in Silicon Valley, and it never really claimed be so.
I'm a total pessimist.
The Valley is a place that takes itself too seriously, and it has yet to be properly lampooned. So it's time for a wedgie.
All the sharky elements of Hollywood are similar to sharky elements in Silicon Valley. It's obviously different, but the deals are the same. And you get hot, then you're not.
I have a fairly pragmatic view on all those bullies that came before, because everybody makes you who you are now.
There's all these little bubbles of nerddom.
I'm not in Hollywood because I'm good at math.
I make very basic country rustic furniture.
I grew up in a hippy town, so I did my playing outdoors and skiing and all that, but then I also had my nerd friends that I went and hosted LAN parties with, get my 'Counter-Strike' on.
I'm always trying to do weird things - when you have that part of your mission statement as an actor, half of that stuff that ends up being made is probably garbage.
In any awards ceremony, if you're a finicky person like myself, you can pick a multitude of things to nag about. I get frustrated with the comedy category because it feels like it gets sidelined a lot of the time for all kinds of things - not sidelined, marginalized.
When you make a film, you never know how it will turn out, especially when you improvise it.
I was always the bad student.
It's an absurd world - you know, billionaires in Birkenstocks. But I'd rather have nerdy tech guys as the next Carnegie than oil tycoons.
I remember trying to stay up late and catch as much 'Beavis and Butt-Head' as I could, and then 'King of the Hill.'
I had to be sick for a scene in the first season, and we used some fruit smoothies with little banana chunks. I had to put it in my mouth and spit it out. It was absolutely delicious.
If you think 'Game of Thrones' throws around some erroneous, unnecessary nudity, wait til you see 'Silicon Valley.'
I'm going to be all over your TV for the foreseeable future.
Even if things are going well, I'm always thinking that I'm about to be hit with the dreaded gut punch and - psych! - I'll find out that it's all falling apart.
With YouTube streaming and Twitch and all that, you can just hop on on any given night and play videogames and have people come watch you. And even if you've only got 400 people watching your stream, that's more people than would see my comedy if I went to UCB.
I met Mike Judge when I was working on my own cartoon for MTV; it did not air. But I got on with Mike and then did a few voices on 'Beavis and Butt-Head' because of it.
I grew up on '80s action movies... Jean Claude Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, Stallone... If there were ever some opportunity to do that, it'd be great.
I'm more nerdy in a sense of, like, video games and Dungeons and Dragons and Renaissance Faire. But not nerdy in a sense that I know how to create apps.
I just grew up liking computers and stuff like that. Mainly cool stuff, like video games.
