Since his Oscar-nominated wine-tasting road trip in "Sideways," Thomas Haden Church has driven straight ahead to some great projects in Hollywood, including the plum role of Flint Marko/Sandman in "Spider-Man 3."

But while's he's been preparing himself for the mental and physical challenges of hotly anticipated 2007 summer blockbuster, Church has been giving his vocal chords a workout, too. Among new voice roles is that of the critter control expert, Dwayne, aka "The Verminator," in the new computer-animated family comedy "Over the Hedge."

The movie, about a raccoon con artist (Bruce Willis) who tempts a band of wild creatures with the junk food treats of suburbia, opens Friday in theaters nationwide.

In an odd sort of way, "Over the Hedge" brings Church back to his roots.

"It's a lot of fun and kind of brings me full-circle," Church told me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "I started out in radio when I was in high school and college, and commercial voiceover work has been a part of my life for about 20 years."

Anyone who's seen Church in action knows very well that he has a unique set of pipes. And it was that distinctive voice that he put to work for the upcoming live-action/animated adaptation of "Charlotte's Web" that got the attention of the film's screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick. The filmmaker, known for penning the animated smash "Chicken Run," also happened to be a co-director of "Over the Hedge."

Since "Over the Hedge" was well into production and Church was the second-to-last voice actor cast, the process of becoming "The Verminator" to him was anything but routine.

"All they sent me was a synopsis and some storyboard panels, probably because DreamWorks is as paranoid as the rest of the studios have become about the material, like a script being downloaded and broadcast over the Internet," Church explained. "Now, they just give you as much information as they think you need."

After Church, Kirkpatrick, co-director Tim Johnson and producer Bonnie Arnold chatted about the role on the phone, the actor said he did a recording session and "everybody felt like the energy was right," the actor said.

Church said the final version of his character in "Over the Hedge" looks about the same as he did when he first came on the project: an overweight slob of a bald man with swooped hair. He said that at that point, the filmmakers were animating him for two years.

"With the glasses and the hair, and he's a little chunky ... it just seemed like a good fit to me," Church mused. "I was already in training for 'Spider-Man' it was just fun to play a counterpoint character to the guy I am in 'Spider-Man' -- a swaggering tough guy. I really saw the role of Dwayne as a really fun comedic opportunity."

Since Church has such of a distinct voice, the challenge for "Over the Hedge" filmmakers was to find a way to immerse audience members in the character without the distraction of knowing it's the Oscar nominee's voice.

That's where the direction of Kirkpatrick and Johnson comes into play. Kirkpatrick said the animators listen to the voice to imagine what it suggests, and then he and his colleague start to physicalize the character.

"Tim and I get to pretend like we're actors and develop the way 'The Verminator' walks, the way he postures himself and the way he moves his big belly around," Kirkpatrick described for me.

In the end, Church's "Verminator" hearkened the greatness of a character played by a late comic legend.

"For 'The Verminator,' there was a character that Chris Farley played on 'Saturday Night Live' which was the motivational speaker," Kirkpatrick said. "We thought, 'I think he might move like this guy.' He had quick, jerky movements, so you start to get this amalgam going and Thomas' voice becomes a little bit detached from the body.

Arnold told me that that detachment was also true for Steve Carell, who plays the hyperactive Hammy the hamster in the film.

"Steve's such a calm person and Hammy's so crazed," said Arnold, beaming. "We went over to record him one day at the set of 'The Office,' and as he started to do his Hammy voice, the people that work with him just looked at him and were like, 'Who is this bat?' They had never heard him like that."

"Plus, that particular day, he was screaming, 'Help me find my nuts!'" Kirkpatrick added, laughing.

On The Wings Of Success
Church got his big break in Hollywood by playing the seemingly simple-minded mechanic Lowell Mather on the hit sitcom "Wings." But as Church soon came to discover, his odd demeanor on the show was starting to hurt his chances for other work.

"'Wings' was my first national, even international exposure as a performer. I don't think he was dumb -- I never really liked critics or journalists to characterize him as dumb -- I just think he was just a real innocent, at-times hapless guy; but a guy that was really true to himself and had an integrity," Church said. "Sometimes he was little weird and quirky and his assessment of the world was a little odd.

"However, because of the oddity of him, people thought I was weird, dumb and empty-headed. When you play a character that is that stridently defined, you run the risk of being typecast," the 44-year-old actor added. "I got 'Wings' six months after I moved to LA, but didn't get my first feature role until I had been an actor there for four years. It took several seasons of 'Wings' before I started getting any attention for movies. It's not the same now as it used to be. It was a little harder then to break over from television to features.

And although Church has made a breakthrough and them some with "Sideways," it was pure happenstance -- not his acting ability -- that landed him the role of Sandman in "Spider-Man 3." Sure, he knew director Sam Raimi from an audition for "The Gift" years before, but it was his simple manner of being human at his Broadcast Film Critics' Association Awards in January of 2005 that caught the attention of Raimi, producer Laura Ziskin and Marvel Comics Chairman Avi Arad.

"The whole thing started when they saw me give an acceptance speech at the Critics' Choice Awards (for Best Supporting Actor for "Sideways"). I was at first attempting to be funny and then my emotions got the better of me," Church recalled. "Avi, Laura and Sam were there, and they were like, 'This guy's got the physical presence to be this guy, but also this kind of vulnerability."