Kevin Pollak is one of the greatest stand-up comedians you'll ever see. That is, if you're lucky enough to catch one of his old routines on Comedy Central. The man who does the definitive William Shatner imitation is now best known for his relatively serious roles in Avalon, The Usual Suspects and A Few Good Men. In his latest film, Deterrence, Pollak plays it straight, once again as the President of the United States flirting with the prospect of nuclear war.

I got a chance to sit down with the Commander In Chief, and we talked about the ultimate seat of power, lessons from Denzel and how hard it is to convince directors that he's really funny.

How did you like playing the most powerful man in the free world?
The best part of it was (director) Rod Lurie calling and saying, "I'm writing this script with you in mind. First of all, you're playing the President of the United States." To which I said, "That's absurd. That's ridiculous." But then I heard the story and realized he was being created as an everyman as opposed to this larger than life, born to be a natural leader, overly charismatic hero a la Kennedy or Reagan. This guy was more like Truman.

The exciting part was finally having the opportunity to portray the main central character in a movie which is something I wanted to prove to myself I could do. But it wasn't something that I was desperate for. My wife and I have this theory that the leading man will always need a best friend so, if I'm smart, I can continue working just fine.

Did you bone up for the role by watching things like Fail Safe and Seven Days in May?
I'm not real big on research, and I certainly didn't want to base him on anyone. I just feel a responsibility to the written material. If I'm going to portray a policeman, the idea of driving around with cops for six weeks has just no bearing whatsoever on the policeman that the story is about. This was a fascinating story that has a lot of reveals and twists, and my responsibility was to win the audience over in the first 20 minutes to get them to somehow care about this guy. And maybe if I could get a few doves to question, "Well, maybe he is doing the right thing"--if I could just get them to slip on the ice until the drive home when they said, "Wait a minute; he was an insane man," that would be great.

Now that you've played the President, what qualities do you think are most important for the job?
I don't get the whole thing. I don't get that whole epiphany. "I'm going to be the single most powerful man in the free world. That's gonna happen for me." Excuse me? I thought you had to have an insane ego to even want to portray the President of the United States in a movie. That is insane to me. That is legitimately nuts. Like, "I'm going to marry a Martian" nuts.

And then Clinton, of course, just opened it wide up. By saying, "Its good to be king. Bring her on. Line 'em up. This is great." I imagine him sitting in the White House those first couple of years saying, "Okay, alright. This is good. I'm President… there has got to be a way to make this whole deal just a little bit sweeter."

Were you tempted to go for more laughs with this character?
I don't have this comedic desperation. In A Few Good Men or, certainly, in The Usual Suspects there are opportunities for me to turn a phrase to have a bit more volume on the sarcasm, but it just didn't make sense with this guy.

Do most people expect that from you? Is it hard to break out of that funny-guy persona?
You know, it's a strange thing with my career. I only wanted to be an actor, and I got sidetracked into comedy--of which I was a huge fan and student without realizing it--and I spent 20 years in the trenches of it. And then Avalon, overnight, established me as a legitimate actor because I was guilty through association. All the other actors in the film were tremendous film and stage actors. So, everyone was asking my wife, "Where did he train in New York?" And we just laughed. So, somehow, I have to convince directors that I know funny now. It's really weird.

If this nuclear thing was going to go down for real, who would you want in charge--McCain, Bush, Bradley or Gore?
Not to be coy, but I wouldn't want any President in this situation. If you're going to put a gun to my head, it would be arbitrary. I would have no choice but to fall back on my party and my candidate, which is Al Gore. But I pray to God, as we all should, that no President ever finds himself in this situation. That would suck in a big way.

You talk about wanting to play funny again. Do you ever sneak into the clubs and do your stand-up act anymore?
I continued doing stand-up until just over a year ago, and it wasn't a decision to stop--that was just the last time I did it. I've now gone the longest time in the last 25 years of not doing it. And I keep waiting to miss it. I quit doing nightclubs about seven or eight years ago, but I continued doing one-nighters and college engagements to keep my toe in it.

Maybe the reason I don't miss it is that every three or four months I have a movie coming out and so I do talk shows. I have a writer friend, and we write material to perform from the couch, so that might be feeding that monster. But the plan is to never, ever stop.

After more than ten years of feature films, you're finally a leading man. Did you feel the added pressure?
Because of the low budget, because most people were working for coffee and donuts, there wasn't too much pressure. Maybe to my benefit, I had to wait thirty-something films for this. I've been in the on-deck circle in my mind and was well prepared. Like Rob Reiner puts it, "Learn while you earn." And I've learned from a lot of masters.

Can you share some of that wisdom with us?
I remember being on the set of Avalon. It was my birthday, and Barry Levinson pulled me aside and said (Pollak does a dead-on imitation of the director), "So how old are you? When I turned that age I was a writer on the Carol Burnett Show. So I'd say you're doing pretty good. I'll tell ya, after this movie I think you're going to be very happy. Maybe you should not do anything wacky. Try to avoid hijinx after this film."

So I did a little math and figured out he was saying, you have an investment to protect now," and I learned a lot from that.

There's little bits from everyone.

I learned something from an awful film I did called Ricochet. Denzel Washington and I played best friends. We were heading toward production and about two weeks beforehand I get a call, "Hi, it's Denzel. Listen, we're playing best friends in this movie. You want to go out and get a bite?" It was a small, little gesture, but it spoke volumes.

From Tom Cruise I learned generosity and discipline.

From Jack Nicholson I learned you can absolutely have a tremendous amount of fun while working on a movie and turn it on when the cameras roll. And then turn it off and be a huge screw-off.

My whole career has been based on taking from others.