Zach Galifianakis still hasn't adjusted to the whole movie-star thing very well.
"Sometimes I forget and, when people stare at me, I think, 'That's so rude'," he says.
Then he stops and thinks, "Oh yeah, that movie." That movie being The Hangover, the out-of-nowhere comedy hit of 2009 that's still in regular rotation on HBO, not to mention on-demand and in the dwindling number of video stores that remain. Still, Galifianakis says, it's a double-edged sword.
"Why is it," he asks, "that people always say, 'Oh, you're the fat guy from The Hangover. Why does it have go to that -- why couldn't I just be 'the guy from The Hangover?'"
He chuckles and looks around the room he's been assigned for interviews during a press day for his latest film, It's Kind of a Funny Story, at New York's Waldorf Astoria. As these things go, it's of a nice size, with a table full of pastries and beverages, sitting area, dining room -- a suite in the formal sense of the word.
But where the average movie star would assume that a set-up like this was his due -- at a minimum -- Galifianakis seems slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. So he gestures expansively, like a solicitous host, and says with mock grandiosity, "Welcome to waste!"
He pauses, then adds, "Actually, this isn't my room." Pause. "It's my assistant's." Pause. "No, I don't have an assistant."
Galifianakis, 41, is having a moment, as it were.