Cristin Milioti knew in high school that she was going to be an actress. She told HFPA journalist Vera Anderson that as a kid she liked to sing more than act.

“I acted a little bit in community theater and stuff when I was little, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I’ve sung my whole life, that was always a huge part of my life, so I was always singing in bands and choirs. But when I was in middle school, I was bullied pretty relentlessly, and the theater kids were the only ones who were nice to me, and they’d talk to me and hang out with me, and I was so excited that someone would want to be around me that I started doing plays to hang out with them. And then I discovered that I absolutely loved it, and then I did plays all throughout high school.”

She moved to New York and started her career in commercials before she got roles on stage, TV shows, and films. Last year her latest movie, the Golden Globe-nominated comedy Palm Springs, was released in the middle of the pandemic. “I think initially, of course, we were bummed. The movie works incredibly well at the theatre with a group of people because there’s so many twists and turns, and then there is so much funny stuff, and then there’s so much genuinely shocking things. And so, to hear it with hundreds of different people, it really felt sort of like an old-timey movie. Like a movie that really takes people on a very vocal journey.”

At the same time it was a blessing it was released on a streaming site, Hulu. “I think way more people saw us than would have ever seen us. We would have come out in theaters up against Wonder Woman and Marvel movies and all this stuff, and I think that because we came out when we did and because it’s about feeling stuck and feeling that sense of hopelessness, it sort of was a blessing for our film. And also, I feel that the film affected way more people, I think because of what was happening.”

She spent most of the last year in Los Angeles filming the upcoming TV show Made for Love. “It’s based on this incredible book by Alissa Nutting. It sort of touches a bunch of different genres. I guess it would be like a dark sci-fi comedy. Ray Romano and I play father and daughter, and we are estranged, and we find each other again. I’m very excited for it.” 

Listen to the podcast and hear what she learned about herself during the pandemic; how was her first meeting with Andy Samberg30 Rock was one of her favorite jobs; how she feels about writing; when did she act for the first time; why she was bullied in middle school; how she found her first agent; what she remembers about working with Steve Buscemi on The SopranosLeonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street How I Met Your Mother towards the end of the TV series; why it was important for her to practice piano before she got her role on the Broadway musical Once and how that skill benefited her later; how was it to sing David Bowie‘s ‘Changes’; which filmmakers have influenced her; as a kid, what kind of movies she watched with her father; and what kind of projects she would like to do next.