You don’t spend a career performing and over a decade cohosting a podcast called “How Did This Get Made?” and not learn a few things about how a creative project can go terribly, hilariously wrong. But Paul Scheer still believes that “No one sets out to make a bad movie.” During our recent “Salon Talks” conversation, the actor, director and first time memoirist revealed that “I've worked on so many different things, and I'll tell you, you don't know until it's out. I've been on sets that are weird, and the product turns out really good. Very rarely do you know in the moment.”

Scheer also opened up about his new book, “Joyful Recollections of Trauma,” a candid reminiscence about his early days in the New York improv scene, his marriage to fellow actor June Diane Raphael, his recent ADHD diagnosis — and the years of abuse he and his mother endured at the hands of his stepfather. "It took me a long time to even say those words, 'I was abused,'" Scheer revealed.

But becoming a father himself, making peace with his past and relying on his tight-knit community of fellow actors and comics helped pave the path to open up about his darkest moments — as well as the most embarrassing, outrageous and yes, joyful. And reflecting on his beloved podcast and our era of great bad cinema, he said, "The truth is, when you make a movie for everyone, it's for no one. And when it's for no one, it's perfect for 'How Did This Get Made?'" Watch my "Salon Talks" with Scheer here on YouTube.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

We know you from literally hundreds of roles, including "The League," "Veep," "Fresh Off the Boat," "Black Monday," "30 Rock."

It's so interesting. "30 Rock" is one of those shows that I did very early on in my career, and the success of that show has cemented me as part of that culture, which I love. I couldn't be more excited to be associated with that show. It is amazing when people are like, "'30 Rock'?" It's one of the few appearances that really stick in people's heads.

And of course, the podcasts "How Did This Get Made?" and "Unspooled."

I have a small Etsy shop and also occasionally will sell things on eBay. I got it going on. You want to change your tires? Bring it to my house. I'll do it.

Surprisingly, this man has also been diagnosed with ADHD.

Yes. As an adult. There's nothing more shocking to be someone in your 40s and find out that you have this thing that can account for a majority of ways that you've acted your entire life. It really was like finding the Rosetta Stone of my life.

I have followed your career for ages, thinking, "He's doing two podcasts, He's doing all these different roles. He's doing live shows. He's writing a book. This is a guy who's spinning a lot of plates." So when you introduce [the diagnosis] very late in the book, and say, "I've not talked about this," how did you not know? And what has changed for you?

That chapter I write about that diagnosis was something I was really wrestling with putting in. I know that when people write memoirs, they feel like they have to give a nugget, share something. There was something about that that was still fresh to me, and I was a little nervous to share it because I'm still processing it on some level.

"There's a part of me that I was always keeping a little bit secret. It was really because of my family."

The way I found out about it was through Twitter, which is hilarious. I got into a war of words about my LA Clippers, and one of the people I was fighting with was like, "You're hyper-focusing. You have ADHD. I do, too. You should check that out." Of course I was like, "I don't have ADHD. That's ridiculous. You made a comment, and I'm just continuing to batter you with reasons why you're wrong."

I told my wife. I said, "Somebody said I have ADHD." My wife was like, "Yeah, of course you do." It was this shock to me. She was so unfazed by it. But I started to look online, and especially on Twitter, where I started to see everybody's stories, and it actually helped me get some help. So one of the reasons why I left it in the book, even though I was nervous about it, was because I think when people do share their experiences, talk about it, it does open an avenue of conversation with yourself.

It really pushed me down a path that I would never have gone down before. That was something that was hard to share because I feel like it's something I'm slightly embarrassed by. Now that I'm actually treating it and taking care of it, I'm still the same me that I am, that I was before it, but I just feel like a horse with blinders. They say, "Oh, you don't don't want to wear blinders because you want to see everything." But I want the blinders so........

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