You speak to certain bitterness about some of the animals in the production notes…

I would never speak with bitterness about any of the animals.  I loved them all desperately.

Well, what were the most lovable animals and what were the ones you least-liked?

Loveable? Giraffes and elephants – very soulful faces, kind, sweet, gentle.  Reprehensible, the baboons were horrifying. There is one scene when the baboons bring me lemonade. And in one take, the baboons spilled the lemonade and I went off book and I improved and said something like, ‘Hey man? What are you doing”’ And I raised my voice maybe to that degree. And the baboon thought I was getting aggressive with it and it bared its teeth and took a very aggressive stance with me. And it scared the hell out of me.  And after the take the trainer came and said, ‘You know what, don’t’ do that. Really don’t talk to the baboon.’ And then he paused and said, ‘You know what? As a matter of fact, don’t look the baboon in the eye.’ And I’m like, ‘What?  Why didn’t you tell me before they were shooting not to look the baboon in the eye?’  So, they were a little ornery. Yeah, the camel’s breath. In an enclosed space, a camel’s breath can change the atmosphere of the room. Not only just the smell, they literally seem to change the atmospheric pressure.  It’s so disgusting. It’s like they have eight stomachs each more rancid then the next and it just comes out of their mouth. So, those two would probably be the ones I wouldn’t take home as pets.

Did you have a favorite wig or get up at all?

Oh they were all my favorites I guess. Just in terms of my intrinsic sexiness in them, I would say the mountain man look. That was like the third stage of growth, which to me looked like a ‘70’s tennis pro. Kind of like a Bjorn Borg. A little mystery.  Might have been a few days without a shower or bath.  A little grubby, a little greasy. I think that is my personal favorite.

How tough was the daily regimen to put that on?

It was fine. Y’know, the people who applied it were such artists. David Anderson who is I think is one of the best special effects artists in the business did all the design and crafting of those wigs and beards and it was about 3-4 hours to put it on in the morning and about an hour to take it off, but I really, I never want to hear myself complaining about it. Because you hear actors complaining about prosthetic makeup and, y’know, it’s not fun, but let’s face it. I’m not on a roof in 100-degree weather putting tar down. I’m getting a beard stuck on my face. It’s really not that bad.

You said you see this as a sort of fable.  Do you see this as a kid’s movie?  What do you think the message of it is?

I wouldn’t say its a kid’s movie, I think it is a movie, and y’know; this is sort of a fine line to walk to.  Whenever I hear someone describe something as a ‘kids movie’ or a ‘family movie,’ it immediately has a negative connotation in my mind because I think, ‘Well, as an adult, I wouldn’t go see it by myself, because it’s purely for children and it holds nothing for me and it’s simplistic and it’s kind of easy.’ I don’t see the movie as that. I see it as, I hope, as having a fairly broad appeal. Because I think it’s funny.  I think it would be very funny for kids, but I think likewise for adults. I think message-wise?  Another fine line. I was hoping that the movie had a strong message, but subtle message, about our environment. About taking care of it and taking care of each other and acts of kindness to one another. And sort of leaving people with a bit of a positive message and making people happy, but my goal beyond that was to make it funny without making it preachy or overly sentimental or overly precious. In no way -- I don’t think this movie crams any message down anybody’s throat. I think it’s done with a fairly light touch.

How is Jenna Fisher doing after her accident?

She’s doing much better. She’s back in Los Angeles.  She will be completely fine. She’s going to kind of lay low. She wasn’t working this summer, so she can kind of just take it easy and start rehabbing it, but she’s going to be fine.

You didn’t have any scenes in the first film with Morgan Freeman. Did you get to meet him?

I never did.

What was it like on this film then?

I never met him on the first one. I saw him from a distance at the premiere, but I was far to nervous and shy to approach him and say ‘Hi.’  And I was almost too shy to approach him on this one as well. He’s just a presence.  He walks around people have a great amount of respect and reverence for him really. He’s such a fantastic actor and all you want to do is be around him. He’s the type of actor I think, the best kind, because he makes everyone else he’s with better than they are. And he’s great. Could not have be sweeter and has an enormously good sense of humor about himself.  So, that was, y’know, in the past couple of years, I’ve worked with Alan Arkin and Juliette Binoche and Catherine Keener and I’ve worked with Morgan Freeman. These are people who I hold in such high regard, among others that I’ve worked with. But, yeah, He’s one of those sort of iconic people that I think anyone would love to get to work with at any point.

How do you keep a balance between your family and your career?

I use sports energy drinks. Highly caffeinated sports energy drinks is the answer. Y’know, I’m sort of -- I am the type of person who is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. So, I’m not taking any of what is happening now for granted and essentially I know there is a window of time when I’ll be able to do these things and I’m just trying to take advantage of that now. While at the same time, being very cautious to not let it interfere with my family life. That, to me, is the line.  If it starts to bleed over to time away from my family, then it’s sort of not going to happen, but so far I’ve been able to balance those things.

Can you talk about building the ark?  We heard you got some training for it…

I got some training? I think one day a guy said, ‘This is an auger. And you put it here and you press down here.’  I didn’t get any training. (Laughs.)  I don’t know how put that in the little liner notes.  Yeah, oh yeah. I am so not handy. There is no way. It would take me several hundred years to build one of those ribs for that ark. The amount of work that would take. Even a killed master carpenter, it is, to stand. I mean, imagine this room -- and we are in a large viewing room -- the ark was maybe twice as wide as this and 450 feet long. It was, the structure and just the magnitude of this project.  And for Tom, it was very important for him to actually build it.  Because, and he was right.  And we were talking about it early on and he said that in his mind he had this idea of me at night in front of the ark and it’s just this massive, hulking thing.  It’s almost like another character in the movie. And you just couldn’t get that if you did it as a computer generation or a backdrop of some sort.  But, no, I could maybe build a boat the size of this table that would then sink. No way.

Can you talk about working opposite Wanda Sykes and ad-libbing with her?

I was so close to ruining so many of her takes, because she just makes me laugh. And there were times, she was doing one scene where she was on the phone, just calling in.  And Tom had her just riffing doing different lines over and over and over. And I literally had to leave the room, because I was going to ruin what she was doing because it was so funny. She’s really – she’s sort of beyond funny. She has a very sarcastic, biting sense of humor, but in person, very warm, very sweet, kind. Kind of a gentle soul that you don’t necessarily see. And I hope I didn’t pull the curtain aside on who she really is, but she was great, really fun.

Do you like people comparing you Jim Carrey at all?

I love it. No, I take that as a huge compliment. To even be mentioned in the same sentence with him, yeah, that’s a huge complement to me. I’ve watched him and I’ve enjoyed all of his movies. And I was telling somebody when I was living in Chicago; I was there the day before the original ‘Ace Ventura’ opened. And it was before it had really caught on and people started catching on to him as a movie star. I saw it like within a day and there might have been four people in the theater – a large theater.  And from the opening credit sequence, we were howling and I remember the guy in front of me, turning around and looking at me and saying, ‘I know! I can’t believe it!’ Like we had found this thing and the four of us were in a club together and like we were witnessing something. So yeah, to have been in ‘Bruce Almighty’ and to have been in scenes with him was a real honor to me. Even if I am unfavorable compared to Jim Carrey I take that as a compliment.  Thanks.

Was that the worst thing to have those birds on you?

It wasn’t fun. That was certainly up there.

Were they pecking on your ear?

They were pecking on my ear and my hands.