Patton Oswalt Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions

I'm Patton Oswalt,

and this is the WIRED Autocomplete Interview.

[upbeat music]

Are these actual searches that came up? Oh my God.

[upbeat music]

Woo-hoo!

Patton Oswalt King of Queens character.

Well, I played Spence Olchin

who collected tokens in the subway for nine seasons.

Zero character growth.

He was stunted and hilarious,

and I absolutely loved playing him.

There's an episode, I didn't have any lines in the scene,

even though I was in the scene, and the writers dared me.

Stand absolutely still.

Do not react and see if anyone notices.

And no one noticed it.

Is Patton Oswalt friends with Kevin James.

I don't get to see him as much as I'd like,

but when we see each other, we are very friendly.

A I'm a big fan.

Was Patton Oswalt on Seinfeld?

Yes, he was.

Back in 1994, I played a video store clerk,

where George Costanza, the great Jason Alexander,

was trying to rent breakfast at Tiffany's

because he didn't wanna read the book for his book club.

And Jason Alexander was very helpful to me,

because I was so nervous.

I only had one line.

And right before they yelled, Action,

Jason leaned forward and said,

It's not too late to be fired, Patton.

And it completely cracked me up and relaxed me.

And I kind of owe my career to that guy.

Patton Oswalt The Goldbergs.

I'm the grownup kid narrating my life story.

And I never actually appeared on the show,

but you hear my voice every single episode.

Well that's been that board.

Patton Oswalt stand up. I do it.

It was the summer in between freshman

and sophomore year of college.

1988. Had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

Did a few open mics in Washington, DC.

And that even before I got good at being a standup,

I just loved that world.

I loved the hang. I loved hanging out with comedians.

It was just instantly appealing to me.

I'm like, Oh, this is the life I want.

So the thing that you want to go do,

even when it's giving you no immediate reward,

is probably what you should do with your life.

Patton Oswalt Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I got to do an episode where Larry

and I do a hot dog eating contest to impress a woman.

And what better way to impress a woman

than shoving processed meat down your throat?

Patton Oswalt New York.

That's where I am right now.

I have such a love-hate thing with this city.

New York is great to live in when you are young and broke,

or when you're old and rich.

But anywhere between, like, ages 29 and 65,

if you're just doing just okay money-wise,

this is not the place to live.

It will chew you down to the bone.

And listen, I love you, Spike Lee. I love you, De Niro.

I love you, Scorsese.

But when those guys talk about New York,

it's the only way to live,

yeah, the way you live here,

with a private elevator that takes your car

up to your penthouse.

Absolutely, that's the best way to live. Yes.

But when you're in a studio apartment

in Hell's Kitchen with a French bulldog

that's pooping all over the place,

no, maybe not the place to live.

Patton Oswalt Zoolander.

I've known Ben Stiller since the '90s. I love him.

I did a lot of early draft reads, and then he goes,

Come in and be this monkey photographer.

So I am this monkey photographer,

and I'm shot through a fish eye lens.

Not a lot of people realize it's me.

What a lot of other people don't know

is the tagline and the poster I came up with.

3% body fat, 0% brain activity. That's mine.

Can I throw it? Wee!

I'm so afraid I'm gonna hit you. I'm so paranoid.

All right, Patton Oswalt Remy.

I'm the voice of Remy, the rat in Ratatouille.

I'm very, very lucky to have gotten to do that.

I got a call from my agent, saying,

Hey, they would like you to go visit Pixar.

And turns out Brad Bird had been driving around,

heard my first album on, like, satellite radio,

and there was a bit that I did.

And he was like, That's the voice I want for this rat.

And he apparently made a pencil test

of Remy doing my routine,

which he showed to the Pixar Disney people.

And they were like,

Is the rat gonna be cursing like that?

Like, no, no, no, no, no, I just want this voice.

And so that's kind of how I got the role.

Patton Oswalt civil war.

I don't wanna say what side I'm on,

but it was a rough time for our country.

Let's just leave it at that, okay?

I got to be in this amazing miniseries

for Apple TV called Manhunt,

about the search for John Wilkes Booth,

after the assassination of President Lincoln.

So I play Detective Lafayette Baker,

who was brought in to aid in the investigation.

That was a serious role,

but I don't think he was a serious person.

He was very shady, very kind of out for himself.

So I could bring a little bit of the kind of pathos

and desperation to him.

And I got to shoot it in Savannah in July and August

in a massive fake beard

and a big, heavy, wool union officer uniform.

Mwah! Patton Oswalt KFC bowls.

Oh, Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation came out

with this product called the Famous Bowls.

There's so much despair to these things.

It's just everything on their menu piled into a bowl.

And I did a whole bit about it.

Even though I was completely correct about

how depressing and sad this thing is,

it's their number one top-selling item,

which I really think says something about

where America is going, mentally and psychologically.

They never contacted me,

but they sent me a Colonel Sanders bobblehead

and then a bobblehead of me, but much smaller,

which I feel like is the fast food version

of a Sicilian message.

I burned them.

I did not wanna bring that bad energy into my house.

