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My job was to find interesting material that would give us a quality television show.

Honestly, most of the stuff I made for 'TV on the Radio,' I write in the studio.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.

With 'True Detective,' you have a lot of time. How I like to describe it... it's like you're filming a theater piece.

I was just finishing up 'Spotlight' in Toronto - I finished it on a Tuesday and started 'True Detective' on a Friday. So I was missing rehearsals, unfortunately, which I hate and why I never like to work back-to-back.

TV kind of worked out naturally for me. I was fortunate to do a show like 'Breaking Bad' and then go straight into something like 'Friday Night Lights.' It's not something I focus on, but when they're great projects, I can't pass them up.

A lot of the traditional sitcom stuff I did - I think I could have gone that route when I was younger as a staff writer, and I just didn't want to.

I was dirt-poor. I could barely hold down a job. Eventually, though, I started getting small parts on shows like 'Smallville,' 'Supernatural'... and lots of really bad sci-fi movies. I was running around the woods in wolf contacts, covered in fake blood made out of pancake syrup, roaring.

When I was younger, I watched all the detective shows.

I enjoy setting the scene and coming up with interesting frames. 'True Detective' was a very hands-on set.