Perhaps BP should enlist John C. Reilly to help clean up the Gulf; after all, the man can seemingly do anything. He serenades in his live performances and as the blockheaded Dewey Cox; he brings us to tears in his hilarious collaborations with Will Ferrell and with his bizarre Adult Swim appearances; and he draws out pathos and acts like a total badass in his various dramatic film roles. In each instance, Reilly is nothing short of phenomenal. His newest film, “Cyrus,” allows those talents to mix, functioning as both awkward comedy and poignant drama.

A&E sat down with Reilly to discuss “Cyrus,” the difficulties of improvisation and the variety of his roles.

The trailers for “Cyrus” make it out to be a comedy, but it’s a fairly dramatic film. Do you consider it to be a comedy?

JCR: For lack of a better term — I shutter to say the phrase—but it is a romantic comedy. It is about relationships. There is a lot of awkward stuff in it, and I’m not going to deny there are some laughs, but I think it also has a lot of heart. The really appealing thing about the movie is that people who know my work from the last couple years in bigger comedies, like with Will Ferrell, will appreciate the big laughs, but then the people that have been hoping I get back to doing some dramatic stuff will also be pleased with this one.

Were you happy that this character could be funny without having to be as infantile as, say, Dale Doback in “Step Brothers?”

JCR: Yeah, I was sort of relieved that this guy wasn’t the kind of man-child that Dale was. I actually liked playing someone who was my own age, who had a little bit of world-weariness to him, and was able to be very direct when he needed to be. I liked that I got to be very real in my reactions to things. We were just encouraged to be as organic as we could and to be as honest as we could.

You do a lot of comic improvisation in films with Will Ferrell; do you find it harder to improvise dramatic scenes like the ones in this film?

JCR: To me, those are easy. The tough stuff is where you’re trying to top Will with ridiculousness from moment to moment, or trying to make Will laugh, which is essentially what we do all day on those movies. It is an exacting discipline: if something’s not funny it’s really clear right away that it’s not funny. I find it much easier to focus on being truthful and being in the moment, and that’s what improv really is all about. If you’re constantly trying to be funny, you’re not purely in the moment; you’re not reacting totally truthfully all the time; you’re reacting in what you hope will be a funny way.

I’ve always been craving the chance to do a movie where you could purely improvise, where it didn’t matter if it was funny or not as long as it was natural and organic and true to the character, and that’s what [Cyrus] was. It’s a lot of responsibility, taking on the authorship of the movie in those moments, but it was worth it, I think. I’m really proud of this one.

You’ve played some very different characters throughout your career. At this stage in your life, is there a type of role you prefer?

JCR: No, I prefer doing the thing that I didn’t do last. I like flipping it back and forth, and that’s kind of the game from my end. That’s the way to have longevity: constantly get one step ahead of what people expect you to do. And I’m just trying to do as much different stuff for myself as I can, because that’s how you stay interested and excited about going to work everyday. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re repeating yourself.

Lastly, I have to ask, how would Dr. Steve Brule characterize this film?

JCR: You would have to ask Dr. Steve Brule. I know Dr. Brule, I often speak to him, but I do not do press for him.

“Cyrus” opens July 2.