Could you talk about some of your upcoming projects?

Sure. Projects coming up that I've shot awhile ago, that may be coming out, who knows, is a thriller, a sort of vampire horror movie called Rise, that I think is coming out next fall, but I'm not sure. And then I did a movie with Cillian Murphy over the summer. It was a romantic comedy, a very small movie called Watching the Detectives.

How was working with Cillian?

He's great. He's incredibly talented. It was his first foray into comedy. I think he did a great job. You know, he's very impressive, because he focuses a lot on his family, and he's not an intense person where you can't approach him and talk to him. Because all of his movies are so incredible, and he's always playing such dramatic roles, it's really refreshing to see him doing something much lighter and comedic. And he's running around naked in half the movie. [laughs]

Cool.

Yeah, exactly. That's what makes comedy, is naked people, I guess.

It's a theme with you...

Yeah, everyone has to be naked when I do a round of comedy with them. [laughs]

What's the best Christmas gift you've ever received?

The best gift that I've ever received? Well, it's weird, because we don't exchange gifts anymore. My friends and I, we've known each other for so long, my family, and we spend so much time together that we literally said, "No, we're not going to exchange gifts. Don't worry about it." And we've been donating money to UNICEF. It's weird because it gets to the point where it's not even about the gift anymore. It's that people will come all the way from another state to come for your opening of an art show, or they'll come all the way over there for your birthday for lunch. You know, like to me, that's become such a great gift, acknowledging that I don't actually need anything material. And I go home now, and I just sort of see everything and I just want to re-gift everything. It's like, "Oh my God! I have so much..." Sometimes you just want to change your whole life and you want everything gone, you know what I mean? You grow out of things and you realize that you don't really need things. Like if you have construction or something going on in your house, you realize that you put all these things away, you don't actually ever use them. Like, "It's been in the thing for six months, do we ever use it? No. Do we need it? No." So it becomes a very different thing. And in my experience, I've just become a lot more aware of global affairs and global issues and children. Like whenever I think of doing something, I always think of donating money for somebody for an institution or for an organization, or I ask them what they care about, and I donate under their name, too. I don't know, it's just become a lot more...you know, hopefully not like, "Grandma Lucy is sending a five dollar check to you!" But it's become a lot more...It's just a different thing. It's just become really different. Because I feel like people give things all the time over the year, like, "Oh, I saw this sweater, I really liked it and I wanted to get it for you." So when it comes to that time of the year, it just becomes a very different situation.

Any childhood toy you remember fondly?

We didn't really...And I think maybe this is the problem, was we didn't really exchange gifts a lot during the holidays either. It's not that we didn't celebrate Christmas, it was just like if we're even together in one place, then that's a really big gift.

So it's just being with people?

Yeah, I think so. It's what it's come down to.

Who would you call the entertainer of the year?

Oh, God. Well, since I have to discount myself, I would say...The entertainer of the year? What does that entail? Like what does that encompass?

Not necessarily awards, just anyone who has entertained.

The most? Oh, Borat.

Yeah?

Yeah, Sacha Cohen. That's another thing that I thought was really funny. Like I was crying. I was like, "This is so inappropriate, it's funny." You know, like it was so inappropriate, it just made things so much funnier. Because everyone's so appropriate now. It's sort of...If it's not that politically correct, it's actually quite funny.

Do you have a favorite Three's Company moment? Was it "the one with the misunderstanding"?

Yeah! "That misunderstanding episode," exactly! Oh, and then "when he fell down"? [laughs]

Yes, exactly! Or when Mr. Furley "overheard something"...

And he was like looking for Chrissy? Yeah. Don Knotts. [does Don Knotts expression] That's my Don Knotts impression. [laughs] And then there was Mr. Roper. Yeah. I mean, I don't know...Like I used to watch Happy Days and Get Smart and all those things. Like those to me, I just enjoyed that very like, "Max is in the bubble." "Max, you can't hear anything." "Oh, Max!" There was just a very sort of formulaic way of having comedy then, which I somehow enjoyed as a child.

Was there a film you saw as a child that changed your life?

Well, the only movie that I can remember seeing in a theater, because we didn't go out to theaters much, was E.T., which blew my mind! I just remember being in a theater, and my whole family was with me, and I was just hysterical crying. Like it was just so moving. And the plant dying and coming back to life. You know, it was such a moment. It was so magical to see them bicycling by the moon. And you know, it's so funny because now you think that everything's a greenscreen. Or you can make a movie completely with greenscreen. And then it was just, that was a miracle, you know? And to see how things have progressed so quickly, it's pretty amazing. And hopefully people don't take it for granted. I mean, now everything's so action oriented and it's so easy to put things together that, you know, you forget how simple things used to be and how wonderful they were, you know?

So when you finally met Drew Barrymore and worked with her, were you in awe that she was in that movie?

You know what's so weird? Is that I didn't associate that little girl with her at all. I actually completely forgot. Because the movie itself was, that was that character, do you know what I mean? And that was that little girl, and Elliott and all those people were there, and they'll always be there in that time frame, and they'll always be that age because they're forever captured on celluloid. And this other woman that I knew and that I met was this goofy other girl that had nothing to do with that. And I think when we were doing the first thing, they had a re-release of E.T. and it was on DVD, and I was like, "Oh my God, I completely didn't even put 2 and 2 together." Because you meet the person in the present day, and you know...It's so weird. I should have gotten her to sign my DVD! [laughs] What was I thinking! But yeah, that was a really...

When it did dawn on you, did you say, "Oh my God!"?

No, I didn't. Because it didn't even like...You know, because sometimes after work we have different events that we have to run to, and she was going to that, and not until later on did I realize that she was going to this major event that was a really big moment in my youth. So it was pretty funny, yeah.

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