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" Patton Oswalt is best known as a comedian, but he&amp;#039;s a man of many talents. His forays into dramatic roles, notably in the film Young Adult and the underrated TV show United States of Tara, have had deep emotional resonance, and he&amp;#039;s recently hosted awards shows like the Independent Spirit Awards and the Webbys. He&amp;#039;s cultivated an interest in scotch (Oswalt just learned the correct pronunciation for Caol Ila) and scored a role on Marvel&amp;#039;s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Agent Eric Koenig. Plus, Oswalt has a new comedy special, Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time, premiering on Comedy Central Sunday night. But behind it all, the actor has been lauded as an expert in all things nerd. In an episode of Parks and Recreation last year, Oswalt played a citizen who launched a filibuster that involved an eight-minute, improvised plot proposal for the upcoming Star Wars film. In his version, the Star Wars universe becomes melded with the Marvel universe in an incredibly elaborate narrative that involves a decapitated Chewbacca, Tony Stark seeking out new Avengers, and the X-Men battling Luke Skywalker. Since Oswalt clearly has his finger on the pulse, we wanted to know his thoughts on recent nerd culture, including True Detective, Game of Thrones, Marvel, and, of course, Star Wars.  ESQUIRE.COM: I just saw the True Detective parody promo you made for your new comedy special. What inspired that? PATTON OSWALT: Obviously I&amp;#039;m a huge fan of True Detective. A friend of mine who writes a lot of my stuff for awards shows came up with the idea and we hashed it out together. I riffed when we were filming it. There was a lot of scripted stuff there, but then I went off into that weird world McConaughey tends to go off on when he&amp;#039;s doing his monologues. It was a great area to be in. ESQ: As a fan of the show were you satisfied with how the series wrapped up? PW: Yeah. I was a little frustrated at first but the more I thought about it, it actually struck me that they were recreating the kind of frustration people feel when you wrap stuff up. All they managed to solve was a tiny bottom portion of it. They get one of the low-level monsters and there are clear indications that much bigger, higher-up stuff is going on that they can&amp;#039;t quite reach. The Wire did the same thing \u2014 in the end of the first season they get a couple of the bigger drug dealers except that in the process of getting them they get clues and hints that there are way bigger things happening above them. So it kind of tanks the satisfaction of it. True Detective captured that perfectly.  ESQ: If you got to be the star of True Detective&amp;#039;s second season, who would be your co-star? PW: Oh boy. That would be interesting. Either an actress like Molly Shannon, who, even though she plays a lot of comedy, if you watch what she did in Enlightened, has a lot of darkness and sadness in her that she can play really well. Or somebody like Luis Guzman, who is very matter-of-fact. He&amp;#039;s way more screwed into reality and facts than somebody who might be a little flightier. And I just think he would be a great actor to work with. ESQ: In your comedy special you mention that you&amp;#039;re an expert in Blade Runner trivia. Is that a thing one can be an expert in?  PW: I seem to know a lot about that movie just because I&amp;#039;ve seen it so much. I wouldn&amp;#039;t know if I&amp;#039;m an expert because I haven&amp;#039;t really measured myself against anyone else. But sadly I know a lot about that movie. ESQ: How many times have you seen it? PW: Oh man, probably 20 times. And different versions \u2014 the director&amp;#039;s cut, the work print. Now there&amp;#039;s a million different versions of it. There&amp;#039;s 40 minutes of cut footage that just appeared on YouTube a couple years ago so there&amp;#039;s all that. It&amp;#039;s this constantly unfolding puzzle box of a movie! ESQ: Can you give me one really good piece of Blade Runner trivia? PW: The designer, Syd Mead, who did all the tech noir look of the movie also designed the bar at [the Eventi Hotel] on 30th Street in New York. He designed the bar so if you go there it&amp;#039;s like you&amp;#039;re on the set of Blade Runner. It&amp;#039;s pretty cool. ESQ: How do you feel about them making a sequel to Blade Runner? PW: Are they making a new Blade Runner movie?! ESQ: Yeah, it will be by the same