It's fun watching Robert Siegel and Patton Oswalt interact. Siegel is a former Editor-in-Chief of The Onion, who last year gained universal acclaim (and clout) after writing The Mickey Rourke Comeback Movie you may know as The Wrestler. The latter is a polemic comedian best known for his sidekick role on the Kevin James-starring CBS sitcom King of Queens, and as the voice of the gastronomically-gifted Remy the rat in Pixar's Ratatouille. Together, they seem like old buds, very at ease with each other, very familiar, and well, very ordinary. But they also created something very unordinary, perhaps even extraordinary. It's called Big Fan, and it's one of the most surprising movies you're likely to see all year.

In Big Fan--a hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival--Oswalt take an unlikely dark turn as Paul Aufierio, a man-child parking attendant who still lives in Staten Island with his mother. Paul is a fan of the New York Giants--a big fan. When he gets into an altercation with his favorite player at strip club, Paul's obsession spreads like a virus until it completely consumes his entire being, and it's not a pretty motion picture. Here are Siegel and Oswalt on not just making "another Paul Giamatti movie," Staten Island grotesques, and possible film about Mickey Rourke's jacket.

You wrote The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke in mind, and said you couldn’t have done it without him. Was there a similar situation with this film and Patton? RS: It a Nic Cage version of that movie would have been shitty, yes. But with this I didn't have a specific muse. I had a clear but faceless picture of the guy in my head, but no, it wasn't like I had a picture of John C. Reilly tacked to my wall. I had a vague notion that it would be one of those— without falling into the trap of type casting—it's hard to avoid thinking about the Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, John C. Reilly type of guy that tend to play these roles. But I didn’t want this to just be another Paul Giamatti movie.

Patton, did you audition or did Robert come to you? PO: He came to me. RS: Yeah, I submitted it to my agent who was also Patton's agent, and Patton liked it enough to meet with me and we were immediately on the same page. It's not like Patton said, "Oh my god, I'm so flattered you didn't give it to Will Ferrell." He knew what was going for. PO: We had breakfast and started talking about the kinds of movies we liked and all those early '70's movies—not just stuff like Taxi Driver, but more obscure ones like Fat City and King of Marvin Gardens.

The film was expertly shot, and Robert, you don’t have a technical background, so how did you pull that off? RS: Michael Simmons, the cinematographer, was the most important person on the crew to me. Since I’ve never directed before I needed to lean on that guy to basically direct the movie for me. He probably should get a co-directing credit, truthfully. Some directors are super hands on and need to know how to operate every piece of equipment and need to talk the lingo, but I am definitely more of a delegator and I'm happy to just look in the lens. If it looks great, I don't care how he did it.

You guys really flipped the switch on what you think of as a typical jock. You turned the jock into a nerd RS: Most sports fans aren't the cool, backwards baseball cap, frat guys. PO: Robert focused more on the kind of social rudderlessness that a lot of these guys have. RS: I went to a lot of Mets games when I was a kid and I wasn't sitting in the front row in the luxury boxes where there were alpha males who work at a law firm drinking beers together. We were kind of the upper deck people. Also there’s a huge subset of sports fans I belonged to who were baseball card nerds. I would go to tons of baseball card shows, and they were not that far off from going to a comic book convention—they're not cool. PO: Let's go to the baseball card shows, so we can hook up with some hot chicks!

Patton, you're a noted comic book fan. Can you see the appeal of an obsession with sports? PO: Totally, it's that exact same spark. It's just a different fuel for each thing. I really don't see any difference if someone tried to take a bigger place in the world by projecting themselves onto a pretend god-like creature. RS: In both cases you’re worshipping men with huge pectoral muscles.

Is there anything that either of you are as passionate about as Paul? PO: Not to the level that I would exclude the rest of reality. That's really dangerous. I’ve seen it first-hand, especially at the revival theaters I go to in L.A. to catch a classic movie. You'll see these people is all they do is go to these, it's really scary sad.

So how do you engage with comic books? PO: I'm more of a connoisseur. I'm not just doing it so I can paint over all the messiness of life, I use it to enhance life. The same way one enjoys a classic wine with dinner is different than an alcoholic who just wants to fill their life with alcohol until they black out.

A lot of the supporting characters in this film—namely Paul’s family—are pretty grotesque. Did you enhance reality for effect or were you trying to be as realistic as possible? RS: If it comes off as grotesque or unrealistic then I failed. Some people have said it's a collection of Staten Island grotesques, but I didn't intend for it to be and I don't think it is.

But the actress who plays Paul’s sister-in-law has this has this orange skin… RS: That's her skin! If you go to Staten Island, every other store is a tanning salon. I'm going for kind of the same thing as The Sopranos. I think it may read grotesque because you don't really see these people in movies or on TV, but if you go to Staten Island—Hollywood wasn't the one that came up with the idea that these guys wear track suits.

Patton, have you been getting different scripts because of your unexpected performance? PO: Well, the movie hasn't really come out yet, but just in general there seems to be more dramatic roles coming my way. But to me, the only genre is what is good and interesting, so I’m more interested in doing something that's going to keep me on my toes. So comedy, animation, science fiction, TV movies, as long as it's good.

What if you got a script like Paul Blart: Mall Cop? PO: Paul Blart had a lot of funny stuff in it so it's hard to say. I'm sure there are a lot of crap movies that started off with the best intentions but something went wrong. And there a lot of movies hat started off with no intentions that ended up amazing. Imagine your first day working on a movie called RoboCop. What the hell? Now it's in the Criterion Collection, so you never know.

Robert, are you working on anything else? RS: Big Fan 2. PO: The search for Fanny's Gold? Aren't you doing that third movie that features the jacket that's in The Wrestler? That quilted jacket finally finds it's way onto a successful, happy person. It's a saga. RS: No, I like making these types of movies. There's a very fine line of writing in a groove and being stuck in a rut.

What are your writing habits? RS: I just dick around, and some days I act like a writer and I sit there with a mug of coffee.

In a cafe or at home? RS: At home. PO: Is there anything lamer than writing in public? RS: It's not as bad in New York. PO: In L.A. it's the worst, people tapping away on their laptops in Starbucks, it's the worst. RS: I mean, I go to L.A. like once or twice a year and a couple times I've had to write things and I went to Starbucks and it's really— PO: Embarrassing.

How do you spot a screenwriter? RS: Because they have a laptop. You can go to a Starbucks, and there are probably out of the forty people in there like twelve screenplays being worked on. PO: Oh my god.

The ending in this is so brilliant, the twist ending. RS: You're absolutely right. I told you about the FOX guy last week? RS: He didn't like it? PO: No, he totally gave it away in the interview, then we had to beg him to not show that part. And he was doing the thing like, "I don't think I revealed it," when he flat out revealed what the ending was. RS: You serious dude? PO: I was like please, please don't show that, and he goes, "Well, I'll look at it."

What are some of the films are guys are looking forward to for the rest of the year? PO: There's a lot I haven't seen. I'm really looking forward to seeing District 9 and Inglorious Basterds. RS: I just saw the trailer for Gentlemen Broncos, that looks really funny. Holy shit, I'm so excited to see that.

What about things you have seen that have blown you away? RS: We both saw In the Loop. PO: I loved The Hurt Locker, oh my fucking god, was that great. RS: At the risk of sounding totally gay, Julie & Julia. It’s basically two movies spliced together. The Amy Adams stuff is really lame. That half of the movie feels like commercial breaks.

Patton, what are some of your favorite restaurants in L.A.? PO: Providence, Lazar, and Jar.

And what about you in New York, Rob? RS: I go to Chop’t. That place has really good models. It's 100% populated by models.