Tituss Burgess

One thing about my dinner parties - they're never planned. I go to the grocery store, and I buy whatever is on sale. I get a lot of it, and I just send out a mass text: 'I just bought food. Dinner's at 8. Text me if you're coming.'

This is a fickle industry. Here today, gone tomorrow. I don't want to spend all the time reflecting. I want to spend it doing.

I prayed fervently for a series regular job on a show that had the perceived caliber of talent that '30 Rock' had.

There is absolutely nothing that you can control except showing up and doing your job.

I'm black. I'm gay. I'm culturally Christian. I am a walking target on so many levels, and it is horrifying and a cross that very, very many of us who look like me have to bear.

I hover closer to earth than I do the clouds.

I'm writing a musical. I am. I was able to buy the rights to 'The Preacher's Wife,' which starred Whitney Houston... I'm writing a whole new score and all the lyrics for it.

I'm very involved in church and social-justice issues, and my personality is far more introspective.

I never had trouble within the audition room. That is a room that I control. So while I certainly experienced versions of what Titus Andromedon was going through, I never experienced the self-doubt.

I get to do some unbelievably layered things. The material that I'm given is so complex, and I'm so grateful for it, so I welcome any opportunities to push boundaries.

Black people, if I may, we don't get a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things outside the norm, outside of what is expected of us. Black women on Broadway are expected to put themselves downstage center and tear the roof off.

Titus belongs to 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' Titus Andromedon. Tituss Burgess couldn't be more different. I get how people think I'm one and the same, but I just don't live there. I'm nothing like that man, and whatever I would do wouldn't be in stark contrast just because, but because I'm in stark contrast, it would be different.