After Bottle Rocket, I started getting acting work. People started offering me roles in movies. It wasn't something that I thought about as a kid growing up in Texas. Actually, maybe I would have thought of it as a possibility, but it seemed so crazily far-fetched to think that you could work in movies that I really didn't ever quite imagine it. It was just lucky.

It isn't so much that I choose the roles - I mean, I guess there's a little bit of a selection process - but it's more just what people offer you.

The first thing I remember is Alexander Calder - our school took us on a field trip to go see the Calder mobiles, and that always stuck in my memory.

If a movie goes south, it might not capsize me the way it used to. But I still have a terrible fear of failure. I'm a huge worrier.

James L.Brooks is just a very original person. So that was definitely the luckiest, most important thing that happened to me [meeting him]. Then I guess also meeting Ben Stiller. He cast me in the only thing I think I ever auditioned for and got: Cable Guy [1996]. And that led to us becoming friends.

There's something people find hilarious about dogs surfing and dancing and talking in the movies. I think it's nice for people - I think it's wish fulfillment - to see animals talking.

You can think of Hollywood as high school. TV actors are freshmen, comedy actors are maybe juniors, and dramatic actors - they're the cool seniors.