I've just watched the Welcome Back, Potter series and I gotta say the way you became a cartoonish character and conveyed complex emotions in a silly setting was beyond awesome. How'd you get into character for this role?

Thank you very much! I wish I could take credit for the character, but honestly three people are much more responsible for Donnie than I am. Michael wrote a very clear and realized character; all of the heavy-lifting was done because he’d already come up with the character, everything was on the page already. Abe, our director, gave me lots of room to play and knew when to tell me to tone it down (spoiler: never).

The other unsung hero for me was Alex Simone, our wonderful costume designer. We shot episode three on the first day of shooting and when Alex put me in that outfit, with the yellow jacket, purple shirt, sunglasses and ridiculous amount of chains, most of my character work was already done for me, because that’s such a clear LOOK. Most of the time whenever I’m pretending to act I just feel like “Oh, it’s me, Daniel, but in a different shirt, or hat.” Alex’s costume was such a definite choice that it was easy to slide into that character.

Literally the only thing I did for the character was a dumb voice, tongue stuff, and a whole lot of dancing before each take. Whenever we were about to shoot, I would dance as hard and as idiotically as I could, because I wanted Donnie to move in a way that was altogether looser and freer than I personally move.

Any way watch the show and tell Alex what a great job she did with the costumes. And hire her!