There’s obsessive and then there’s obsessive, as comedian Patton Oswalt admits, sitting in the atrium of a Park City, Utah, hotel, where his film “Big Fan” was having its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.

“Obsessive?” he says with a hearty chuckle. “Hey, I just met Paul Giamatti and I was like a girl meeting the Jonas Brothers.”

Actor Kevin Corrigan, who plays Oswalt’s best friend in the film, admits that he has trouble talking to actors he obsesses about.

“Nine times out of 10, when I’ve met them, it’s gone horribly,” Corrigan says. “I say something stupid or I get as tongue-tied as I hoped I wouldn’t get. I do well with people if I don’t know who they are. Like I had a good conversation with Eddie Vedder one time, but I didn’t know who he was. He was talking about his own music and I said, ‘Oh, are you in a band?’”

In “Big Fan,” which opened in limited release last week, Oswalt and Corrigan play a pair of Staten Island buddies who are obsessed with the New York Giants. Oswalt’s character, Paul Aufiero, still lives with his mom, works a dead-end job and has a bedroom with an NFL comforter on the bed and a poster of his favorite player over the bed. But his life turns upside down when he approaches that player one night in a Manhattan strip club – and the guy beats the crap out of him, putting him into the hospital.

The film was written and directed by Robert Siegel, who spent 10 years as editor of The Onion and wrote “The Wrestler.” To Siegel, it’s the obsession that makes Paul a character interesting enough to build a whole movie around.

“What interests me are people who are really into something specific – something that 99 percent of the rest of the population doesn’t give a crap about,” Siegel says. Not that Siegel ever had a fixation himself: “My hero as a kid was Terry Bradshaw, when I was 12 or 13. But I wouldn’t say I ever had an unhealthy obsession.”

His interest in Paul’s character, however, is pure; Siegel is quick to point out that he had no intention of making Paul the butt of the film’s jokes.

“There are always laughs available for the taking if you want them at the expense of the main character,” Siegel says. “I resisted doing that at every turn. I don’t like movies where they make fun of the character. Part of why I cast Patton is that he’s tremendously likable. Some nerds are more creepy and antisocial. Patton has a certain sweetness that helps shade the movie. You’re not laughing at him. It’s not a comedy of cruelty.”

Still, comparisons have been made to films such as “Taxi Driver” and “King of Comedy,” movies in which the central characters were, at minimum, flawed and, in the case of “Comedy’”s Rupert Pupkin, clueless.

“Sure, it’s like ‘Taxi Driver’,” Oswalt says. “Call it ‘Fatty Driver.’ I’m De Niro with carbs.”

Adds Siegel, “I read a comparison to Rupert Pupkin on some blog. That’s not a bad thing. ‘King of Comedy’ was definitely an influence.”

The difference is that Paul doesn’t crave the kind of fame his hero has – he just wants to worship him from afar and, if possible, be acknowledged for it. When his favorite player puts him in a coma – and winds up suspended, thus dooming the Giants’ playoff homes – his world comes crashing in.

“I consider it a tale of unrequited love,” Siegel says. “Paul’s been dumped and now he wants to get things back to where they were. The standard character arc involves some change. This character goes from Point A to Point A. He comes full circle. He just wants to get back to where he was when he started.”

Adds Oswalt, “The bottom line is the rest of the planet wants him to have a character arc – but he doesn’t. His life is defined by this sliver of fandom. He’s built his existence around it. You root for the guy. You hope he can maintain his shitty life.”

Says Siegel, “If you find him pathetic, you’re judging what he’s passionate about. If you say he’s an obsessive sports fan, that’s something more respectable. He just wants to be left alone to live his life and be into his own stuff. He knows what he likes. He has the strength of his convictions. He has a perverse integrity but it’s something that others don’t respect. He has a code that he lives by. He knows what he believes in – and that’s more than you can say about a lot of people.”

For Oswalt, a veteran stand-up comic whose movie and TV roles have rarely risen above the status of second banana, the film offered something he never thought he’d get: a chance to play a leading man, if one who never sees a girl.

“I’ve never had a part like this,” he says. “This is the first one with this depth and scope. I’m like a dog who’s been chasing a car, running his fat mouth, saying, ‘I wish I could get a great role.’ And then I got the chance to star in this.”

Notes Siegel, “Well-adjusted, handsome people are hard to write about and make interesting. Building a character and a story in those screenwriting books – you have to establish what the character wants. I think of him as a happy guy in a weird dark messed-up way. Patton relates to the psychology of the part.”

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