Californian Will Forte, 43, appeared for eight years on the American sketch show Saturday Night Live. "I never would have thought of him, but I liked his auditions," director Alexander Payne has said of casting the comic actor in Nebraska as David, Woody's straight-laced, somewhat dour son.

This role is a departure from your work on Saturday Night Live. Were you surprised when it was offered to you?

Very. I loved the script and really felt a connection to the character, but I never thought I'd get to do it. I taped myself doing four scenes, sent them to Alexander Payne, then didn't hear anything back for four months. Even after he called me in to read in person, I didn't think I'd get it, but a month later I was offered the part. That was the most exciting phone call.

In a recent New Yorker profile, Payne said you had a "magnificent recognisability, like a buddy of yours in high school that you bump into in the mall". Is that something you recognise in yourself?

I'll take it as a compliment. I did connect with the character in an unusual way – who I am in real life is not far off who David is in this movie, the good and the bad of it.

In what way?

I'm pretty patient and forgiving, like David is. I can let people take advantage of me at times. I feel like I will give a lot of myself and don't need to receive much in return: that's probably the main thing. I try to be a good person – I don't always succeed, but that's what I'm shooting for.

David perseveres with his father, played by Bruce Dern, when everyone else seems to give up on him. Did you understand where he was coming from?

Yes. I'm an optimist and I'll stay in situations for much longer than I should, just thinking that they'll work themselves out. In a lot of ways, my grandfather was really similar to Bruce's character: he was a man of few words. He was wonderful and I loved him very much, but I understood that, with somebody who doesn't communicate a lot, you need to have patience.

Was it a challenge to play the straight man?

It was nerve-racking at first, but when I got down to it, it wasn't that different from what I'd done before. Bruce would say the most important thing is to just find the truth of the scene and be in the moment. At first that just sounded like a bunch of actor mumbo-jumbo, but after a while I realised exactly what he was saying and it was really helpful. And it was a huge thrill for me to play the straight man because I never get to play those kinds of roles.

Was playing opposite Bruce fun?

He's the best. He was a wonderful friend to me during the whole process – we were locked in a car together 12 hours a day for several weeks – and I got to see this legend deliver a performance of a lifetime. And between takes I got to hear stories from a man who's worked with so many incredible people. He would tell me all about Alfred Hitchcock and John Wayne and Elia Kazan. We got to be really close.

You started your career with the Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings in the late 1990s. What were your ambitions back then?

To get on Saturday Night Live.

You worked there for eight years. What was the ratio of fun to stress?

It was an incredibly gruelling schedule. In the beginning the stress was major – I had pretty bad stage fright. It took several years before I was able to loosen up. Then it became more fun than stress. It was such a unique job and I loved it.

Did you have a favourite character?

Yes. I was a basketball coach trying to motivate his team and I play them this crazy Herb Alpert song, Casino Royale, then get really swept up in the emotion of it all and dance.

What's next?

Right before Nebraska, I went to Ireland to do this little movie called Run & Jump. It was so far away from home, I felt a real safety to explore a different kind of role. I loved how it turned out. I also did Life of Crime, an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard book. Then I got to work with Peter Bogdanovich on his new film Squirrels to the Nuts, which was awesome. I still can't believe it. If you'd told me a year-and-a-half ago that I'd be working with Alexander Payne and Peter Bogdanovich in the next 18 months, I would have locked you up in an insane asylum.