Diminutive, but powered by fitful spasms of energy and a seemingly boundless wit, Patton Oswalt has slowly made a name for himself in comedy circles, courtesy of his writing work (four seasons on MadTV), small screen supporting performances (The King of Queens), zonked-out cameo appearances and various stand-up specials. Then, a couple years back, he won over kids and adults alike as the voice of Remy in Ratatouille. None of this prepares one for Oswalt’s starring, sad-sack turn in Robert Siegel’s Big Fan, however. Of a certain piece with The Wrestler, also written by Siegel, the film — which centers on an obsessive New York Giants fan who has a brush with one of his idols, and through a radio show develops a seemingly irrational relationship with a nemesis he’s never met — could also play alongside One Hour Photo in a double-feature at the New Beverly or Varsity Grande. Is Oswalt on the verge of crossing over into meatier and/or more heartrending dramatic fare? I caught up with the affable multi-hyphenate recently at a Los Angeles hotel, and he talked about his work on Big Fan, honing his comedic instincts, and why my theory about guys may be misguided. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: Since it seems on a certain level an unlikely fit with you, how did Big Fan first come your way?

Patton Oswalt: Robert approached me and gave me the script to read, and I liked it. And the fact that he had the confidence in me to do it gave me the confidence to do it. But I was also very excited because it’s the kind of movie that I love, and the kind that used to get made a lot more often in the early 1970s. I love those kinds of movies — like Fat City and The King of Marvin Gardens — so to get to do something like this was a big deal for me.

BS: Is there a truth to the whole “tears-behind-the-clown” tag comedians get saddled with?

PO: Somewhat, but I think that comedians are also just like anyone else — we’re sad, we’re happy, we’re angry, we’re content. “The reason he succeeded in law is because he’s sad?” Well, no. We contain multitudes.

BS: George Will once wrote about sports being a cultural unifier. Are you a sports fan in general, or is there one that sticks out for you?

PO: Never followed sports, sorry.

BS: Really? I have this theory about guys: they can not drink at all, or they can not follow sports, but they can’t do both, or other guys on a certain level distrust him.

PO: I don’t know about that. I enjoy drinking, but I know friends who don’t follow sports or drink, and they’re perfectly fine. So I’ve never thought of it that way. I think that’s way too sweaty a generalization, sorry.

BS: My theory crumbles down around me, then. Maybe that only applies to less enlightened folks. What about Robert, then — did he talk about what fandom meant to him?

PO: I think it’s based on his imagination about these people that call into these shows. You get this two-minute glimpse into people’s lives, and he must have thought how empty and desperate it is, or does it just seem that way to other people? Are they actually content and happy? I actually think this guy’s fandom is pretty extreme, just not to him. He doesn’t judge it, or see anything wrong with it, so the only time he gets irritated is when people try to compare him to life, but he’s rejected life, so why are they comparing him? That’s what frustrates him a little bit.

BS: Were you familiar at all with this whole AM subculture out there?

PO: The only research I did was to hang out in Staten Island a lot and look at parallels to that kind of obsession in my life, or the lives of my friends — like with politics or movies. I was more interested in the fuel that drives it. Same spark, different fuel, you know? I was more interested in trying to be in tune with the general of it than the specifics, so I never listened to any sports radio or anything.

BS: You’ve missed out, I tell you, because it’s fascinating. …Most especially after losses, the Dodgers and Lakers post-game radio shows have their own entertainment value. So you wrote for MadTV for many years; doing more performing, is that muscle something you still exercise regularly, or only when the urge strikes?

PO: I still write. I like to do all three — write, do stand-up and act. They all interest me, so I’ve stoppped thinking of it in terms of career phases, like, “Well, that’s over, now I’m acting.” What it really comes down to is I want the money and the anecdotes, so it’s got to be something interesting to me and it has to pay. Stories and memories are currency to me.

BS: You did some writing for the stand-up material in Funny People, and Judd Apatow was effusive in his praise of you.