writer who&amp;#039;s doing the sequel to Prometheus. PW: Oh boy. I don&amp;#039;t know. I&amp;#039;m going to stay optimistic about it and keep my thoughts to myself until I see it. ESQ: So it seems like some of your dreams may be coming true by recently being cast on Marvel&amp;#039;s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. What does that role entail? PW: I cannot say. I could not have signed more NDA agreements if I tried. I have to stay silent until it airs. ESQ: This may be obvious, but what compelled you to be part of the show? PW: I love the Whedon-verse and I love the Marvel-verse and the fact that they were coming together, the fact that I get to even be a tiny part of it is a huge &amp;quot;yes.&amp;quot; ESQ: You&amp;#039;ve worked with Joss Whedon before, right? PW: Yes, on Dollhouse and also I wrote a Serenity comic for Darkhorse with his approval. ESQ: Your role on Dollhouse was so interesting but also really sad. PW: I loved it. It was one of the first times I got to do something funny and dramatic. He&amp;#039;s the master at combining those two. To get to stretch like that really meant a lot to me. ESQ: I was sad when that show ended. I wanted more. PW: In comic form they put what the next season was going to be and they had amazing plans for that show. And they just never got to do it. I wish people would just let Joss run! Just let him do what he wants, for God&amp;#039;s sake! He has such huge visions. ESQ: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. casting aside, if you could play any role in the Marvel universe what would you pick? PW: It would be a toss-up for me between Foggy Nelson or Dr. Otto Octavius. I&amp;#039;d either want to be the companion to a hero or a hero&amp;#039;s arch nemesis. They write really fun characters so I&amp;#039;m not sure which I&amp;#039;d want to do. It would depend on my mood on the day. ESQ: You wouldn&amp;#039;t want to play the hero? PW: I mean, I don&amp;#039;t really know that I&amp;#039;m the hero type. I don&amp;#039;t have the physicality for it. ESQ: You don&amp;#039;t need to have Thor&amp;#039;s arms to be a hero! PW: Yeah, but to be a superhero you might want to at least indicate that your body has evolved a little bit. ESQ: Are you excited for The Avengers sequel? PW: I want to see what they do with Ultron. That&amp;#039;s a big deal. They picked a heavy-hitter enemy. And by the way, they&amp;#039;re teasing Thanos from the first one so I want to see what they do with that. It&amp;#039;s all about going big. These are the Avengers, let&amp;#039;s go big with it! The only other big thing he could have done was Galactus. ESQ: Have you actually read all these comics? PW: Yeah, I know the world. I&amp;#039;ve read all the comics. So it&amp;#039;s interesting to see. Especially now with Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and how they&amp;#039;re setting up stuff [in the comics] that will be used in the movies. ESQ: If someone loves the Marvel movies but they&amp;#039;ve never read any comics can you recommend a good place to start? PW: I couldn&amp;#039;t even tell you! Just go to a comic book store and ask a friendly clerk to grab you a graphic novel that will get you going. There&amp;#039;s a million different entry points. I don&amp;#039;t want do dictate to anyone what&amp;#039;s the best one. It depends on the characters that you like and how you want to play it. The good news is that there&amp;#039;s no bad entry point. I don&amp;#039;t think comic book reading is like a homework assignment you should get caught up on. You should be reading them for fun. If you&amp;#039;re watching a TV show just to be caught up on the conversation or reading comic books to be caught up on the universe, you&amp;#039;re not using them for what they&amp;#039;re supposed to be there for, which is entertainment. ESQ: What other TV shows do you watch? PW: Veep, Orphan Black, Justified, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Review, Kroll Show, Girls, Game of Thrones. There&amp;#039;s a lot of great TV on. The only genre I care about is &amp;quot;good.