A couple of years ago, I went to see a production of Wicked in San Francisco with a friend of mine, one that Patty Duke was in, and he said, "Do you want to meet her?" And I said, "Yeah!" And I went backstage, and she walked out of her dressing room, looked at me, and said, "I know you." And I went, "Well, uh, yeah, I was in My Sweet Charlie." And she said, "Yeah! You were the guy in the car on the road!" And I was. It was amazing.

I assumed, "Well, I must've sounded like Conan O'Brien, or a reasonable facsimile or something." And there I am in the movie [South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ]. I was very lucky.

[Trey Parker and Matt Stone]called me one Saturday morning and said, "Can you do an impression of Conan O'Brien?" And I said, "I don't know." Because that was really... He hadn't been on the air that long, and to be honest, I hadn't watched much of him at that point. So I went to Santa Monica to their studio and said, "Well, what does he sound like?" They said, "Well, just try it one time. Read the copy." And I read the copy one time, and they went, "Okay, that's fine. Thanks a lot, that'll do. That's perfect."

It really was not that difficult a process, because I was playing [Data from Star Trek] something that doesn't exist. So it was really based on... Imagination was the key element in that, and whatever I could think of, I could do, because there was no precedent for it. It wasn't like someone was going to say, "Well, an android would never do that." They didn't know!

[The Aviator] came about through John Logan, who I've been friends with for many years.

Voice acting is about the easiest thing to do. You roll out of bed, throw your clothes on that you had on the night before, you go into the studio, and nobody cares, just as long as you can speak.

So it was a really pleasant surprise when [Independence Day] turned out to be a successful film. I don't know if you've heard that they're going to be re-releasing it next Fourth of July in 3-D. I've actually only seen it once, and it was in Hawaii, in a little theater in Oahu shortly after it was released. But Roland Emmerich is a really smart guy, and he makes really fun movies to watch.