Will Arnett is one of the most hilarious people alive. Now, he makes a triumphant foray into drama with Is This Thing On?, a unique look at divorce and reconciliation that’s written and directed by his long-time friend Bradley Cooper.
As Alex, a New York suburbanite who moves to Manhattan after his long marriage to Tess (Laura Dern) falls apart and he’s thrust into the unlikely role of co-parenting bachelor, Arnett taps into a serio-comic vein that proves he’s far more than just a wild funnyman. His character embarking upon an unlikely path of healing—by taking up stand-up comedy—his raw, deep performance paints a moving portrait of mid-life sadness, regret, and longing.
For the 55-year-old actor, Is This Thing On?—which hits theaters Dec. 19— is a clear departure from most of his work, albeit not all of it; buried within Alex is the sort of existential doubt and confusion he previously plumbed in TV’s BoJack Horseman and Flaked.
Not to make Alex out to be simply a sad sack, since the beauty of Arnett’s turn is its adept commingling of silliness and sorrow, as Alex’s journey of self-discovery takes him on an unexpectedly loopy ride through the underground comedy scene, where he makes new friends, encounters unexpected lovers, and discovers a confident voice. The twist is that, in doing so, he finds a way to slowly reconnect with his estranged spouse, and Arnett sells his protagonist’s evolution with the same naturalness that defines his rapport with the always excellent Dern.
While he may still be best known as Arrested Development’s ridiculous Gob Bluth, Is This Thing On? confirms that he’s cut out for more serious fare—and completely comfortable combining his loopier and somber sides. He’s the poignant heart of Cooper’s follow-up to Maestro, and seems destined, in the coming months, to attract significant year-end accolades. Before that occurs, though, we sat down with the star to talk about shifting gears, his friendship (and collaboration) with Cooper, and the trick to doing comedy in front of a paying audience.
Is This Thing On? is a change of pace for Bradley Cooper as a director, following A Star is Born and Maestro. Are you disappointed that he finally gives you a leading role in one of his films, and you don’t get to sing or play music?
Not only that, Nick—A Star is Born and Maestro, these are people at the top of their field, and then I get to play a stand-up, but he’s not really that good at it [laughs]. He’s just a total novice.
It’s quite a ringing endorsement by Bradley.
“I’m going to just dial this all the way back—for your turn, you get to play a guy who’s kind of mediocre” [laughs].
You and Bradley go way back. Can you talk about the origins of your friendship?
We met socially 25 years ago through my ex-wife, because they were good friends. They had done Wet Hot American Summer together, and then we formed a friendship pretty instantly. We had a lot of shared sensibilities, if you will. Then, a couple of years later, we ended up both living in Venice, sharing the back building of this house together for a few years. When I was shooting Arrested Development, and even afterwards, we were both kicking around ideas, trying to work together, because I think we always had a shared sensibility about things.
Since I’ve known him, Bradley has always had such an appetite for film—for the art of it and for expressing himself that way. We did a couple of little things together, but we never talked about collaborating and creating something together. And of course, he went on and had tremendous success and started filmmaking.
Is it startling to think about how far both of you have come since you met?
I remember one time, I want to say about seven-and-a-half years ago—it was like six months before I met John Bishop—Bradley was exhibiting the trailer for A Star Is Born at CinemaCon in Las Vegas for Warner Brothers. I was producing and voicing this animated film, Teen Titans GO! To the Movies, for Warner Brothers, and I went and helped present a bunch of the films on their slate at CinemaCon.
Among those, I got to introduce Bradley, who came out and introduced the trailer for A Star is Born. We moved to the side of the stage, and it was not lost on us in that moment that here we were, all these years later, him showing a trailer for his film. We’re both emotional guys, and it was an emotional moment for us. I hadn’t seen A Star Is Born yet, but even just the act of being there together was big for us personally, and certainly big for Bradley. It sounds patronizing to say proud, but I was immensely proud of him as my friend. I really admired him, and the guts he had to tackle this. He was a big movie star—he is a big movie star—and it’s a big swing to take, and he took it.