&amp;quot; ESQ: Orphan Black is one of my favorite things I&amp;#039;ve seen on TV in the past few years. PW: Yeah, it&amp;#039;s pretty amazing. They say they&amp;#039;re going to send me a couple of the early screeners of the new season so I&amp;#039;ll probably get to watch them in the next week. I can&amp;#039;t wait! I can&amp;#039;t wait. I can&amp;#039;t wait. ESQ: Did you get any early episodes of Game of Thrones with your apparent celebrity perks? PW: No, unfortunately. But last year I got this really good House Oswalt box and tee-shirt and banner so I was happy. ESQ: If House Oswalt was actually one of the families in Westeros would you prevail? PW: We&amp;#039;d be the after-party for any slaughter that the other families did. That&amp;#039;s what we would try to provide. ESQ: You wouldn&amp;#039;t actually be after the Iron Throne? PW: Exactly. I don&amp;#039;t want to get caught up in any of that weirdness! ESQ: Speaking of royalty, I read an article recently that dubbed you the &amp;quot;nerd king.&amp;quot; Does that title feel right for you? PW: I don&amp;#039;t know. I would say maybe more Chris Hardwick or Kevin Smith would be the nerd king. I&amp;#039;m maybe one of the dukes or earls at best. ESQ: You really don&amp;#039;t covet power, do you? PW: Nooooo. No. I do not covet power. I covet longevity. Power is boring. I want movement and freedom. ESQ: Did you feel like you earned a lot of nerd acclaim for your impressive Star Wars monologue on Parks and Rec? PW: Well, you earn attention for everything you do. I feel like that&amp;#039;s for other people to measure or decide. I just don&amp;#039;t think of things that way. I try to do each thing as its own self-contained thing and make it fun and make it entertaining. But I&amp;#039;m not keeping some kind of weird chart or status progress thing. ESQ: I would sort of like to see a chart of someone&amp;#039;s evolving nerd status, though. PW: I wouldn&amp;#039;t! That would be the saddest thing on the planet if someone actually cared about that. ESQ: Was that Parks and Rec speech all one first take? PW: Yes! It&amp;#039;s not something you know in the moment. It just came out. ESQ: As someone who clearly has a lot of thoughts on Star Wars, is there something you&amp;#039;re hoping the new movies can achieve? PW: I&amp;#039;m keeping my mind blank about those. I don&amp;#039;t have any thoughts about those. The prequels were such a bummer that I&amp;#039;m just not going to think about these and hope that J.J. Abrams does something great. If I start putting any kind of hopes or ideas on it now I think that&amp;#039;s a waste of energy. ESQ: So you didn&amp;#039;t get a call from J.J. Abrams after Parks and Rec aired offering to let you write the script? PW: No! Absolutely not. ESQ: Are there any upcoming movies you are really stoked about? PW: I&amp;#039;m more about what are the directors I like doing next rather than what franchises are coming. Some of the franchises are in bad hands so I&amp;#039;m more like, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s Nicole Holofcener going to do next? What&amp;#039;s Tom McCarthy going to do next? What are Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson going to do next?&amp;quot; People like that. I&amp;#039;m most looking forward to Inherent Vice. If Paul Thomas Anderson can pull that movie off it&amp;#039;s going to be amazing. That would be the one I&amp;#039;m most looking forward to. ESQ: Is there one director you&amp;#039;re just dying to work with? PW: All of the ones I just listed! ESQ: Do you have anything else coming up?  PW: A few cameos and things. And they&amp;#039;ve asked me to do a few things that are surprises. I&amp;#039;m keeping quiet about it. I like the act of just popping up. That&amp;#039;s fun. ESQ: I&amp;#039;m also curious \u2014 what sorts of books do you read?  PW: Oh God, everything. I&amp;#039;m on volume three of Robert Caro&amp;#039;s LBJ biography. I&amp;#039;m reading Tenth of December by George Saunders. I&amp;#039;m re-reading all of Michael Shea&amp;#039;s stuff. He&amp;#039;s a fantasy author who just died, unfortunately. I&amp;#039;m reading Heather Havrilesky&amp;#039;s Disaster Preparedness. I just read whatever&amp;#039;s good. Again, I don&amp;#039;t really stick to a genre. ESQ: If there was one book you could have adapted into a film for you to star in, what would it be?  PW: There are two linked short stories in a collection called Middle Men by Jim Gavin. It has these two stories at the end, &amp;quot;Middle Men&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Costello,&amp;quot; that I think would be an amazing film. I&amp;#039;d love to be the younger lead in that.  ESQ: We&amp;#039;ll put that out into the universe and hopefully Paul Thomas Anderson will hear your call. PW: We&amp;#039;ll see what happens! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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