What happened when they visited you?

I said, I’m going to have off Saturday, right? And then as things happened, we had to shoot Saturday because the schedule went over. I was so dejected, and [Barbara Muschietti, Andy’s producing partner and sister] got my daughters amazing tickets to see Taylor Swift in Toronto. Now when I talk to them — “Remember when you visited Daddy?” — they’re like, “You mean when we saw Taylor Swift and we got to see the best concert of our lives?” I’m like, “Wasn’t it cool, coming to the set?” And they’re like, “No, that was boring. Taylor Swift had fireworks.”

Since you didn’t meet Finn until that table read, did you go in thinking about how to create continuity from his performance to yours?

I watched the first movie again on the plane and I was like, we kind of are the same. We’re just gangly smartasses. There’s not a lot I have to do.

Were you looking around the plane to see if anybody caught you watching the previous installment of the movie you were about to make?

No, but I remember one time getting up to go to a restroom on a flight, and I saw a guy watching “The Skeleton Twins,” and he very aggressively turned it off. Not that he had seen me, but just that he hated the movie. And I was like, “Oh, man. Come on. It’s good.” Or I’m sitting next to people, and they’ll be going through things, and “Barry” will pop up, and they just skip right past it, and I’m like, “All right, fine.”

Do you think there were any specific qualities that Andy hoped you would bring to the role?

I’m a comedian and I know a lot of comedians, and that thing of masking your pain through being a contrarian, it’s a way of distancing yourself and being cynical. But at the heart of all those people is a spurned romantic. It’s a weird idealist in there. Andy gave us a lot of room to mess around.