I could almost smell you guys through the screen. You really looked dirty.

Yeah, we were. I mean, again, we weren't sitting in trailers. When it rained, it downpoured, we just sat where we sat. This is the first movie I've ever been on where they're setting up over there, it's taking two hours, which is just rare...I mean, we were literally on those rice paddy dikes, and we were just laying back. And our feet were over the edges in the mud. And the mud was so awesome. It was just this weird-texture mud in those paddies. You know, you just found yourself...It's like looking at a fire for an hour. You were just like [makes squishing sound]. And I just remember us laying there, and these huge hills that'd just come down into this rice paddy, and these people working their rice while we were shooting this movie and just going, "This is incredible, man. This is just so unique. I can't believe we are here. Those people don't...They don't give...Not only do they give a shit, they don't even know what the f..." And then Werner had some of these local people...Like, "I like how he looks, have him come in." And you're like, "Okay, wait. This guy knows that we're telling a story? Don't tell him we're taping a movie, he doesn't even know what that is." I'm serious! It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." With Werner, there were things like that all the time, which were great. But it was nice, it was different.

Did you joke a lot on the set?

Oh, we were. Christian is one of the funniest guys I've ever worked with, I swear to God. He's just a fun guy. And we would just laugh. You know, when you're just tired and you're just punchy...We were in that kind of weird state. I think partially because we weren't eating. I mean, it was like you're stoned all day. It was like, "Whatever, man! Where are we going? Climbing up the waterfall!" And we would just joke. There were times, I remember when Werner would like go, "All right..." [laughs] We were so tired, and he was like, "Here's what I want you to do." And he'd go into the jungle, and he would walk. And he would do this thing, he would go like this. [demonstrates funny walk ] And Christian and I would be walking. And he would do the whole walk like for a minute. And we were laughing so hard! And then he didn't know what we were laughing at. And then we had to do it. And I'm like, "Dude, don't do it. Don't." And Christian would start walking like this. We're both walking like this and looking at each other. I'm like laughing so hard. And you can't see it on film, it looks, like, so dramatic. There was one time, too, that we just broke. Rarely did we break during the scenes because that's the nature that you didn't get to that part. But there was one in particular where he was pounding the nails trying to..."Okay, when he's playing his flute." I don't know if it's in the movie. I can't remember. He's like, "When..." I forget his name. Like Little Hitler or whatever. "...is playing his flute, that's when you do it so that they can't hear you." And every time... [laughs] Every time, I'd go, "What?" Every time Christian would turn to me and go like, "Wait till Little Hitler is playing his flute." And I'd just bust out. "Is playing his flute?" Which is a double meaning. "I can't believe you're saying flute, man!" "Playing his flute." Like it's so...Or, wait. I told him? Did I tell him? [high pitched voice] "Every time he plays his flute!" Werner was like, "Stop it!" And then finally we were all laughing so hard he was laughing. Which isn't a funny story, but...

This is almost like a love story at points...

Yeah, it really is. I agree.

This wasn't like a lot of your comedic sidekick roles...

No, not at all.

Can you talk about the connection between you and Christian?

Oh, it was just very simple. I mean, there were moments...There was one in particular. [laughs] I'm forgetting what room I'm in. "Have I said the same story three times in this room?" "I think he's drunk." There's the moment where I've given up completely, and I'm sitting there. And this was shot early on. And the chopper's coming. He gets up, and I get up, and they see us. And we hug and we're jumping and we're like...This moment when they let us go...You know, this great little movie where you can really do a moment like that, and we're on the ground crying. And I remember both of us just going, "That was awesome. If we can reproduce that, this is going to be good, man." We both felt it. Unfortunately, in a movie like that, it doesn't really...You know, you didn't light it, it was backlit, we were chasing the sun and it doesn't really play. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter, because you get it, that they really do love each other, you know? I mean, I don't know...

How big was the crew? 150 people?

No.  It was pretty small. The Thai were great, a great crew.  I don’t know how many but a small crew.  It wasn’t very big.

Where would you sleep. Were there tents outside?

