Chris O’Dowd: I’d like to think that I’m getting slightly more mature as time goes on, but I don’t know if my fiancée would necessarily agree [laughs]. I think that fame is certainly ruining any opportunity to become a fully well-adjusted man in my thirties, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it works out. But I do like all of those characters. None of them, I guess, are very off-center portrayals, but there was something about all of them that I really did love. So I’ve been lucky in that regard.

GQ: Do you find yourself in the same situation as the characters, where some of your friends are having babies and some aren’t and some are getting married, and you’re like, what is everyone doing?

Chris O’Dowd: For me, it’s just happening right now. Like, I’m 32, and in the last year, three of my best friends have had a kid for the first time, and not only do I not want to see their bloody kid _[laughs]—_you know, it’s great, that not only do I not see them, when I do, I have to now hang out with a little person that’s really terrible at drinking games.

GQ: They can’t hold their booze.

Chris O’Dowd: They really can’t. From either end.

GQ: What I really liked is Friends with Kids has got the same sort of sensibility as Bridesmaids, in that it’s written and in this case directed by a woman and has this sort of cool—

Chris O’Dowd: But don’t let that put people off! [laughs]

GQ: No, there’s boobs. It’s cool. Is that something you’re attracted to, or that’s coming to you now?

Chris O’Dowd: For some reason, I find that in the course of my career I’ve worked with more women than most men have. It’s just a coincidence, but the first major role [I had] was written and directed by a woman, and I think I’ve worked with maybe five female auteurs, and I don’t know, maybe there is something in female writing that I’m attracted to. I think, without being too cliché about it, that they obviously write women better, and I think it just makes the relationships more believable. I just am so tired of really badly written women. It’s so boring.

GQ: Tell me about This Is Forty. What’s your character?

Chris O’Dowd: It’s a very supporting role. I just play a guy who works for Paul Rudd’s record company, and I guess I’m there to be the bastion of doom on the whole thing. Very negative, very chauvinistic, and yeah, just bringing things down. [laughs]

GQ: So, are you on Judd Apatow’s speed dial now?

Chris O’Dowd: I don’t know about that... I’ve been lucky enough to work with those guys a couple of times now, but rather than being in the Judd house, I’m more like the window cleaner looking in and masturbating. [laughs]

GQ: I find that hard to believe. I read a really lovely interview where you said you see your career as "a series of happy, accidental kindnesses from strangers." Do you still feel that way? Don’t you feel like you’re kind of getting in the groove?

Chris O’Dowd: I think what I was referring is I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve got turned down by loads of jobs I didn’t want, but in those early days when you just have to do whatever you can get, I was lucky enough to not be appreciated by bad directors, which could have ruined my career. _[laughs] _So _that’s _been lucky. But I have also been very fortunate that people who didn’t necessarily know what I did took a risk on me.