Kevin Pollak of ‘Mrs. Maisel’ is bringing his act to Philly. Will Christopher Walken and Lt. Columbo come along?

When Kevin Pollak performs at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park on April 13, it’s possible a few other famous voices will take the stage, too.

The actor, comedian, author, and podcaster just began filming on the third season of Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and has a recurring role on the current season of Showtime’s Billions. His film credits include A Few Good Men and The Usual Suspects.

Acting, though, limits him to one character at a time. As a comedian, Pollak contains multitudes.

We spoke recently about what goes into the celebrity impressions he’s known for, what impressed the late Peter Falk most about Pollak’s take on him, and what it’s like for the fast-talking actors on the Emmy-winning Mrs. Maisel to say the words exactly how they’re written. Here, edited and condensed, is what Pollak had to say (mostly in his own voice):

I was lip-synching a [Bill Cosby] comedy album at school, which became a hit and was performed all through junior high and high school. Once I started performing professionally, at 17, 18 years old, it was almost entirely doing impersonations of famous people. And to this day, if you did a YouTube search of Kevin Pollak impersonations -- actually if you Googled the phrase “Christopher Walken impersonation,” sometimes as many as 60,000 search answers will come up, and I’m No. 1 on that search. That and seven dollars will get me a coffee at Starbucks.

It’s actually how babies learn to speak. It’s called mimicking sound. We all have the innate ability to mimic and some of us freaks have it to a level of, I guess, savant. But it’s a part of the learning process for every infant. We learn how to speak from hearing it first, and specifically the sound that you’re copying as opposed to putting letters together to form words.

I became famous first, probably, for doing Peter Falk, his character, Lt. Columbo, I did on The Tonight Show for [Johnny] Carson and Carson loved it. And then I was accosted in the produce section in Los Angeles by Peter Falk, who had seen me do the impression, where I had taught myself to cross just one eye, because Peter Falk famously had a glass eye, from an early age. And I’d seen him talk about it in TV Guide, so I felt it was OK to teach myself to move just one eye when doing the impression. So he actually said [he imitates Falk], “How do you do that with your eye? Me, I understand. But how do you do that?” That voice is more impressive if you see just one eye moving.

I think in all three instances as a parent, the parent of each of them was most proud of [that child]. The question is clever, so I don’t want to undermine it with logic, but you really do absorb the life of each character, so each father was annoyingly proud.

That’s hilarious. I can tell you, as I said, between seasons one and two, lower your expectations and you’ll be wildly happy. The problem with an annoyingly and overly awarded show is expectations. I think Amy [Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator] and Dan [Palladino, her husband and fellow executive producer] are fearless in their efforts to go bigger and bolder.

Also hilarious, as a question. Or a notion. It doesn’t work that way. They share almost nothing. I think they give Rachel [Brosnahan, who stars as Midge Maisel] some insights, and the rest of us very little to nothing. Some of us, like myself, don’t want to know anything, as a fan of the show.

I guess I was always obsessed with people’s journeys. I read autobiographies endlessly -- is voraciously the term used for literature? As a very young boy, the fantasies were being involved in the world of movies and television. No one in my family had ever had anything to do with show business. It was just instant dreams and wonderment, and part of that was reading about other people’s journeys and how they got there.

A term that I picked up along the way that I’m insisting is a Jewish term that applies to both positive and negative, is, “It’s enough already.” That’s how I feel about all the awards for Maisel: “It’s enough already.’” Thankfully, Veep is coming back and so we’ll win nothing.

All three. It’s a constant effort to be of clear mind and fit of patter and memorization. And oh, yes, I’m supposed to be present in the scene. That’s the thing. When you have to talk this fast in this many words, your concentration starts to drift toward those tasks, and I find it frees you up to be a little more present and a little more out of your own head about the emotion of the scene, because you’re no longer thinking about “what am I supposed to feel?”

It’s one of the few things I’ve ever worked on that the writers need the actors to be letter-perfect, like a play. We don’t mind. When the words are this good, it’s almost a relief that you don’t have to think about what else you might be saying. You’d rather learn and say these lines as they were meant to be said.

An Evening with Kevin Pollak. 8:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13, Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Elkins Park. Tickets: $45-$118 at kenesethisrael.org/tickets.