I started out as an actor, professionally. I worked mostly on the New York stage and that led me into doing comedy. I was a stand-up comedian, which led me into doing sketch comedy, which led me into doing sit-coms - American sit-coms.
Oddly enough, that’s what brought me to Buffy. Joss was actually open to comedy writers rather than people who’d been working on one hour dramas. He had read scripts I’d written with my wife Eleanor Hampton (who was my writing partner) and he had read only [the comedy] half hours.
He brought us in and asked us to pitch some ideas. The next we knew, we were writing a script for the second season which went very well. [Joss] was very pleased and we were offered a job on the third season.
At that time, my wife and I were splitting up our writing partnership - not our marriage, but our writing partnership. My wife went to work on Mad About You as a producer and I continued to write for Buffy in the third season and onward.
From sit-coms to stake-outs
