EDITOR’S NOTE: Tucker Max, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” premiered the film based on the book in Norman Thursday as part of a cross-country tour.

Q: What was it like seeing yourself portrayed onscreen by someone else? How did actor Matt Czuchry do?

A: It pains me to say this in some ways, but [Matt] is probably a better me than me. He did so good at capturing the likeability of the character. I think sometimes I kind of miss that in real life.

Q: Was that likeability something you had to manufacture for the film? It’s not really a quality of yours that comes across strongly in the book.

A: If I wasn’t a good dude in real life, I wouldn’t have friends. I’d just be a lonely dick. There’s obviously a lot that’s likeable and redeemable about me, [but] I don’t necessarily make points to put that in the book. I love my dog, and I do all kinds of great stuff, but that’s not funny, and it’s not entertaining.

Q: Now that you’ve become successful on the basis of your outrageous stories, do you go out looking for new potential stories?

A: No, you can’t. If you go out looking to make a story, it’s just lame. You can’t force this sort of stuff. I’ll go months without anything funny happening worth writing about. And then, sometimes, three funny things will happen in a week. You just go out and be who you are, and it either happens or it doesn’t.

Q: How much of the asshole persona/image is natural, and how much is put on?

A: Everything I do, everything I am is authentic. I’m not that great of a writer; I’m not that great of an artist. All I can really do is be me. There’s no act to me.

Q: What’s it like making an independent film? What are some of the inherent challenges?

A: The problem is money and time — you never have enough money, and you never have enough time, so you kind of have to figure out how to make your vision work without enough. I think we did a really good job. Granted, if we’d have had $15 million, there would have been a lot more naked girls in it, and the strip club scene would’ve looked better.

The benefit to doing an independent film is you have freedom — pure, unadulterated creative freedom to take risks and to go places that no corporate studio would ever let you go. That trade-off, to me, was well-worth it.

Q: What is it about your book/film that appeals to people, from your perspective?

A: I feel like a lot of people are drawn to me for their own personal reasons. They’ve seen me as a truth-teller, someone who is honest, authentic and real — [but] not necessarily right.

What I do is who I am. I don’t try to pretend I’m something I’m not. I’ll tell you about the great things I do, but I’ll also tell you about the bad things I do. That sort of honesty is very rare in our culture.

[Also,] I am unapologetically male.

I don’t want to hold myself up as a paragon of masculinity, because I’m not. I’m just a dude, and I don’t apologize for being a guy, and I don’t cut my balls off in order to make people I don’t care [about], or people I don’t like, happy.

That sort of unapologetic manliness is very attractive to people, especially women.