Do you think there’s a common thread between all the roles that you’ve played?
Well I’m sure there is, but for me I guess I like a lot of parts that I feel like where I get to be in a world, or explore. If I’m just playing myself, just a normal guy in Brooklyn, that’s like…unless it’s something really honest, like an intimate, small film, you know. I guess I like just characters that have some things that I don’t have, that I get to figure out.

So you don’t identify with your characters?
Oh yeah, I do. I mean there’s always something. But the idea of playing someone who’s interested in women’s clothing [as Louis, in The Extra Man is,] is like a turn on, not a turn off. That guy is a hopeless romantic, which I get — I am too.

Isn’t your next film, Cowboys and Aliens, sort of like those Schwarzenegger films you could never envision yourself being in?
Sort of, but it’s like a Western. It’s, like, period. And I have a really fun part.

What’s the part?
I don’t know if I’m supposed to say. They get really touchy these days about keeping things secret.

The Extra Man opened in theaters nationwide July 30.