Suit up

“Watchmen” star Patrick Wilson was hanging at San Diego’s annual Comic Con in July 2008 when a fan — decked out in a costume from the beloved DC Comics graphic novel — spotted him.

“Oh, my God,” the fan said. “Next year, you are not going to be able to stand here.”

Yes, the anticipation for director Zack Snyder’s big-screen version of “Watchmen” — the psychologically complex tale of self-made, masked superheroes who come out of retirement to find out who’s hunting them and why — had been bubbling over for months.

In the film, Wilson plays Dan, a buttoned-up gadget guy who no longer feels like a man until he dons the sleek superhero suit that turns him into crime-fighter Nite Owl II. Dan’s got a crush on Laurie, a.k.a. Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman). Unfortunately for Dan, Laurie’s with Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a blue, mutated physicist who doesn’t wear many clothes. Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley also star as ordinary people with extraordinary alter egos.

From L.A., Wilson talked about the everyday lives of superheroes and what it’s like to compete with an enormous blue mutant for a woman’s affections.

Before Dan, the last guy Laurie is with is Dr. Manhattan, who can enlarge parts of his body at will. How intimidating is that for Dan?

[Laughs] Well, I mean, Dan’s got his own problems. I feel like once he understands his role to [Laurie], which is sort of the emotional support that she does not get from Doc … certainly once he figures that out I think he feels a little confident. But he’s got his own issues of not feeling manly enough, whether Manhattan is around or not.

That still can’t be helpful, knowing his competition is a giant, confident naked blue man.

Whether [Dr. Manhattan] was around or not, I don’t think [Dan] would feel very virile. Luckily it works out for him.

When you see members of the Blue Man Group now, do you feel threatened?

Are you kidding, man? I get the girl. Come on, they don’t scare me.

Dan looks like an accountant in his normal life yet still dominates when it’s fighting time. How does he do that?

[When] you create a superhero or your costumed avenger, you sort of create to your strengths. He obviously had a lot of power-based fighting ability. He’s a big guy so he knew that his punches carried a lot of weight. So I think you master that. He actually says in the comic [that] he grew up and was fascinated by birds and by flying, so having that obsession with the amount of money he had gotten he was able to make his own gadgets. So it’s Batman-esque. He doesn’t need the superpower.

Why are people so fascinated with the real lives of superheroes?

Because if you think about it in the most basic sense, it’s an ordinary man doing extraordinary things. A heroic nature is very Greek. What lengths will you go to, to be the best you can be? What is that? What is your perception of a hero? Look at a firefighter putting on a suit and storming into a building and saving a child. That’s pretty heroic, right out of a graphic novel. Change the costume and that’s a superhero. There’s just a natural instinct to want to be great, I think.

How much of a night owl are you in real life?

I have a 2 1/2-year-old, so I’m not a night owl at all. I’m an early morning owl. The days of being night owls are over.

In the film, Laurie says she’s used to going out at 3 a.m. and doing something stupid, and everyone can probably relate. What goes through your mind when you hear that?

[Laughs] Oh, now. I’ve lived in New York for 15 years. I think of many years post-college of being very stupid at3 in the morning. But I’ll never tell.

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FAST-PAISED REVIEW

Watchmen (R) !!

“‘Watchmen’ is all spectacle and mostly a bore, too clunky to be interesting and too brutal to be fun.”

– Read Matt’s full review at metromix.com and in Saturday’s RedEye.