MONDO EXTRAS

On the Comic Book Men cast and their impact on his life:
"When I first came to set when we did the podcast wraparounds for the show, the [production] team was like, 'You have no idea what you have in these friends of yours. We shoot real people all the time, and real people aren't as quick as your friends.' And I was like, 'Yeah, I know, they've got an edge because they've been podcasting for a fucking year.' So in some way, they've written their own tickets. Because these are the cats [without whom] we wouldn't be having this conversation. Like, I am who I am today because I hung out with Brian, because I hung out with Walt. And suddenly, their passions became mine. Like, Walt is the comic book man, Walt is the hockey guy. Because Walt is so passionate about that shit, it translated over to me. There was this dude, who, at one point in my life, taught me it was okay to like the shit I like and don't give a shit about anyone else. And it sounds like a stupid lesson that we should all know and learn, but growing up but as a kid, we didn't celebrate differences. And, let's be honest here, we still don't. But at least online there's some semblance of, 'Yeah, differences are accepted.' But back then differences weren't accepted. If you were a kid, you liked sports and if you didn't like sports, who were you? And I didn't like sports. I liked going to the movies and I liked reading comic books. So suddenly, if you hang out long enough, it just all comes around. Like I remember early in the day being like, 'I like comics.' And I've held on to it for this long where comics are now en vogue and I'm like, 'I still like comics! I've been waiting for you fuckers to show up.' So it kind of works out."