O'Dowd's fans know that laugh well. It's what infused every hilarious line he uttered on his breakthrough role in hit geek-com The IT Crowd, something he's turned into a multi-faceted career including roles in HBO's comedy Girls, Hollywood box office blockbuster Bridesmaids, and the Broadway play Of Mice and Men.
But right now O'Dowd's sides are splitting because he's just compared his whimsical childhood nostalgia TV tale Moone Boy, the second season of which begins on New Zealand screens tonight, to hard-hitting Baltimore crime caper The Wire. The comparison is ridiculous. One is about a 10-year-old Irish boy and his imaginary friend (played by O'Dowd) going through school's most awkward stages; the other is about the crooked cops, criminals, gangsters and politicians engaged in Baltimore's drug battle.
O'Dowd, who created Moone Boy, writes it with his friend Nick Murphy, stars in it and recently directed an episode, knows it's a crazy thing to say -- that's why he's laughing. But in a roundabout way he's right.
He's just been asked why Moone Boy might appeal to Kiwi audiences whose only knowledge of the show's setting comes from drinking at an Irish pub.
"I don't think it matters necessarily, as long as the jokes are good and you believe the characters. The family element is very universal, that's what people connect to," O'Dowd says.
"The fact that it's from very far away [and set in a country] that you don't know that well almost makes it better. It's like watching The Wire: you believe the people in The Wire because it's so site-specific ..." He trails off and loses himself in those four stages of laughter. "I think you know what I mean."
O'Dowd has plenty of reasons to be laughing these days. He's a Midas man, with everything he touches seemingly turning to gold. The IT Crowd ran for four hilarious seasons, rounding things out with last-year's brilliant one-hour sendoff. He had a recurring role as a socially awkward banker in the HBO sitcom Girls. His four-month Broadway run in Of Mice and Men earned rave reviews ("Astonishing," raved Variety). And he has four films out in 2014, including the already released Calvary and Cuban Fury, upcoming Bill Murray vehicle St Vincent, and a film about disgraced Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong.
So yes, he's a busy man. But O'Dowd's success can be charted back to one thing: 2011's unlikely hit Bridesmaids, a gross-out rom-com in which he played a chilled out cop and love interest alongside Kristen Wiig.
That role saw O'Dowd really hit the big time. He admits he had Hollywood at his fingertips, with big money offers landing thick and fast. But he wasn't ready for it. So he headed home to Ireland, moved back in with his parents and got started on Moone Boy.
"I got swept away in the madness of Bridesmaids. I didn't realise it was going to be this massive thing. I was getting sent a lot of bad rom-com scripts and I just needed to make sure I started getting in control of the stuff I wanted to do," he says.
"I realised I needed to do something quite small and something very rooted at home pretty soon, so I didn't lose my mind ... and I thought this would be a good way to do it."
Like almost everything else he's done, Moone Boy has proved to be a winner. The show's surreal take on childhood nostalgia has earned rave reviews, an International Emmy Award for best comedy series and, despite the second series reaching New Zealand only now, a third season is already "in the can".
For anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, the show is a surreal trip down memory lane. After all, which school kid didn't make their own Ghostbusters outfit after watching the film?
Like all the best comedy, Moone Boy's storylines come from personal experiences, with O'Dowd saying about 70 per cent of the content is "probably true".
"It's a fine line with nostalgia, it's the one part of the show that I worry about sometimes. Because it's set in 1990 we don't really have an option but to exploit it in some way, but I try not to lean on it too much.
"In the second series the boys build a raft and go on the river. That's something that happened to the guy who writes the show with me. The school dance definitely came from something that happened to me. And the rest of the family is very similar: my dad was a signwriter, my mother was a Weightwatchers instructor, my sister got pregnant very young. All of that stuff is stuff that happened to me when I was that age."
The show's been so successful that he's penning a spin-off prequel of children's books.
But if it sounds like O'Dowd has a lot on his plate, he's not complaining.
"I like to think that the projects are good. Of Mice and Men went incredibly well, Moone Boy is going well, so it's not necessarily that I don't say no to things, but I do want to keep doing different things. I kind of like challenging myself to do different things."
And right now, sunning himself at his Californian home with his dog by his side, O'Dowd is loving life.
"It's terrific, the weather's lovely, the dog's chewing a bone, I'm very pleased. I'm here a lot, I'm in Ireland a lot, I'm in London a lot, I travel around a bit, like a comedic travelling salesman."
Even over the phone, with that regular, everyman chuckle of his, O'Dowd makes a pitch that's hard to resist.
Who: Chris O'Dowd
What: Moone Boy season two
Where: UK TV, tonight at 9.25pm
- TimeOut
