Your second memoir, “Love Life,” is out this month. Did you lose any friends over your first book? No, and honestly I didn’t expect to. If you’re telling a story, and somebody is going to come out badly, it better be you.

In this book, you say that you like to be made to look different. Do you feel as if you had to wait out your good looks to get good roles? There’s this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can’t be in pain or they can’t have rough lives or be deep or interesting. They can’t be any of the things that you long to play as an actor. I’m getting to play those parts now and loving it. When I was a teen idol, I was so goddamn pretty I wouldn’t have taken myself seriously.



You mention the physical transformation you went through in “Behind the Candelabra.” What did they do to your face? Before you could actually have face-lifts, they would pull your skin around the back of your head with rubber bands, where they would tape it. And then you’d have to wear a wig over it to hide the rubber bands. It was not the most comfortable.

Chris Traeger on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” was a total nerd. Was it hard for you to play such an uncool character? My deep dark secret is that I was a nerd in school. I liked the theater. I liked to study. I wasn’t very good at sports. It took being famous to make me cool, which, by the way, I never forgot.

Why do you think people were surprised that you were funny on “Parks and Rec” and “Californication”? Again, there’s a historical bias that good-looking people are not funny.