Part of what made the Jesus so endearing were his extravagant gestures. He taunted opponents by shimmying and strutting and backpedaling like a cocky prizefighter.

A lot of those moves were modeled on Muhammad Ali’s, especially his psych-out job on Sonny Liston.

Ethan says you got more mail and, alarmingly, more marriage proposals from the role than any other and also, understandably, more room on the subway.

I got all kinds of women letters, men letters. Weird ones, racy ones. “I love your body.” “I love your outfit.” “I’d love to take your outfit off.” I made “Lebowski” after returning to the States from Europe, where I filmed “The Truce.” I played the writer Primo Levi returning home to Italy from Auschwitz after World War II, and I’d lost a lot of weight for the part — so much that a couple of New York gossip columnists speculated that I was dying. A Fleet Street hack even called my mother in Queens and asked, “Is it true your son has brain cancer?” A friend suggested that I hold a press conference with my head bandaged and thank God for my miraculous recovery.

“The Jesus Rolls” nods toward “Lebowski,” but it’s not a sequel. Basically, you’ve inserted a “Lebowski” character into “Going Places” and updated that story to the present day. How did you decide to hitch a ride on a 46-year-old road movie about aimless joy riders whose entire objective is to keep driving until the tank is empty?

“Going Places” made a tremendous impression on me. I was 19 and in college when I saw the movie at a second-run theater in upstate New York. It wasn’t long after the student riots in Paris, a time of hippies and revolutionaries, and the film was a celebration of freedom in a world of bourgeoise hypocrisy. I was shocked, not just by what I was seeing onscreen, but by my laughter at the shocking things I was seeing. I remember thinking, “Holy mackerel!”