(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Elijah Wood insists that he doesn't talk to dogs like they are real people.

The actor, who stars in the American version of TV show Wilfred, revealed his coping mechanisms for the stresses of everyday life but chatting to animals isn't one of them.

In Wilfred, the 30-year-old star plays a young man struggling to make his mark on the world and, in his desperation, befriends a neighbour's dog, Wilfred. But instead of seeing him as an animal, Elijah's character views him as a crude yet honest man in a cheap dog costume.

"My coping mechanism? I don't know. We all deal with a certain amount of stress, on a day-to-day basis. I probably smoke too many cigarettes, which isn't a very good thing. I don't have any extraordinary coping mechanism. I certainly don't talk to a dog," he was quoted as saying.

After enjoying a successful movie career, including a part in The Lord of the Rings, Elijah said he was intrigued to venture into TV and see what its ever-changing landscape has to offer.

Recalling when he first read the script for the funny, if somewhat bizarre, Wilfred, revealed it was so funny it "blew his mind".

"I actually don't get offered a lot of TV roles. I read a few scripts that were mainly dramas. This was one of the last scripts that I was sent, and my manager sent it to me and said it was the funniest thing that she'd ever read. I loved it and it blew my mind," he said. "It was unlike anything I've read or seen on television. A perfect extreme in funny, but also sort of cerebral and strange and difficult to describe, which I think is always a good thing." (C) Cover Media