by Mike Henneberger
Recently, I was lucky enough to catch Patton Oswalt when he dropped in at the SoHo Apple store in New York. The in-store appearance was for the Meet the Filmmaker/Meet the Actor podcast and is now available for free on iTunes. Patton sat down with The Daily Show contributor John Hodgman to discuss acting, comedy and Patton's performance alongside Charlize Theron in their new film Young Adult.
"The first 15 minutes of the movie have all of the same rhythms that you guys are very familiar with of romantics comedies," said Patton. "And just like Takashi Miike's Audition, it takes the craziest right turn into dark mental illness."
Patton describes his character in the film as "Jiminy Cricket with a drinking problem" and goes on to compare his acting preparation to Theron’s, who put on weight for her Academy Award-winning performance in Monster: "I put on 40 pounds for this movie 20 years before Diablo [Cody] wrote it."
Speaking of Patton's "performance" with Charlize Theron, the topic of their sex scene in the film, um, came up.
"I basically had to have a love scene with Charlize Theron. I know it sounds great on paper, but once you start doing it you realize: Oh, I, built the way I am, am going to be naked next to Charlize Theron, built the way she is. So I'm naked next to one of the most physically perfect women on the planet. There's no way that I could do this scene with John Goodman or Michael Moore?"
After a little speculation from John about the success of this film, the two discussed what may lie ahead in Patton’s film career future.
"All my acting jobs have been these insanely lucky accidents at this point. I don’t have any real autonomy. I might get a little autonomy after this film for a window of two weeks. I'll try to use it wisely. But I'm sure I'll, you know, I'll sign on to Gnip Gnop: The Movie or something like that. I'm sure I'll make some horrible mistake."
With Gnip Gnop scratched off the list, John and Patton pitched some great ideas for a Barney Miller movie, a Cocoon prequel (Hodgman as a young Wilford Brimley), and Ghostbusters 3 (Kristen Schaal as the black Ghostbuster). Will we ever see these brilliant gems on the big screen? Let's just say Patton didn't say no. Let the internet rumors begin!
"I'm in this business for two reasons," Oswalt explained. "The money and the anecdotes. So I either want to be in the best films possible, and if I can't be in those then I want to be in the absolute worst films, because I want the stories. To me doing Ratatouille was just as valuable as doing Blade Trinity."
Before the night was over, I got a chance to ask Patton about his recent Grammy nomination for Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour.
"I heard about it through a text. Boy, that sounds like a bad Jim Croce song, doesn’t it? If Jim Croce lived he would’ve wrote 'I Heard About It Through a Text.'"
He went on to talk about his friendly Grammy rivalry with Weird Al that started in 2009 when both were nominated, and weighed in on who he thinks should win this time.
"I don’t believe in false modesty. I think I put out a very good album, but if I were to pick the Grammys, I would absolutely give it to Louis C.K. Absolutely, that album is so good."
You can download Meet The Actor: Patton Oswalt on iTunes for free to hear the whole conversation. And while you’re at it, check out the Grammy goodness on Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour, Louis C.K.: Hilarious, "Weird Al" Yankovic's Alpocalypse.