I met Joe when we made TO LIFE! last fall. The night before we started filming, I drove him (and co-star Caitlin Miller) to the Boston set, and almost killed us all when my car's accelerator got stuck and we couldn't stop. Basically my first order of business as a feature film producer was to not cry in front of the talent. I did alright.

Anyway, we survived the car breakdown, and the movie shoot, and this interview. It started off with some now forgotten reference to tacos, to which he responded:

jlt: I like tacos. A lot. My earliest memory of a taco: in 6th grade, my buddy John D’agostino and I grabbed a taco at Taco Bell. Then, his dad bought tickets for us to see the Belushi/Ackroyd classic (almost), NEIGHBORS. It was the first "R" movie I saw in a theater.

kp: What was the first record you ever bought?
jlt: The first record I remember buying with my own cash was Def Leppard's "Pyromania". It was a cassette which, at the time, was badass. A buddy and I did a music video to "Photograph" involving a werewolf that gets beheaded. Obviously...obviously the song is about a doomed lycanthrope.

kp: Did you make a lot of videos/films as a kid?
jlt: I did. The first was a Lego animation sci-fi epic I did with a buddy of mine in Florida. It was about an hour; took forever, a real lesson in OCD. We shot some frames of fluorescent-colored pencils held just off-camera for laser guns. [Made] some super 8 films, too; something about breakdancing. Bobby Cannavale (THE STATION AGENT) and I did a ridiculous horror movie called THE MEXICAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE when we were 14. We ran around my house with a Fisher Price chainsaw screaming in bad accents.

kp: What about at NYU?
jlt: The NYU stuff was your standard I’m-18-and-I-mean-it-so-listen fare. Couple of comedy shorts, sure, but the ode to the high school girlfriend, too. And, you know, what does it mean to be an “artist”? Apparently, it means filming homeless people to a James Joyce voice-over. So if anyone out there’s serious about their frigging art, remember that.

kp: What was the first concert you ever went to?
jlt: My fist concert was Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.” Tour at the Orange Bowl in Miami. I was fourteen, he played for four hours. Hate to use the phrase, but it was fucking awesome. I was pretty straight-edge back then, but even sober, Mr. Boss rocked me out.

kp: You just went to Los Angeles for pilot season.
jlt: Ah yes, L.A.

kp: What was the worst thing you auditioned for?
jlt: The worst audition I had was for the "Jeff Foxworthy sketch show". You know, come up with three characters, 'bout a minute each. I didn't want to go in, but it was slim pickings out there, wanted to work, blah blah blah. So I work on some stuff, go in, start doing it. Nothing. I get a courtesy snicker. Not a laugh, a nose-in-the-air-I-see-what-you're-getting-at-but-it's-not-that-funny snicker. Then they stop me in the middle-- "do you have any other characters?" I’m pretty pissed at myself for coming in at this point. "Yeah," I say in my head, "how about four fucking seasons of characters, you twat. How about a character who takes a big shit on the floor of your casting office? That'd be funny, right?" But I did an ego check and rushed thru another so-so bit and left. When I came out, the receptionist literally said. "You're done already?" Not kidding. It was awful and not their fault. I didn't want to be there.

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