I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but for me, New York is the ideal because of the diversity here. 'Billy on the Street' is really informed by that.

I grew up in Queens, which is the most diverse borough: the rich and the poor and homeless and people of every sexual orientation and gender and age group. Everyone is saying we live in this bubble, and there's some truth to that. But I do not think it is healthy to all of a sudden invalidate the way we live in New York.

Things pop out of people's mouths that you wouldn't expect them to say, so I've stopped trying to guess ahead of time who might be interesting to talk to.

I learned early on that 'Billy on the Street' is a great lesson in 'Don't judge a book by its cover.'

It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.

My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.

We have a whole art department on 'Billy on the Street.' We give away dioramas that we've made.

Entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me.

If you're on TV, you can't complain, right? And I understand that, and it's true to a certain degree.

Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.

It's one thing to hear that someone likes your show; it's a completely different thing to have them come take their time and film something with you on a sidewalk.

'Billy On The Street' has no doubt always been about the people we talk to. That being said, it thrills me that the show really has a dedicated following in the comedy world.

I've never even been invited to the GLAAD awards, to sit in the audience. I don't necessarily care, and I'm sure they will one day, and it will be fine, but I've never been invited to anything like that.

There are certain people you're allowed to pick apart and certain people you're not.

Our pop cultural likes and dislikes are still very segregated, and that is not true of 'Billy on the Street.'

The streets of New York are diverse, but when you go into a Broadway show, unless Denzel Washington is in it, or Fantasia's in it, it's a lot of old white people and gay men.

Award shows are fun but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.

I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.

The 'Billy On The Street' persona is truly inspired by who I was as a child - obviously not having an adult perspective on the world.

I did a live late-night talk show called 'Creation Nation' with friends of mine. I had a sidekick and a band, and I wrote the whole thing. And it had the form of a late-night talk show, but we did it on stage because no one was giving me a TV show at the time.

Anytime you're the creative force behind something and in front of the camera - we're not complaining, but it is an avalanche of work.

All that social media hyperbole is just so fake.

You don't want to really pick on someone that you genuinely like. In terms of 'Billy on the Street,' there are certain actors - I don't care if they find out because I do feel that way. Though it's almost never about appearance or something out of their control. I pick on choices they've made or roles they've taken.

One of the first big agencies that represented me, my point person there - this was over 10 years ago, so it's no one who I work with now or have worked with recently - but he told me that I was too ambitious.