In your new movie 'You, Me and Dupree' your character happily embraces arrested adolescence. Do you think more men would do that if they thought they could get away with it?
Maybe, yeah, although somebody was telling me about some new 'slow movement' the other day. I've never heard of it, maybe it's unique to America, but that's about guys taking more time to soak it up, and I could see Dupree definitely becoming involved in that movement, and me too, actually, the way I'm feeling right now.

How much of yourself did you put into the character of Dupree? We heard you might have contributed a few ideas to the script – so do you, for example, like covering young women in butter in your spare time?
I don't know if I really contributed to the script but when the writer first pitched me the story I thought it sounded really funny. I liked the writer a lot – he was someone that I always got along with. That scene you're talking about, with Audrey Hepburn being buttered up to 'Funky Cold Medina', was some idea the writer had got from his brother or something, but yeah that was funny.

Who's the worst person you've ever had staying with you and why?
Luke Wilson, my younger brother, stayed with me for about a year. I think even if you say that you're a great brother, that's a long time - especially when you know that he has a house less than a mile away that he could be staying at but he chooses not to. I don't understand why – maybe because there was food in my refrigerator? I think because he's the youngest brother, he likes having everything taken care of. But it wasn't just that he moved in, he also brought this stuffed javelina [Mexican for wild boar] from the set of 'The Royal Tenenbaums'. I mean, of all the props he could have fallen in love with, he chose that thing and put it up on the wall. But for all the complaining and all the mileage I've gotten out of that story on this whole press junket thing – I kind of missed him after he was gone and I missed that javelina.

What was the chemistry like on set between you Matt and Kate?
From what I can figure out, it seems like if the movie does well, then you had good chemistry and if the movie flops then the chemistry was way off. Like, I had a great time with Eddie Murphy on 'I Spy' but the movie didn't really do any business, so all of a sudden we didn't have good chemistry any more. I know that all of us got along really well but that doesn't always necessarily translate into the movie. Just because you're laughing a lot on set and stuff, sometimes you can get into a situation where it's a little bit like Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise in 'The Cannonball Run' where you're cracking each other up on set and then you go to the premiere and you can hear crickets because nobody's laughing.

Did you ever find yourself falling into those roles off camera, because I guess we assume that you have a certain 'Dupree' quality about you?
Well, no actually, because for a while I was going to play Carl, and as you heard from the story with Luke, I can definitely relate to those feelings – maybe more than I could associate with Dupree. Dupree is sort of like a dog that you bring home from the pound that you're not so sure you wanna keep because it's tearing everything up, but then it slowly wins everybody over so they decide not to put it to sleep…

Would you like to work with them again?
Yeah, I think so. Everyone always asks if I've ever worked with someone who drove you crazy or someone who I couldn't stand but, honestly, of all the movies I've worked on, I can't think of anybody who was a real jerk, that I would never want to work with again.

What was it like working with Michael Douglas?
He has a good sense of humour. Michael is definitely a smart guy and the way he handles himself on set is great. It's not like he's doing practical jokes and things but he is a funny guy.

We hear that your brother Luke used a butt double in 'My Super Ex Girlfriend' but you had to let it all hang out with only cushions for company! Did you give him a hard time about it and how was it for you?
I also used a butt double in this movie but, yeah, the scene with the cushions – that was all me. I didn't give Luke a hard time about that, but that's not to say that I won't – I just haven't at this point.

In the film we see you applying for rather a lot of rubbish jobs, but what's most unusual job you've ever gone for?
I haven't had that many jobs because we started filming 'Bottle Rocket' practically out of college. I had a job as a runner in a law firm in Austin, Texas, when I was going to school, and a lot of times when I was going for jobs I would try and lower expectations so they wouldn't expect too much from me. I remember with this law firm they would send me out for an errand and I'd always stop off at the bookstore and read for a little bit and wander back… One time I guess I must have wandered back earlier than the secretaries expected me because I could hear them imitating me and talking about how stupid I was, so I guess I did too good a job at coming across as a loser. I was also a pool cleaner one summer; that job didn't last very long. I was a waiter at a seafood restaurant in Dallas for a while which I liked a lot, but I never really had any serious nine-to-five jobs. If I hadn't fallen into working on movies I think I would have gone into advertising or something though, because I was always good at coming up with stuff. That's what my dad did too, so that's what I probably would have ended up trying.

