Bob Balaban walks calmly but resolutely up to a table at Sarabeth’s restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue and locks eyes through thick, tortoiseshell glasses with the reporter seated there. His khaki pants and crisp yellow oxford shirt betray nary a wrinkle. His expression is unsmiling, but not unhappy. He has a message, and that is: “I hope you got a message.”

Mr. Balaban probably says that to a lot of people, and the message he hopes they’ve received is, “Bob is running late.” The actor-director-writer producer is always busy, largely because he is an actor, director, writer, and producer, but also because he’s usually simultaneously tackling assignments in each of those fields.

As an actor, his most pressing current job is the off-Broadway hit production of David Mamet’s “Romance.” The loopy, profane courtroom farce recently extended at the Atlantic Theater Company, thus providing a foundation to Mr. Balaban’s farflung energies until May 1. As a director, he will soon begin work on the New York premiere of “Manuscript,” a play by Paul Grellong. As a writer, he saw the latest edition of his “McGrowl” children’s book series published on March 1. And as a producer, he will soon begin work on the first episodes of a new animated television series.

Mr. Balaban, 59, is also, it turns out, Bob the Builder. A house is now rising on a plot of Bridgehampton land he bought 10 years ago. That enterprise, too, is a production in its own way, for he has agreed to narrate a documentary detailing its construction for Plum TV, a network shown only in luxury markets such as Aspen and the Hamptons.

With all his other responsibilities, why did he agree to do this last, seemingly unnecessary project? “I have a friend who works for the network and he suggested the idea.” Yes, but why?

“I’m happiest when I work,” was the ultimate answer. “I’m also happy not working, as long as I know I’m about to work. This prospect of ‘next year I’m not working’ does not appeal to me. I have that mentality that actors have, that you better do those things because next year they may not ask you.”

“I do run into some protests from my family, that I’m a workaholic,” he continued. “And I am. But to me a workaholic would mean I’m not enjoying it.” He paused briefly and then added in a tamer tone: “I’m trying to be better.”

Mr. Balaban’s industry is legendary among his peers. Actor Andrew Polk, who has been directed by Mr. Balaban several times, can spin out an easy imitation of his friend leaving a phone message: “Hi. Hi. It’s Bob. Oh, that’s right – I called you. I can’t talk right now, I’m going to the subway, and I’m finishing my trilogy. But I love you, and I’ll talk to you soon.”

Perhaps in reaction to years of watching their peripatetic father operate, neither of the Balaban daughters, who are 18 and 28, wishes to pursue acting. “Their favorite thing about show business is gift bags,” said Dad. “It was very sad for them when I was producer of ‘Gosford Park.’ The Best Picture nominees do not get goodie bags from the Academy Awards. I think they assume producers are not interesting enough to get them.”

If his wife, Lynn Grossman, gets frustrated by her husband’s schedule from time to time, she has only herself to blame. According to Mr. Balaban, when the two were attending NYU, it was Ms. Grossman who tipped him off that casting was underway for a new off-Broadway musical based on Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” cartoon. Mr. Balaban was (and still is) diminutive, baby-faced, and thoughtful-seeming – in other words, a perfect Peanut. He coaxed someone into posing as his agent, went to an audition, and won the role of Linus in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” “In four weeks it was the biggest hit in the history of off-Broadway,” he remembered. “I had had a plan: transfer from Colgate University; come to New York; get into a play; become an actor. Yeah, right. And it worked!”

It’s worked ever since, but particularly in the last decade, thanks to “Gosford Park,” in which, in addition to producing, he played a crass American movie producer. He has also had roles in a series of praised mock-documentaries by Christopher Guest (“Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” “A Mighty Wind”), and a widely noted recurring part as a taciturn network executive on “Seinfeld.” He directed the play “The Exonerated,” about the stories of wrongly convicted death row inmates to long runs on both coasts.

The work ethic – and the low-key personal style – derives from his nononsense Chicago upbringing. His father, Elmer Balaban, was the youngest of seven Balaban brothers who created and ran the once legendary and powerful Balaban & Katz chain of movie palaces. The business began, somewhat improbably, when the septet’s mother decided to abandon the grocery trade in favor of nickelodeons. “Immediately my grandmother said, ‘This is a great business. It’s not lettuce, where when the product is stale, you send it back and get a fresh one. And there’s no credit. You pay your nickel and go in.'”

According to this Balaban scion, however, the clan acted less like a showbiz dynasty than your typical stoical Midwestern family.

“The only thing I noticed that was different from anyone else’s childhood is I could always go to the movies for free,” he recalled. “The movie people were in New York or Hollywood. It was very distant. They never talked about ‘The Family Business,’ being rather restrained and realistic about life and things. It’s a Midwestern trait – kind of terse, and nothing’s a big deal.”

Young Bob felt an affinity with his quixotic father, who once turned down his older brother Barney’s offer to succeed him as head of Paramount Studios (“He liked Chicago,” explained his son) and later invented an early version of pay television.

“I sort of shared with him a kind of obsessive getting of ideas,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of them are just stupid, but I can’t help it. I’m very scattershot that way. But when I hook onto something, everything just drops away. I think we felt a kinship in that way of thinking. He enjoyed my crazy flights of things, which every once in a great while would become ‘Gosford Park’ or ‘The Exonerated.'”

Or “Romance.” Or … what is it again he’s doing next? Directing? Producing? Writing? By the way, which occupation does he like best? “I like them all equally, really.” All right. What about theater versus film? “I actually like both very, very much. I think they help each other.” Having two daughters has perhaps taught Bob Balaban not to name his loyalties. He is a good father to his careers.