No. We stayed …we were in Mae Hon Son for a long time, Chiang Mai we had a hotel there. Some of them were surprisingly great and some of them weren’t very good at all.  I think Krabi was the nicest. We stayed near the beach and it was beautiful. On a day off you pay some dude to take you to some island that no one was on, just sand.. man, you’d sit in the sun.  But, it was right after the tsunami, you know.  It’s one of the first things I thought of when that tsunami hit, Werner was like, ‘you know our sets are all there’. We were supposed to be there during that.  We were going to shoot at that time.  But, that was the nicest but we had this red, this orange dirt on our feet from shooting and the hotel was getting so pissed because everybody was coming home and tracking this in.  It would get on the towels and they said ‘we’re gonna charge you for the towels because we can’t get the orange dirt off’.  So, there was a station when we got out of our vans where you had to do this scrub down outside the front of this beautiful hotel.

You’ve got such a great sense of humor. Did you ever tease Christian about being Batman?

Oh yeah, constantly, sure. Yeah, we gave each other a lot of crap. 

Have you been watching this whole Sahara thing closely?

To be honest with you, I don’t really deal with it.  I live on a farm in Kentucky and I go make the movies and I go home and, hopefully, out of just being bummed out about wanting things to do better than they did.  I just kind of like punch out. I do this and hope for the best and then go on to do the next thing.  I wrote off the sequel a long time ago. I didn’t know it was still an issue.

Didn’t you want to see it become a franchise?

Oh, sure. I thought it was fun but I don’t know how that works but somebody’s obviously pretty mad.

Have you done anything since shooting this film?

Yeah.  I did ‘Strange Wilderness’.  I read this script.  I was in Vietnam the next week after I wrapped this and they kept calling me and I was on this ‘Men’s Journal’ kayaking thing up in northern Vietnam and it was great after this gig to do something like that.  They tried to get ahold of me for three days and they called me and were like ‘you have to read this script. It’s really funny and you have to say yes or no and you have literally five hours’.  I was in the hotel room in Hanoi reading this comedy and laughing so hard and trying to figure out ‘is it funny ‘cause I’m in Hanoi in my underwear [laughter] or is it funny?’  I was like ‘I have to do this.  I’m laughing so hard’.  It’s called ‘Strange Wilderness’ that Happy Madison produced and it Fred Wolf the director and Peter Gaulke writing.  It’s so funny. It really is funny and it comes out September 7th.  And I have “Comanche Moon”, the prequel to “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry And Simon Wincer, the director of “Lonesome Dove” and the producers are back.  I play Gus McCrae twenty years younger, which is an honor and that comes out in October.  Then I have “The Great Buck Howard”.  John Malkovich plays a magician and..

You haven’t been busy.

No, I honestly haven’t.  Then I did this ‘Sunshine Cleaning’ with Alan Arkin and Emily Blunt and Amy Adams and we just finished that.  I play a detective.  Pretty straight, not funny.  I play a detective.  I’m having an affair with Amy Adams and her and her sister, Emily, I kind of get them in on cleaning up after murders and suicides and that’s kind of the backdrop for this strange family movie.  Very interesting, very funny.

What’s coming up?

Maybe.  It sounds like I’m so busy but, I swear to God, I have been making waffles for my kids, which I do when I’m at home, I take the brunt of all that shit.  I’ve been doing that for about [crazy voice] nine of ten months now.  They’re low budgets.  You can go do ‘um in like two weeks and you’re done.  So I’ve been like bus driver, field trips, bringin’ in cookies for snacks?  I’m there.  I’m the dude.  I’m at gymnastics with all the moms and they’re like [southern accent] ‘do you think Tyler should play football this year and play full pads?  I think that’s ridiculous!’ I’m like ‘fuck, I don’t know’. 

Are you ready for a re-make of “Mr. Mom”?

Oh, totally.  I’m so ready to work that it’s unbelievable. Ahhhhh!  It’s like ‘is there any shit out there?  I’ll do shit, something just bad! Fuck!

What was that thing you might do?

Playtone, they are doing the Pacific version of ‘Band of Brothers’ and they’ve offered me Chesty B. Puller, a Lt. Colonel in the Marine Corps. I’d really love to do that.

Have you talked to Christian about possibly being in ‘Batman’?

Maybe I’m in it.