David Denman on Traffic Light: "If He Were Just Honest About Everything We Wouldn't Have Conflict — and Then the Comedy Wouldn't Come In"

Actor David Denman — best known as Roy, the third leg of the Jim and Pam love triangle on The Office — stars as Mike in FOX's new comedy series Traffic Light, premiering Tuesday, February 8 at 9:30 p.m. Premier Guide Miami sat down to find out what that means — and what comes next.

Actor David Denman — best known as Roy, the third leg of the Jim and Pam love triangle on NBC's The Office — stars as Mike in FOX's new comedy series Traffic Light, premiering Tuesday, February 8 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT. The show follows three best friends since college — Mike (married with a son), Adam (just moved in with his girlfriend), and Ethan (perpetually single) — as they navigate the different demands of their romantic relationships. Denman made his big-screen debut alongside Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman in the football comedy The Replacements.

On why Mike hides things from his wife: "I think Mike falsely sometimes thinks it's better for him to hide information from Lisa because he then won't have to maybe necessarily deal with things. Like in the pilot episode he's hiding in a car and saying he's stuck in traffic so that he can watch Iron Man on a DVD player. The reality is, the second he comes home from work he's on a second shift. I think he probably would get more mileage out of just communicating and telling his wife that he needs this or that. But if he were just honest about everything we wouldn't have conflict — and then the comedy wouldn't come in."

On relating to the character: "I'm not married, I don't have any kids, I'm not a lawyer. I don't have a lot of those things, but personality-wise, I related to all of these guys. It seemed like my group of friends that I hang out with. I could name five deep in every huge character of friends of mine that are just like these guys. And that was very intriguing to me because I wanted to tell stories about people I related to."

On how the character compares to Roy: "Truth be told, no actor likes to think that they're just playing themselves on television. But this guy may be closer to me in personality than even Roy on The Office or Tony on Drop Dead Diva. So in all fairness this character is probably closer to me than those are."

On how writers absorb actors' personalities: "As the show goes on the writers start to write to things, aspects of characters' personalities that they find funny or interesting, and they just start to meld because we spend so much time together. So there will be little isms that come in that we don't even realize — they just start putting them in the script. And in addition, we do a lot of improv within these characters, with banter with each other, and a lot of that stuff comes out from us."

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