“The early influences, in many ways, were in Baltimore. I was passing open windows where there might be a radio playing something funky. In the summertime, sometimes there'd be a man sitting on a step, playing an acoustic guitar, playing some kind of folk blues. The seed had been planted.”

“And of course Marc Cherry heightens it and makes it hilarious. But there's so many universal themes in the show, and he made it so funny. We knew he was onto something if he could keep it up and, thankfully, he did.”