Honest answers from David Cross

From cult-hit comedy series like "Mr. Show" and "Arrested Development" to such mainstream fare as "Just Shoot Me," "Modern Family" and the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, comedian David Cross is both indelible and ubiquitous. "I've got about 187" film and TV credits, he observes, then jokes, "When I get to 200, I get 10 percent off my next 10!"

He's certainly earned his frequent-comedy miles. Cross, 47, started in stand-up comedy in hometown Atlanta, where his father, an immigrant from Leeds, England, abandoned the family when Cross was young. He honed his act in Boston, where he attended Emerson College and briefly roomed with stand-up comic Louis C.K. While touring the country, he's had Jesuit students walk out en masse and has even been physically threatened for doing his act.

Now starring in the IFC series "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" -- the season 2 premiere debuted Friday and repeats Sunday at 11:30 p.m., Monday at 11 p.m. and at other times -- Cross spoke with frequent Newsday contributor Frank Lovece.

Your show's title character is an office temp who, through a critical misunderstanding, is running the London office of an energy-drink company though he's completely unqualified. That and his pathological lying and making up stories about himself get him deeper and deeper into absurdly extreme trouble. Yet we feel bad for him. How do you do that?

Well, I mean, he's not a bad guy. In his heart, he means well. He's just foolish and I would say infuriating, and I myself know people like that. Not to that extent, of course, but I know people who will say something and you're like, 'Why did you make that thing up? Now, you're stuck with this stupid lie.' And you know that in every opportunity to rectify the situation, they won't, but their heart's in the right place.

It seems like that thing auditioning actors do: The casting director asks, "Can you ride a horse? Can you juggle?," and you say "Of course!" and then go and learn it.

Right, right. Yeah, in a real-life situation [like that], if somebody is offering to basically change your life, [you'd say] "Yeah, I know London!" That's all you need to say -- you'll deal with it when you get there. But he doesn't even get a guidebook or anything; he's just so clueless.

In one lie he made up in the series premiere last year, after he's offered that London job, he happens to see The Who's classic album "Live at Leeds" on a desk and claims that, yeah, my dad's actually from Leeds, but he's dead. In real life, your long-estranged father really is from Leeds. Was it bittersweet saying he's dead?

That's really funny -- I didn't even think of that. I can't believe you're the first guy who ever asked me that! Yeah, perhaps, unconsciously, on some level, there was something there. [Pauses.] I should have said, 'He's dead to me!'

Yeah, I even, during [production on] the first season, went up to Leeds in a rather pointless exercise in getting to my roots. But it was ridiculous. I got off the train and I'm like, "Why the ---- did I come here? I don't know anybody here. I don't know the first thing about Leeds. Who gives a ----?" It's like going to St. Louis because your grandpa went through there once.

Your stand-up comedy act is very pointed, especially about religion. Sometimes, you've even gotten audiences angry enough to physically threaten you. Why would anyone threaten a harmless comedian?

Because of what you're saying. In Baton Rouge, that definitely happened. In Boston, I had somebody throw a glass ashtray at me at the old original Stitches [comedy club]. I did a show in Vermont where a guy was so upset because I made Jesus jokes, he poked his finger in my chest. There was another gig, in Killington, Vt., where the person who was opening for me went out and started the car so that when I closed my set, I literally ran through the crowd, ran out the door and into the car, and we left because it was that bad.

In crunchy-granola Vermont?

There are some serious Jesus people there.

From at least Lenny Bruce on, modern stand-up comics push the boundaries of taboo language, and through that, taboo thought. At its best, that allows society to talk about things that have been kept repressed. Judging from your act, I'm wondering if you think it's important for comics to say things they "shouldn't" say?

Important? No. For me, personally, I appreciate it, certainly if somebody can do those things, but I don't think it's important, no. Not at all.