Paul Scheer Knows (Fantasy) Football

You probably know comedian Paul Scheer (pictured, second from the right) from somewhere. Perhaps from his sketch show Human Giant, maybe from his work at the Upright Citizens Brigade, or his awesome one-man Entourage show. Trust us, he's hilarious. Scheer stars in FX's new comedy The League, about a group of guys in a cutthroat fantasy football league.

TV.com: What makes you qualified to be in a show about fantasy football?
Paul Scheer: I have to tell you that before four months ago, NOTHING would make me qualified to be in a show about fantasy football. I didn't know anything about it. I treated fantasy football like NASCAR, I was like, "Whatever, I'm not interested." I like football, but I wasn't into fantasy football.

Now I have slowly gotten into this world where I am addicted to it. I recently got married, and when we were away on our honeymoon, I was sneaking out of our room to set my lineup and read the waiver wire. I am full-on addicted.

The show premiered right after Week 7, which is when I usually realize my team sucks and officially give up. How are you doing so far?
I've been doing good, knock on wood, I'm five wins and one loss right now in my league. I have a sh**ty team, but they come together and they perform for me. That's the thing about fantasy football, you get this odd ownership over the players. "I did that! They did it for me!" Not that they're talented athletes who would perform this way anyway. [laughs]

You play Andre, who is a dweeb, but who's also the most successful.
Andre is the kid who was picked on by his friends, but was still one of the friends. Now he's become rich, has the best job of the bunch, lives the greatest lifestyle, but nothing has changed. He is the same guy they pick on. My character doesn't know much about football, but he's trying really hard, so he gets trade-raped by the guys. Someone will say, "Why don't I give you Plaxico Burress for Steve Slaton?" And Andre says, "Yeah, the Giants are doing really good!" I trade for him and I don't realize he's in jail. [Andre] will pick up Phil Simms, not realizing he's an announcer. That kind of stuff.

When your show gets described as Sex and the City for men, is that a compliment or an insult?
Nothing against Sex and the City, my wife likes it and I've seen the movie, but I don't think the show is like that. The show is about a group of friends hanging out with each other, and the fantasy football links it all together. It's more similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm, or even Freaks and Geeks, in a way. It's a collection of people living their lives, like on Freaks they were bonded by high school, we're bonded by fantasy football.

What's the latest on Human Giant?
Right now we're trying to figure out the movie we're working on with Ben Stiller's company. We're in the early scripting stages right now. Rob [Huebel] and I have been doing some projects together, and I just did Parks and Recreation with Aziz [Ansari], so we still perform together but we haven't launched our next Human Giant project. We were going to go to Season Three, but Aziz got Parks and Rec so that screwed up our schedule. Now I got The League, so it's tough to do a series, but we might do a special.

Do you have a favorite sketch?
I look at a list of [the sketches] and forget we shot a bunch of them. In one of my favorite ones, I play an actor in a really bad sci-fi show, like a Babylon 5-style show, and I hate getting the alien make-up put on me every day so I get it surgically implanted into my face. Then the show gets canceled, and I'm left as this alien, trying to get work in Hollywood. And I also love "Let's Go!"

How did you get involved with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and the whole viral Lost thing?
I am a huge, huge Lost fan. I was doing this movie Piranha 3D, which is going to be insane, and the casting director is really good friends with Damon and Carlton. And Damon had an idea to do this thing at Comic-Con, and he asked [the casting director], "Do you know Paul Scheer?" I had met Damon before, and he had this idea for me to do this bit at Comic-Con, and we got together and created this Web site, which I wrote. We're actually going to have a big gallery show in LA, on December 15, with all the velvet paintings. Honestly, I couldn't be more giddy. I got to hang out in the writers' room!

Who makes you laugh?
I'm a huge fan of Tim & Eric, 30 Rock, and The Office and Parks and Rec. But there's one show I can't get enough of right now. I am loving [the UK comedy] The Mighty Boosh (author's note: Yes!). It's so good, and so different. I bought a multi-region DVD player and the first purchase I made was The Mighty Boosh.

Any last fantasy football tips?
Yeah, ignore everybody who calls themselves a fantasy football expert. These guys are only right like 65 percent of the time. That is not a good average. If someone said, "get on this airplane, it only crashes 65 percent of the time," I would not rely on that airline. That is a bad airline.

The League airs Thursday nights at 10:30pm on FX.