He sure did.
Then, of course, he went on to make Maestro, which I really admired, and I got to be around him—not on set—as that was happening, and watch him take another big swing. So for us to then do this together…. No, we never planned on doing it. It’s beyond my imagination in a lot of ways, the fact that we got to do it. On a personal level, it’s incredibly satisfying.
Much of your work has been straight comedy, but are there any prior projects that prepared you, in some way, for Is This Thing On?
Well Nick, I’ll take it a step further and say that a lot of the comedy I did wasn’t even necessarily straight comedy. I mean, it was comedy, but a lot of it was quite heightened. If you look at Arrested Development, Gob was a character who’s not really tethered to reality in a lot of ways [laughs]. A lot of the TV stuff I did, like 30 Rock, or animated stuff like BoJack Horseman and The Lego Batman Movie, were heightened versions of archetypes—of people who were bigger than life. So I don’t know if any of that necessarily prepared me.
In a lot of ways, I probably had to play against a lot of my own patterns that had developed over the years. That was maybe another barrier for me. But even so, I always did try to find a through line—some kind of emotional connection. As eye-rolly as it might sound, even a character like Gob on Arrested Development was a guy who was not loved by his dad, and that was the thing that drove me. That was a touchstone for me for that character, to get into things and to justify the reason that he did the things he did.
I don’t know if any of those totally prepared me, though. I think life probably prepared me more for this than anything else [laughs].
Like Alex, you’ve gone through a divorce, as have I. As one of the film’s co-writers as well as its star, how much did you integrate your own experiences into the character and his story?
When I first met the great John Bishop [who the film is loosely based on] all those years ago, he told me the story about how the first time he did stand up was on a Monday. He’d had his kids for the weekend, and he was newly separated from his wife, and he dropped his kids off at school, knowing he wasn’t going to see them for another week. I remember him saying Mondays were the hardest days. That night, he goes to a pub to have a beer, and he has to pay a cover because they’ve got an open mic and he doesn’t want to pay through. So begrudgingly, he puts his name down and then they call him up, and it ended up being the greatest thing that ever happened to him.
Going there, he’s able, for the first time, to tell his truth on stage in front of a room full of strangers. I could identify with that, and with what he was going through. This film is inspired by him; it’s not necessarily the John Bishop story. And it’s certainly not autobiographical; it’s not the Will Arnett story.
But I think we always end up bringing elements of our life. When I was writing that first draft, that was very much in me. How could it not be? It’s just because I’m a human being, and because I connected with those things. To tell that experience in an authentic way felt real, and I wanted it to not feel heightened. That was going to be the challenge: to write it, and to make it, and to act those scenes, in a way that was a real representation of what that feeling is.
Did you ever do open mic nights back in the day? What’s the trick to being successful at them?
First of all, no, I didn’t, but I probably should have. Nick, you and I both should have done it [laughs].
Maybe it would have helped us avoid some of our problems.
I went up as Alex Novak. They would introduce me [at The Comedy Cellar] as Alex Novak. But no matter what it is, your body is up there, and you’re in front of those people. The trick is that there is no trick. Sadly! [laughs] Because the trick is, you better come up with something that’s going satisfy them on some level, whether it’s a funny joke or a story.
It’s a weird thing. It’s like, have you ever gone and watched a symphony, and you’re worried that the violinist is going to screw up? The one guy who’s going to mess up the whole thing? It’s kind of like that. The whole audience is like, who is this guy, and is he going to bomb right away?
I got a great piece of advice—the second time I went up, Kirk Fox, who’s such a funny comedian, stopped me. We borrowed this line from Kirk, and we gave it to Dan the first time Alex goes down the stairs at The Comedy Cellar. Alex is standing there, and Dan says just wait for the light, and then he turns to Alex and he goes, just talk to them. That’s what Kirk said to me. Just talk to them. That idea changed the game for me. So if there’s a trick, it’s that.
