After parlaying the enthusiastic web following for their comedic ensemble The Lonely Island into, among other things, a job writing for Jimmy Fallon during his hosting gig for the MTV Movie Awards in the fall of 2005, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer scored positions at Saturday Night Live — Samberg as a performer and the latter two as writers. Less than two years later, a movie they’ve done together (that would be Hot Rod) is coming out and one of their more robustly received digital shorts for SNL, the raunchy R&B parody Dick in a Box, just received an unlikely Emmy nomination. (Imagine that being performed live.)

While all three Lonely Island guys — friends since junior high school — have enjoyed a huge bump in profile, it’s Samberg, as the “face” of the trio, who stands poised to break out as a bonafide new comedy star, and with that face down all the fresh challenges it creates. Still, the steep upward trajectory doesn’t seem to bother him, and in making the leap from SNL to movies — a perilous chasm that not all have survived with grace or dignity — Samberg seems to be taking a decided long view of things. “For people that I’ve looked up to, they have all gone through ebbs and flows in their movie careers,” he says. “Now that I’m actually in it a little bit, I understand the desire to do something different. Even as early as now, having done [just] this movie, I think personally I want to keep doing weird stuff. I don’t think I have really proven myself in terms of comedy yet."

For the full feature on Samberg, from FilmStew, click here. Meanwhile, for discrete bits on Samberg's recent appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, click here; for his thoughts on Hot Rod's original script, which has been bumping around since late 1999, click here.