I never really imagined a show about a sponge going past our first season. I thought maybe we'd have a cult following, and we'd be gone after one season.

I thought, well, what about a show that stars undersea creatures, and some of the ones you rarely see animated. So, from there, I just started drawing different animals in a kind of a setting that was this nautical world. It's not realistic but sort of a fantastic environment.

I just kind of figured that the marine biology would be a career, and the art would be something I did for my own self-expression.

One night, I was really beat; we worked really late and went to get food at some takeout place. And I leaned over against this gumball machine, just exhausted, and there was a SpongeBob looking back at me. And it's just, like, 'Oh, brother.'

I actually wanted to be a forensic scientist for a while. When I was doing my Standard Grades, three of them were science subjects. The interest in science didn't wear off, but I found other interests.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

I think when two people are present and engaged and listening to each other, that's what creates the chemistry. And then the ability to react off of what the other person is saying.

That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.