Riding Along with Steve Zahn

The "Management" star talks about chicken suits, hitchhiking, and the Tet Offensive.

I feel like everyone has anecdotes or strange remembrances of motels. Do you have any?

Yeah, I lived in hotels. When we did “Bye Bye Birdie” for 13 months, I was in a hotel. There are so many nuts [stories] when you’re working nights and you have to sleep days in hotels — you get off work at five o’clock in the morning, you come home to the hotel, and you’re drinking beers and eating hamburgers while people — they’re all lawyers, or whatever — are getting ready for their day. It’s always crazy. It’s kind of your house. You walk into the kitchen and grab ketchup, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s just the guy from 206, he’s done that for three months.”

What might people be surprised to know about Jennifer Aniston or Woody Harrelson?

Jennifer is truly one of the most delightful people I’ve ever worked with. I really had more fun on this, I think, than any movie I’ve ever done. People say that all the time, but I don’t. It’s all relative. I have a great job and I know it’s special, but you still have to go to work, and [the films] are not always great. On this one, I couldn’t wait to go to work every day. She’s just so normal, down to earth, kind and humble. You have a conversation with her, and three years later, she’ll remember what you were talking about. That says a lot about a person.

Woody’s just a fuckin’ riot. That guy fucks around constantly on set, but at the same time, is absolutely brilliant, and you don’t want to laugh because it’ll just fuck up the take. He’s really outstanding. And vegan. I tried to get him on some pulled pork while we were in Portland, but he wouldn’t go for it.

I enjoyed your performance in Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn.” You’re primarily known as a comedic actor, so I’m curious if you’d like to be untethered from being mostly known as a funnyman.

It is what it is. That was a thrill and a lot of fun, and I feel as close to something like that as I do playing Mike in “Management.” It’s just perception. As you grow older, the roles change. I’m 41 now, so I find you get offered different things, and they start becoming more broad. But it’s fun to do comedy, I love doing it, and I’m lucky to be pigeonholed. “Pigeon-helled.” In the last couple years, it’s been very different, so it’s been good.

“Management” opens in wide release on May 15th.

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