[Ed's note: This interview has been expanded with online bonus content.]

In True Lies, you guys took down the “Crimson Jihad” in under three hours. What could the U.S. government learn from you about fighting terrorism?
Yeah. I think you said it right there. Me and Arnold Schwarzenegger can take terrorism down in less than three hours. But it has to be both of us; it can’t just be one or the other. We have to work together. And it has to be—what does George Bush call it, when you get a bunch of countries together? A blank of nations? What did he say, we put together a thing where everybody cooperates? Hold on one second, Joel will know. Hold on one second. [He puts down the phone for a few moments.] It was the coalition of the mighty, or something.

Coalition of the willing?
The willing! Yes. It was massive.

Do you think the movie could be made as it was today? I mean, you guys, like, mixed humor and terrorism really well.
Well, it was pretty accurate, as it turns out, kind of. It was ahead of its time because of the issues that were raised. Well, if it had Arnold Schwarzenegger as popular as he was then… Five years ago, in fact, we were going to shoot True Lies 2, and we were just ready to start and 9/11 happened. That ended the original script. I guess I can talk about it now. The movie ended with this submarine that comes on shore at the foot of the World Trade Center.

No way.
Yeah, so, James Cameron was so bummed. He said I didn’t want to make terrorism funny anymore. But you know that’s probably changed by now. I’m kidding.

Can we beat the terrorists with the power of laughter?
Cameron’s not Jewish, he doesn’t understand it. We can make it funny somehow, so we’ll see what he does. The movie itself is still on TV a lot, and when you watch it now, you’ll see these little things that have happened in the last few years that we did in 1994. Jim wrote about little things back then and it’s pretty accurate.

How’d it come about that you play a child molester in your new film, Gardens of the Night?
To me, the movie is about these kids that, when they’re seven or eight, they are kidnapped and they are put under incredible duress, they’re exploited; it’s really their story. And then ten years later, it picks up after this terrible exploitation has happened. They’re on the streets and they’re homeless and they’re doing bad things to themselves, and it’s about getting out of that life, it’s about something heinous happening, what happens to you when something like that happens, how you act, and then about sort of breaking the cycle and freeing themselves, literally, from my character and my partner, and then later on in life from the mental and emotional chains. When bad things happen to kids, it sticks with them. But I can tell you that there is a way to work, to work your way out of it, but it takes a lot of work. You’re always a little different. But from my experience being a kid, you can, with the right circumstances get some help and go on and lead a reasonable, normal life. It’s horrible that anything happens to kids, but that’s sort of what it’s about.

That’s pretty intense for a comedian.
My character is the most disgusting character I’ve ever played, and I literally am playing the guy that lived across the street from me when I was a kid. You see why kids get in people’s cars. They can be manipulated. I talked to all my old friends in my old neighborhood about this guy, and it wasn’t just me. A lot of the boys did not want to talk about it. They were embarrassed. There’s a stigma. But I confronted him and then I was able to stop him from adopting another boy. He was a married man, a big business owner back in Iowa and a big member of his church, and so I did my part. I think that playing him is the last nail in that story for me. I don’t know what else I can do, legally.

That clears things up a bit, because, on the surface anyway, it seems like your costar John Malkovich would be more suited to that role.
Yeah, yeah. That’s why it’s kind of funny. He’s the good guy. I’m the bad. It seems like it should be the other way around.

Let’s lighten it up a bit. Being that I write for a New York magazine, I have to ask about your fake fight with Michael Strahan when you worked on The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Was that really fake?
Well, yes, it was fake, but I did get a fractured rib and a bloody nose from it. You have to be careful faking stuff with those ex-athletes that weight about 300 pounds. We didn’t tell the other guys on the show about it, so they thought it was real. A guy jumped on my back and tried to break it up.

Well, you kind of went at Strahan…
Well, I had to poke him. I called him at home, he’s a buddy, and said, "You want to do something really funny? Here’s the deal: At some point we’ll get into an actual fight and you’ll get 'injured.'" But he’s such a good actor, I had to keep hurling insults at him. I had to make physical contact with him, to get him to respond.

You really sold it, though. Ever consider a career in professional wrestling?
Well, I was only repeating stuff that he had actually said to me at some point. And he’s a really good actor. It really scared the people in the booth. They went to black. The producer said to the director, "Well, you did it. You finally killed the show." Meaning me. It’s showed all over the Fox lot, live. Rupert Murdoch turns on his TV, and he can see this going on. I found that out the hard way, from human resources. We fooled everybody.

This year is the 20th anniversary of Roseanne. In the midst of this economic fiasco, is blue-collar TV due for a comeback?
For sure. There are probably studio execs looking at that right now. A well-written, well-acted one would be successful anytime. But now, I think people might have a hard time watching superrich people living it up. Maybe I’m wrong, though.