Of the two kinds of comic actors—the kind who plays an ordinary person making his way through a ridiculous world, and the kind who plays a ridiculous person who often cannot make his way at all—Martin Short falls into the latter, funnier category. When he appears on stage or on screen, one hears that little ripple through the audience, because everyone knows that it’s about to get funnier. The best thing he’s done is the line “Sew, very old one! Sew like the wind!” in the much-overlooked Three Amigos!, but he’s been funny lots and lots of other times.

Like many interesting people, Short is a Canadian. He grew up in Ontario, Canada, and first attracted notice in the early eighties as part of the cast of the comedy show SCTV Network 90. From there he went on to a two-year stint on Saturday Night Live, attaining stardom with such comic characterizations as Jackie Rogers, Jr., and Ed Grimley, and a bunch of movies. Among my favorites are Innerspace (1987), Mars Attacks! (1996) and the aforementioned Amigos (1986). Currently he is appearing onstage in The Producers. He is also, in the opinion of this reporter, a sissy.

This interview was conducted over the phone, with Mr. Short in his hotel room in San Francisco and me at home.

—Daniel Handler

THE BELIEVER: I had the stomach flu for a couple of days, so I lay on the couch and watched some movies that you have been in, and something occurred to me. I pretty much identify myself as a sissy. I think I have always been a sissy, and it seems oftentimes, when watching your movies, there is a quality of sissyhood in there, too.

MARTIN SHORT: Well, I think it’s the sissy or the horse’s ass. I think those concepts are blended. Sissydom and some guy who perceives himself as pompous and wonderful but is really a moron is an area that makes me laugh.

BLVR: As a struggling actor were you yourself something of a sissy?

MS: No, I don’t think so, but I found sissies like yourself quite comedic.

BLVR: [Laughs] Why that is so sweet… I think. For instance, I watched The Big Picture yesterday, in which you play Kevin Bacon’s agent, who is more or less a Hollywood sissy.

MS: I shot two days on that film. Christopher Guest [who directed The Big Picture] is an old friend of mine. That morning I came out of the trailer with the decision to tape my eyes up as if I had a bad eye-job. We curled my hair and sprayed...