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It was football I enjoyed most. When I moved to L.A. to become a stand-up comedian, I thought it might be a good comedy hook to also be the punter for USFL club The L.A. Express, so I started practicing for the tryouts. Luckily, my stand-up took off, and I didn't need to do it.
I think there's a part of me that might be my alter ago, like the carefree, do-what-he-wants kind of guy, because I've been so restrained most of my life, going to Catholic school and being the good son and the good husband. It's a fun escape route for me sometimes to lead that life.
I used to go to the Hollywood YMCA when I first came here, and I was standing in front of the mirror doing curls, and I noticed this guy next to me also doing curls. He was grimacing a lot, and I noticed he had an underbite. I looked more closely and realized it was Bruce Springsteen.
With music, you're laying it all out there. They're judging you right away, and you can lose them quick. With the comedy, you've always got another joke to redeem yourself. Or, even if you've only got one joke, at least the punch line is at the end. Then they have to at least pay attention until the end.
I played a security guard, and I think it was in the State Department. This was my first acting role, really, and I remember rehearsing it on the couch with my girlfriend at the time. I had a real problem with saying the word "incendiary." Most of my rehearsal was spent on pronouncing the word "incendiary."
I was born in St. Louis; I lived there for three weeks and then my father graduated from St. Louis University, so we all got in the car and split. I don't really remember much. I grew up in Connecticut most of my life and then four years in Germany. My father worked for a helicopter company, so we went over there.
What happened was, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter kind of guy like a James Taylor or Crosby, Stills and Nash type of thing; I went to a lot of coffee houses and used to watch all those guys, but I never had the nerve to get up and do it because singing seems so personal and intimate to me. It was too revealing.
A whole generation of people that didn't know me from 'SNL' recognize me from 'Weeds' now. People recognize me once in a while and appreciate the work. It gets a little embarrassing but it's good. If you work as an accountant, you don't have people coming up to you in the streets saying, 'Hey, great job on tax statements!'
My adrenaline is definitely going, but it's mostly my real, laid-back persona carrying over on stage. When I first started, I was nervous, I'd be really high energy, and I'd be sweating. Now it's just my job. It's like a machinist who goes to work every day and uses the same drill bits. He's not worried about taking his finger off.
Roxanne came along in '86, when I was doing a lot of stand-up. I auditioned for the movie, and of course I was a huge Steve Martin fan, so I really hoped I would get this part. I don't think there was any part in particular that I auditioned for. I just went in and talked with them. There were so many parts in there, and so many comedians ended up getting in that movie, playing different firemen and townspeople.
Me and Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel and Dana Carvey wrote a script called 'Hans and Franz: The Girlyman Dilemma,' and it was going to be co-produced with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he was going to co-star in it. We had a deal with Sony, we got paid to write it, and it was a musical, but it never got made because...I think Arnold kind of backed out at the last minute because he was getting cold feet because ;The Last Action Hero' had come out, where he was parodying himself. But it was a really funny script, and I wish it could've seen the light, because I think it would've done really well.