Los Angeles-born actor Anthony Anderson has stolen the show as larger-than-life characters in films as diverse as "Me, Myself & Irene", "Urban Legends 2", and "Barbershop". Now he's pursuing a marsupial who's stolen his money, in kids' pic "Kangaroo Jack".

How do you feel that the kangaroo got his picture on the poster for "Kangaroo Jack", not you?

You know what? That's OK. He didn't get paid for the movie. He can have the poster because they fed him oats and I got a paycheck.I didn't know that was going to happen - this was my first starring role and on top of that, it's a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, so I know it's going to be huge. And so I'm telling my friends. I'm telling my Mama. And then it's like, "Where am I? I see a kangaroo. But where's my picture?!"

What's the best thing about working with Jerry O'Connell and having the buddy-buddy thing going on?

The best thing was the chemistry between the two of us. We met once before, a year before this project had come about, and just in passing we talked about how we had mutual respect for each other. And then the day of the audition, it was like synergy and we just meshed together so well and just had a lot of fun. That's what made it fun for me.

Did you ad lib during filming?

When we started this movie, my character had no dialogue. I created all of the dialogue [Laughs]. No! No! They gave us the freedom as actors to do what we wanted to do and to have fun with it. More often than not, that's normally the take they went with - what Jerry and I came up with individually and collectively. So yeah, they allowed us to have fun.

What about working with the animals? Obviously there was CGI used for the kangaroo, but you must have had some close contact with real animals for this?

We were up close with all the animals - kangaroos, camels, emus, the dingos. They're like children. They're unpredictable. But they're cute, and it was fun.

You got to work with Christopher Walken. How is your Christopher Walken impression?

Horrible. It's just horrible. Jerry [O'Connell] does a much better impression.

Does Walken get fed up with people doing impressions of him?

Only when they sound like me! But Jerry has the best Christopher Walken impression around!