Clearly, though, his work ethic paid off. “At the very beginning, I wasn’t very good at juggling business and personal life because I was so deep into doing comedy,” says Schwartz. He’d nap during his lunch break before finishing the job, then head to the Upright Citizens Brigade theater to take classes from 7 to 10 p.m. He’d cross his fingers that one would make it to air while riding into Manhattan. to write jokes and fax them from his parents’ house in Westchester to The Late Show With David Letterman, where he worked as a page. Schwartz spent the early part of his career in an exhausting nonstop loop, waking up at 6 a.m. It’s not like this all came out of nowhere. He goes from “a side character to someone who gets to really affect how the show works, and at the end, becomes the reason the investigation existed.” The Afterparty also signals a shift, Schwartz says, because of how Yasper evolves. (He jokes that my 11-letter last name must be tattooed somewhere in there, à la Memento, and likes that his middle fingers have dollar signs on them.) But there’s no way for his loose gray T-shirt and cardigan to hide that the role also requires a lot of tattoo art, courtesy of makeup artist Christien Tinsley. Schwartz can’t say much about his role in the Chris McKay–directed film casting details simply say he’ll play a mobster. He’s wearing thick, black-frame glasses and frequently running his hands through his legendarily tall hair-particularly Brobdingnagian today, because he’s given it a rare shampoo and condition after slicking it down for his part in Renfield. They’re letting me play all sorts of different things, and stretch out this way.”

The Afterparty role, and other current and upcoming projects, mean “I don’t have to play a Jean-Ralphio type every time. Schwartz, Zooming in from New Orleans-where he’s filming Renfield, a horror-comedy about Dracula’s ex-henchman ( Nicholas Hoult)-is glad to have opportunities to show his range. You know his characters’ bravura is just an act to mask his insecurity, but this role pushes that idea to an extreme.” And Ben is always great at playing characters who are hungry for love and approval, and whose ambition exceeds their ability. Yasper’s desperation, they say, “is key to buying he could snap and murder someone. You’re not shocked when Max von Sydow turns out to be the killer, but when it’s your silly best friend, it’s unexpected. Most people have only seen his whimsical side, so it is a fun surprise that he has that emotional gear. “But he also has a gravitas and depth that many people haven’t seen. “Ben is the kindest, sweetest person who spreads joy and laughter everywhere he goes,” Miller and his producing partner, Phil Lord, add. He says Yasper isn’t based on anyone in particular, but “more of an amalgam of people I have known over the years, mixed with Ben.” Miller told Vanity Fair via email that the part was written with Schwartz in mind.

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