PO: Really? I’m so excited about that guy’s career, just as a film buff. …As exotic as the subject matter may seem to some people, he always ties it back to how it effects people, he makes it so universal. I haven’t seen that in a filmmaker in a while. There seems to be this new crop of guys, like David Gordon Green and the guy who made Man Push Cart and Chop Shop (Ramin Bahrani), and then Kathryn Bigelow always — we’ve been in such a rut of special effects and blood ballets that now we’re getting back to the idea of, “Hey, what happens when you shoot a human face when something is happening to it?” There’s something so beautiful about that.

BS: What was it like crafting material for fictionalized characters, essentially slipping on other voices?

PO: Well, it was funny, because depending on where the character was in the movie — someone like Seth Rogen’s character, who early in the movie was a very inept comedian — you could kind of go with the first joke that came to mind, which is what beginning comedians do, they don’t dig deep. And then as the movie progressed I could flex those muscles more. But it was kind of nostalgic for me to go, “Oh yeah, when I was starting out I would go with the very first joke that popped into your head and that was the routine.”

BS: How long, then, when you write for stand-up, does it take for a new routine to take shape?

PO: It’s different, man, because I don’t write before I go on stage. I just go on stage over and over again until I hone the thing down. It changes every time. Sometimes I get it pretty early on, sometimes it takes a few times. Sometimes I do something that doesn’t work, I put it away and bring it back later, and it goes off like a rocket. So my technique is to just go on stage over and over again until I get it where I want it. That’s my only technique.

BS: So is it built, at least very loosely, around certain themes or ideas?

PO: I don’t have set themes or ideas, it’s just based on whatever is affecting me. And I don’t know what that’s going to be anymo
re. They’re coming in fast and furious. Everything in your life is going to change your comedic point-of-view — living your life, getting older. So I just accept everything, without being judgmental about what’s coming in, and looking at it from new angles.

BS: Was a comedic outlook on life something that formed early, and/or came naturally for you?

PO: Yeah, I had a really good childhood. My parents were great and we saw a lot of humor in things, and that became a much better way to accept life for me than pessimism or fear. The people around me that had a sense of humor seemed to be getting more out of life than the people who took things so seriously. And I wanted more out of life so I went with the comedic route.

BS: There you go. Back to Big Fan, what was Robert like as a director, because I don’t know that, unless people were told, they would maybe put together that this was also the guy who wrote The Wrestler and also used to edit The Onion.

PO: Well, he had so many other things on his mind, like the money and locations, that he was a great director because he didn’t have time to talk to me, so we were all allowed to breathe and develop our characters. But I think that he wanted that anyway, that he doesn’t want to bother you with (affecting a whiny voice), “This is what I think.” So he let everyone figure out their own thing, and he trusted everyone. He cast exactly who he wanted, and he got what he wanted.

BS: There’s such a great specificity of place to the film.

PO: That was him and (cinematographer) Michael Simmonds really looking around Staten Island and shooting the hell out of it. The bleakness was beautiful, and they really captured that.

BS: Back to the touring life of a comedian — what were the salad years like?

PO: Oh, I would do almost 200 shows a year at one point, not just on the road but also in town — you’d just go up every night. I don’t have a chance to go up as much, but when I do I have the same circle of friends that I think are all funnier than me, that I aspire to — which is good, because it keeps me working hard, rather than thinking that I’m the funniest guy in the room. Maybe I just subconsciously didn’t let certain aspects of the salad days end, so they’re still with me, which is good.

BS: You seem like a pretty film savvy guy. What kind of movies do you most enjoy watching?

PO: Anything good. I’ve moved beyond genres. So to me a documentary like The September Issue or Not Quite Hollywood is just as valid to me as The Hurt Locker or Crank 2 or The Hangover or In the Loop. As long as it’s good, that’s what I like. Fuck, is [In the Loop] great! I was like a starving man when that came out… then I saw it, (and was) so happy.