Prior to its premiere last night at Hot Docs, Gottfried spoke with RogerEbert.com about everything from schizophrenia and Nazis to the reason why no joke is “too soon.”

I was just laughing my head off listening to your latest podcast episode with Steven Wright before coming to meet you. What attracted you to the realm of podcasting?

It wasn’t my idea. It was my wife who told me that I should start a podcast, and since I live in the 1400s, I wouldn’t even know how to find my own podcast online. When people ask me where to find it, I go, “I don’t know, I guess on the internet somewhere.” The weird thing is that we have gotten a lot of older guests. I love old Hollywood, and yet this is a new sort of program, so I’m using a new method to discuss old Hollywood. On the show, we’ve had two of the original Catwomen, both Batman and Robin, Dick Van Dyke, two members of “F Troop,” and we recently interviewed Carl Reiner. People will ask me, “What’s a podcast?” and I say it’s like a radio show on your computer. I wasn’t expecting how many people would like the podcast as well as the documentary.

Has it been unusual to contrast your persona on the podcast with your persona in the film?

God, it’s definitely schizophrenic. I found out that schizophrenia as we understand it from watching movies—where all of a sudden you are a French character, or you’re an old lady, or you’re a general in the army—is not at all what it is actually like in real life. [pauses] I just said that to reveal my vast intelligence. [laughs]

My dad is a social worker, so he would agree with you.

Oh yes. I’m sure he would know that’s not really schizophrenia. People who are schizophrenic don’t all of a sudden go, [in French accent] “My name is Pierre.” I want to meet one psychologist or psychiatrist who has ever once met a “crazy” person—which I believe is the correct term for it—who has done celebrity impersonations. You see that on TV shows. They’ll hire an actor who can imitate Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino to play a schizophrenic. When I see a crazy person like that in a movie, I go, “Why don’t they just book him in Vegas?” [laughs]

How did Neil Berkeley make you feel comfortable enough to make this documentary?

He never made me feel comfortable. I was always on edge. I’ve seen the film about three times, and the experience of watching it is close to what I envision hell being like. You die, the Devil puts you in a chair, and you’re forced to watch every section of your life on a screen.

Like Albert Brooks in “Defending Your Life.”

Exactly! I think that has to be the worst possible thing to sit through.

What has it been like viewing comedy through the eyes of your children?