As an actor, you're probably better known for your lighter roles, but do you ever wish you could play a really serious part?
My 'Rain Man' role? It would be great to do it if I thought I could do a good job, but I don't see myself as being the type of actor who would be so successful at really changing my voice and disappearing into a character. Maybe that's just because I'm not a trained actor, but I don't think it's even a possibility. I would hope that I could try to do a more serious movie or at least a movie that didn't have the burden of being funny all the time…

What kind of scripts are you being sent at the moment and how long does it take you to decide whether you want to get involved or not?
It's hard for me to read scripts. I think I've only read a couple of scripts my whole life that I could read from start to finish and enjoy. Most times they're like blueprints for a movie, and they're just not really that interesting to read. I remember reading 'True Romance' and that was a script you could really read like a book and enjoy, but a lot of times you've got to really wait for the director to bring it to life. When you're reading it, it's hard to try and imagine if it could make a good movie or if it would be funny. Some stuff you can figure out pretty early on that it's maybe not to my liking. Usually that's when somebody sends me a script and tells me they think I will really like it because it has my voice. That tends to be a script that I won't enjoy. I remember Wes [Anderson] and I, when we were writing 'The Royal Tenenbaums' we always wanted Gene Hackman to play that role. Wes sent him a cover letter with the script. I think it was the same sort of thing because Gene was nervous about the fact that the part had been written for him. I think he even said once that he doesn't like that much, so it must put some kind of weird pressure on you.

Have you ever been making a movie and thought maybe a few days into shooting that you might have made a mistake in taking the role?
There's obviously a lot of bad movies that get made, so I think what happens is that because it's just too disheartening to go to work every day and think that you're making a dawg, you start to think, 'Oh, this seems like it could be good' and the crew or the other cast members seem into it… I remember working on 'Anaconda' and talking with Ice Cube - we were watching 'Jaws' while we were down in Brazil filming and we were like an hour into the movie and Ice Cube says, 'This is what we're trying to do', and I was like, 'Yeeah…' and he said, 'We're not coming anywhere close to this'. Just after he said it we both got that sort of sneaking-in feeling like, uh-oh, this isn't going to be 'Jaws'. But you know, that movie's not that bad... some people enjoy it. The first movie I worked on, 'Bottle Rocket', was the worst movie in Sony's testing history – half the audience walked out. Luke, my younger brother, went to the second screening. I couldn't go any more because it was too painful for me, and I asked Luke, 'How did it go?' and he said, 'Well, put it this way, I was afraid someone would recognise me from the movie and wanna beat me up.' That movie didn't get into Sundance, but now some people really like the movie and some critics really liked it. Scorsese put it on his top 10 for the decade! So sometimes it's hard to figure out – it's just different strokes for different folks, I guess.

When you first started working on movies, how much of a difference did it make having a brother in the same line of work?
I think for me it really made a big difference because I was in LA when I was a freshman in college at USC and I was very homesick. I didn't like being in Los Angeles and didn't think I would ever go back, so when I went back out to there to work on 'Bottle Rocket' it was with my best friend Wes Anderson and with Luke and all of a sudden I really liked Los Angeles. I think that it's nice to have the same group around me and I'm sure Luke would say the same thing.

Do you have any plans to work with Wes again in the future?
Yeah, Wes and I are going to India at the end of November to film a movie there, where I'll play the oldest of three brothers. Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody are my two brothers in the movie – because you see all of us and you think, of course they're brothers – they look so alike! So, yeah, I think my hair may be darker for that movie. At first I was kind of nervous because I've never been to India and I don't quite know what to expect but Wes says its great so I'll be over there for a couple of months filming that.

Is the film modelled on your family at all: the three brothers thing?
Wes is also from a family of three brothers – he's in the middle like me but I don't think there's anything autobiographical about it. Maybe some of the feeling that Wes put in comes from his brothers or him being around my brothers for so long. He's been around us for years, so some of that may find its way into it but that's the thing with Wes - the worlds he creates for his movies are so unusual that there's not much like real life, or that much like how me and my brothers grew up in Dallas.

Do you plan to do any more screenwriting in the future?
I am, in fact I was going to start writing with a friend over the next couple of weeks. But I do think that sometimes writing feels a bit like being back in school and having a term paper to do - it's easier to just show up on set. But I guess a lot of times when you're acting you're tapping into the writing side because you are trying to come up with a new scene or improve lines, but it would be nice to write something from start to finish because that's going to be more personal.

Are you writing with something specific in mind?
No, it's just kind of a loose idea at the moment, just taking notes on something, but I'd never say writing was my strong point. Writing with Wes was plot - that was more about coming up with character-driven ideas. Writing with Wes was great because he was more disciplined. Woody Harrelson is going to be doing some writing with me soon so I don't know who's going to be playing the disciplinarian when we do that!