I'm gonna hit you, and I'm gonna feel horrible.

Patton Oswalt podcast.

I had a podcast for a while.

The wife and I had one called Did You Get My Text?

And we had a lot of fun doing it,

but we ended up fighting so much.

We're like, This podcast is hurting our marriage.

So we did 50 episodes and then left it off.

We were like, There's enough podcasts,

the world will be fine.

Why does Patton Oswalt wear two rings?

Oh, well, this is my wedding ring,

and this ring right here is a special ring

that Meredith bought right after I proposed.

And it's got a little moonstone on the inside.

And she bought the same ring for me,

our daughter Alice, and for her.

We wear this ring 'cause it's like,

we are also like a unit.

And the moonstone is for love

and a hopeful, positive energy.

And she believes in all this crystal stuff.

I don't know if it works, but, you know, why make enemies?

And I always, always wear this 'cause I love it.

'Cause I love her.

Patton Oswalt awards.

I got a Grammy, I got an Emmy,

I got a Critic's Choice, world's greatest dad.

I can't remember the other ones.

I think I got like a Vanguard Award

from some film festival,

and I've been nominated for some.

Like, a Gotham Award, I think,

and an Independent Spirit Award.

Did nominations count? I'll take them.

Boo. Now I'm super paranoid.

Who does Patton Oswalt voice

in BoJack, what could this last one be?

Horseman.

In BoJack Horseman,

I think I voice like 13 different characters.

A Navy Seal. I voice a giant worm.

But the one that I do the most is a guy named Pinky Penguin,

BoJack's agent and publisher.

And he's just the most beaten down, world weary.

He got out of the world of publishing

and then moved laterally to the world of television.

And he's basically a guy

who's always jumping onto a sinking ship,

and I love doing him.

Patton Oswalt Star Wars.

I was on Parks and Rec,

and I did this massive rant

where not only did I pitch a Star Wars sequel,

but then I tried to tie in everything:

the Marvelverse, DC Comics,

Star Trek, Greek myths.

Everything I could possibly think of I slapped together.

It kind of went viral.

Entertainment Weekly made a poster based on my rant.

Incorporated every single thing that I said,

which was crazy.

And then when The Book of Boba Fett showed on Disney,

the opening shot, I had this confirmed by Jon Favreau,

they matched the opening shot to the beginning

of my filibuster about Star Wars.

So I'm kind of in the Star Wars Verse, in a way.

Patton Oswalt MCU.

I have done a lot of stuff in the Marvel Comics universe.

I played M.O.D.O.K. in the Hulu animated series,

which I also wrote and created.

I played Agent Koenig and his many, many brothers

on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

That was great.

Peter Parker's gentle Uncle Ben

on Spider-Man animated show.

And Pip the Troll at the end of Eternals.

And boy, I can't wait for that sequel.

Can Patton Oswalt...

If this says stop running his yap, I'm gonna cry.

Can Patton Oswalt sing?

No, he can't. I am completely tone deaf.

I don't have the lung power for it.

I would never inflict my singing on anyone.

[Crew Member] I found a video of you singing.

Wait a minute, let me amend this.

Then there is a group called Choir!Choir!Choir!

And I was tweeting about them and just love them,

and I go, How would you like to sing with us?

I'm like, I don't really sing.

So we figured it out. Let's do a Beck song.

We managed to get away with it,

and in my very limited vocal range,

I was able to pull off a pretty good rendition

of Beck's New Pollution, if I do say so myself.

I got away with it once.

I'm not gonna press my luck.

Are you okay?

Patton Oswalt Norm McDonald.

I love Norm McDonald.

He was never not hilarious.

And he was clearly operating

on this kind of advanced fifth and sixth-dimensional level.

There's a structure to his career

and to what he was doing

that I think people are just now starting to see.

That's a really amazing legacy to get to leave.

Patton Oswalt The 1% Club.

Funny you should mention that,

because I'm hosting a new game show called The 1% Club.

It was originally a British game show.

And they offered me the hosting job,

and they sent me the first season.

And my God, I loved it so much, and I said,

Sure, I'll do this.

And it has been a blast.

Patton Oswalt quotes.

My quote to do a show? What does quotes mean?

I get quoted sometimes.

There's a thing about religion and tolerance,

which I said, you have to respect everyone's beliefs,

which I think is incorrect.

I think you have to acknowledge everyone's beliefs

and then reserve the right to go,

And that's ridiculous.

I have an uncle who believes he saw Bigfoot.

We neither believe him, nor do we respect him.

So I think that's where you get into trouble,

when you think you have to respect everyone's beliefs.

You don't have to do that.

Patton Oswalt Twitter.

Still on it, even though it's become a weird,

neofascist cesspool.

But hey, there's still no better way

to promote my upcoming gigs at befuddles in West Virginia

than to go on the Nazi-adjacent electronic bulletin board.

Thanks, Elon. I'll always call it Twitter.

I gotta say, they really covered the gamut of my life here.

There's stuff that hasn't even come up

in my Google searches of myself.

If an entertainer tells you

that they don't Google themselves, they're lying.

We never don't Google ourselves.