Seattle Times
Joel McHale doesn’t often contemplate his success. He’s too busy. “I only feel overwhelmed when I start thinking about it,” the Seattle native said in a telephone interview from New York. His parents, wife and two young sons have joined him there on a publicity trip for his new sitcom, Community, and the premiere of his latest film, The Informant! Until now, McHale was best known as the snarky host of The Soup, an entertainment roundup on the E! cable channel that lampoons dimwitted celebrities and bad reality TV. But acting is a return to his roots: he has a master’s degree in acting from the University of Washington and got what he considers invaluable practice on stage and in TV here before he left for Los Angeles.