“Fly Me to the Moon”’s Jim Rash Recalls a Fan Asking for a Selfie… Because She Thought He Was Stanley Tucci (Exclusive)

The actor and Oscar-winning co-writer of 'The Descendants,' who is one of PEOPLE's 100 Reasons to Love America, has also been mistaken for musician Moby

Jim Rash has an impressive résumé: He played bumbling Dean Pelton on the fan-favorite NBC (and later, Yahoo Screen) series Community, he won an Oscar for co-writing the 2011 George Clooney movie The Descendants, and this summer, he stars with Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in the romantic dramedy Fly Me to the Moon.

Despite his fame, Rash — who is one of PEOPLE’s 100 Reasons to Love America thanks to his sharp wit and hilarious performances — is not instantly recognizable, he reveals in the new issue.

The actor, writer and director, 52, says he’s been mistaken for musician Moby, and in one amusing instance, Stanley Tucci, the actor and host of the CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.

“I was in a hotel lobby and a woman said, ‘Can I get a selfie?’ As we're posing, she says, ‘I love your show about Italy.’ I was like, ‘I'm not Stanley Tucci.’ That phone came down so fast — she did not want that selfie!”

Related: Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum Pair Up for the First Time in Fly Me to the Moon First Look (Exclusive)

Rash took the case of mistaken identity in stride. “I completely respected the fact that this woman did not need to fill up her 128 gigabytes — or whatever the size her phone is,” he says.

His profile will likely rise thanks to his role in Fly Me to the Moon. Set during the Space Race of the 1960s, the movie stars Tatum as Cole Davis, a NASA flight director tasked with landing a crew of astronauts on the moon. Johansson plays a Kelly Jones, plucky PR exec from New York City who’s hired to raise the profile of NASA in the public eye.

As the mission date looms closer and government officials fear NASA might not be able to pull off a moon landing, dealing a potential blow to national morale and showing weakness to the Russians, Kelly is forced to stage a secret faux moon landing in a NASA warehouse.

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She enlists her buddy Lance (Rash) to direct the spectacle. Lance is flamboyant, fierce and prone to hissy-fits, allowing Rash to steal scenes from his screen partners.

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Rash says his performance was informed to some degree by characters from other movies, including Dustin Hoffman’s Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie and Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. “If inspiration is pulling from some amazing people who are far better than me, I'll take it,” he says.

In one scene, Lance goes toe-to-toe with an intimidating CIA official played by Woody Harrelson. “Working beside him was heaven,” says Rash. “Just because he would throw me off in the best possible way of giving me s---, basically.”

Johansson and Tatum were also dream coworkers, says Rash. “Scarlett is hilariously funny and sardonic and very sets a great mood on set. And Channing, well… I knew right away he was going to flirt with me. I wish I wasn’t kidding!”

Fly Me to the Moon is in theaters July 12.

For more of the 100 Reasons to Love America, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

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