What's with all The Daily Show actors playing middle aged virgins?
"It's a good question. I think we've been typecast. Well, we're generally kind of nerdy to begin with. I lose my virginity pretty soon in the show, so we get that out of the way. At 32, so I'm eight years ahead of him."
How different is playing a character as opposed to The Daily Show which must have been more your own sensibility?
"No, actually, The Daily Show character is something nobody really plans. For the first year or so on the show, I would imitate Stephen Colbert and then I would find out what I was more comfortable doing. Stephen Colbert is the guy that knows he's smart. I was the guy that was comfortable being dumb and just confident in his stupidity."
What was the decision to leave?
"I told the executive producer, 'I promise you, I am not going to pilot season. I'm not interested in auditioning for anything unless the best script I've ever read comes across my desk.' And literally, two days later, I got this script. I was like, 'Oh, s**t, they're going to think I already had this and was lying.' So I had to kind of walk into his office with my tail between my legs and say, 'I'm going to read for this one.'"
You guest-hosted a few times, was that in the works for you?
"It was a blast. I don't think so. I couldn't pull that off. It would be a completely different show, geared more towards poop than the Middle East. But it's not really my bag, to tell you the truth. Those guys, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are lucky in that they have found relatively, I guess at the perfect time, exactly what they should be doing in life. The Daily Show wasn't that exactly for me. I've never been sort of a political animal, although I became one while working there just by default. This is something really closer to what I think I should be doing and what I was sort of meant to do which is play a character. I'm allowed to be a little bit bigger."
So Mecaca/yourpeepee was all you?
"Yes, when that happened, I got right on the red phone and I was like, 'Did you hear it? He said mecaca, put me on the story.'"
Do you relate to your character on The Winner?
"My character and I, we share the same hairline for sure, same waistline, about the same height. I'm sweet. I'm very sweet. This character's not a monster like The Daily Show character."
Can you apply any Daily Show techniques to this?
"No, only that I think I'm four years more comfortable in front of the camera than I was before I started The Daily Show."
Can you suggest funnier things to the writers?
"Oh yeah, absolutely. They're very amenable to suggestions."
How does the studio audience on The Winner compare to The Daily Show audience?
"They're a little bit more programmed, the sitcom audience. We actually had to tell them, 'Don't ooh where you think you have to ooh, and don't clap and boo where you think you have to boo.' Audiences have become almost as programmed as a laugh track so we really wanted real responses for them. It took a while for us to learn how to sort of retrain them to just laugh. Then we only did like two takes. We really kept it down to two takes so people would just really laugh."
Do you remember OJ?
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was living in the East Village in New York City. Most likely high or drunk, and I really had no idea what was going on. Everybody in the bar was watching the white Bronco and I was probably on my way to the deli to get a 40 and some pork dumplings."
Are you kidding?
"I'm not, at all. That was my life in '94."
Do you feel any pressure as the lead?
"I only get pressure from Lenny Clark who is banking his retirement on this show. And if he can't buy a glass bottomed plane in the next five years, I think he's going to blame me."
What was your game with the ladies in real life?
"I am married. Before that, I don't know, I did okay. Like I said, I can be socially awkward at times and those nights, I don't know, just on and off. It was hit or miss, like anybody else I guess. Pretty average."
How long have you been married?
"Five years."
What did your wife say when you were cast as 32-year-old virgin?
"She said, 'When are we moving to LA? I want to move to LA.'"
Has Jon Stewart said anything to you?
"He hasn't seen it yet. Ben Karlin, the former executive producer of The Daily Show, saw it and liked it, which I take as a compliment because I think he just said in New York magazine that he hates sitcoms. So I guess that's the ultimate compliment."
