With Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim opening this weekend, I recently landed an exclusive interview with Charlie Day at the press junket.  During the interview he talked about doing the interview during a huge parade outside the hotel, his reaction to seeing Pacific Rim for the first time, how the movie is fun and not serious like Man of Steel, and a lot more.  In addition, Day talked about his work on the Lego Movie, the status of Horrible Bosses 2, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 9, and Comic-Con.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

Finally, If you missed any of my set visit coverage, be sure to check out my video blog recap with 20 things to know, plus extended on set interviews with Guillermo del Toro, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, and executive producer Callum Greene.

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Image via WB

Collider: When did you first know that they were throwing a parade for you in San Francisco? Because they don't do that very often - throw parades for movies.

CHARLIE DAY: That's true. It's Gay Pride Day here in San Francisco and I'm not sure if you were able to tell watching the movie, but all of the Kaiju are homosexuals. Actually, all the robots are, too. It's a big love fest.

I've seen the movie twice now and when the Kaiju and the Jaegers are fighting each other on screen, the movie is unbelievable.

DAY: It really is beyond anything you could imagine it would be, when you see it. It almost does take two [viewings] to process the entire thing, because it is so over-the-top.

The sets are incredible and you can imagine in your head what it's going to be, but you really don't know until the visual effects come in what it's going to be.

DAY: I'm glad you came up there and saw how it was shot because I have been getting a lot of questions about, "Were you just in front of a giant green screen the entire time?" and it couldn't have been any further from the way they made the movie. Everything that was on set was so massive and so elaborate and so interesting, but then when you see the actual movie, he's taken all that and then gone even further with it. It's really surpassed everything I thought it was going to be.

When you first saw the movie, what was the initial reaction on your performance and the movie in general?

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Image via Warner Bros.

DAY: Well, I was please with my performance. I was happy that it came across the way it did. I wasn't too worried about it because I knew, in this very larger-than-life movie, that I would be sort of a more grounded every man. And I knew that that would come across pretty well because I think it's nice to have a little levity in movies like this and it's also good to have a character that the audience can relate to, who isn't so heroic. The movie blew my mind. It was so much crazier and more intense and more over-the-top than I had expected. I'm still processing it. I can't wait to see it again at our next premiere so I can take it in.

One of the things about it is that it's not ultra serious, like the other comic book movies that have been released recently. I'm calling Man of Steel "Superman Serious." I loved it, but it's a really serious movie.

DAY: Well for me, I saw the movie and I thought they did a great job and I thought Henry was the most Superman-esque guy that we've had since Christopher Reeve, but I did miss that sense of levity. For me, one of the great joys of the original Superman movies is that there would be a sequence where a taxi cab driver would accidentally run into Superman, or Clark Kent, and think that he'd killed a man. Then he would see that his car was dented in and you would get a laugh out of that. A huge part of life is to laugh and be amused and you can make movies without that, but I think it's a missed opportunity not to have a little bit of joy and lightness in it. So for me, this movie is a refreshing break - not only to have an original piece of content, but then have an original piece of content that seems like it's not taking itself so serious that it's overwhelming and brooding and too serious.

One of the things I took away after watching the film was that this was a universe that felt so deep that we're just scratching the surface when we watch the film. If they ask you to do the voice for a video game or add more depth to the world, would you be in?

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DAY: I don't know that I'd be running to go be part of a video game, but it is an exciting world and I do want to give more to the fans so I'm definitely open to continuing the world of this movie.

What can you tell people about The Lego Movie and how much fun you had working on it?

DAY: I had a lot of fun working on it. Honestly, I don't know that much about The Lego Movie. I just knew a lot about the guys who were making The Lego Movie. They were writers on a sitcom I was on years ago called The Luis Guzman Show That's where I met those guys and they were so funny then. Obviously they've had this amazing career and they've been making such great and funny movies that when I got an email, I just couldn't wait to work with them. But I didn’t read the script, I was just given scenes and they played with me a lot in the room and talked a lot about the character and we riffed around and had some fun and tried some different things. I'm as excited as you are to see how it's going to turn out, I don't even know what it's going to be.

Obviously Horrible Bosses did okay and I heard it made some money and the studio seemed happy. I heard maybe you're working a sequel?

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DAY: More importantly, the fans seemed happy. Sometimes these moves make a lot of money and the fans don't seem happy. Yeah, we've been talking about doing another one and everyone has agreed to do it and I know they're sort of kicking the tires on a concept that'll make it worthwhile for doing another movie and trying to hone in on a script. I'm waiting to get that at any moment and have conversations with everyone and hopefully we can do something good. But as of now, we're not actually filming anything. We're still just trying to develop it.

What are you working on, what's coming up for you this year? What's the next challenge for you?

DAY: We're in the editing room and feeling good about Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 9 and I'm pretty much just focused on that. I have some features - one that I wrote and another one that I'd like to write - but it's pretty great to do Guillermo del Toro movies.

It seems like Always Sunny pushes. It pushes and pushes and pushes and I think it can't push any further and it does. Are you constantly looking around or hearing people on the street saying some crazy shit and you're like, "Oh my God, how did we never think of that?"

DAY: That's a part of it. There's crazy shit in the world that's happening all the time. This year we're revisiting the gun issues because that's been such a hot topic. But yeah, things just keep popping up and we have great dark, twisted minds that we work with and are always finding different ways to push boundaries.

Are you guys going to Comic-Con this year?

DAY: We are. Yeah, we're going to screen an episode. It's one of the best episodes we've ever done so I couldn’t be more thrilled to screen it.