Q: Now about that other co-star, the vulture…
PR: Yeah. The vulture farted right in the middle of our scene.
Q: What was up with that?
PR: When you think about what caused it, what does a vulture eat, but dead stuff. And then farts. But it’s just weird to hear a vulture fart.
Q: What’s it like getting stuck with doing the straight man in all these comedies, and is it hard to remain in character when Steve really goes for it?
PR: It is a challenge not to ruin the take by laughing. But you know, it’s weird—my definitions of comedy and straight man and all that stuff, they’re blurry for me. So I don’t really think of it in those terms. It is true that the character I’m playing has some horrible stuff happen to him, or not horrible stuff. So you do lots of different things, kind of in character-driven stuff, and I was just trying to operate from that. But it was kind of a no-brainer. Yeah, that’s it really.
Q: What about Jay Roach as a director?
PR: I’ve always felt Jay’s been somewhat omnipresent, omniscient over the last few years. You always see him around and he’s so involved with movies that are made, comedies that are made. Everyone knows Jay and everyone really respects his opinion, because he’s super smart. He’s stealth smart and stealth funny, in ways I think a lot of people aren’t. And he’s so easygoing, he’s like the nicest man you’ll meet—he really is. He’s very clever and I felt immediately really comfortable in trusting him. I don’t know, I just felt really comfortable with him kind of steering the ship because he’s so kind of even keel. You know, he’s concerned with story and character, and he wants it to be funny. He wants the jokes to be good, but it’s not at the expense of keeping the story on point, and that’s good.
Q: At what moment did you know your life mission was to be funny?
PR: I moved around a lot when I was kid and I wanted to make friends. My parents are both British, and being Jewish and growing in the Midwest, you have to adapt. My dad was hilarious and my mom, too, and I had a younger sister, so I knew that I needed to do something to take all the attention. Then for anything traumatic in my life, I would deal with those traumas through humor. But I was always drawn to comics and funny stuff. I liked watching comedies, comedians, things like that. I wasn’t tough or edgy in any kind of way, though I wanted to play football, but my mother told me that my bones were growing.
Q: How about Anchorman? Would you do it again, and are you amazed to see how it still seems to resonate with people?
PR: I remember hearing more about it after it had been on cable and people had seen it more. I would hear, “I didn’t really like it at first, but I saw it a few times and started really liking it.” But it’s not surprising to me. I don’t know, I always thought it was hilarious. I read it and I always thought it was one of the funniest scripts I’ve ever read. I think that Steve and Will [Ferrell] and everybody were just so funny. I’m excluding myself! Yeah, I think it would be really fun to do, I think we’d have a blast making it. It’s really cool, it’s cool that people like it. It’s nice to be a part of something.