After appearing in the fourth season ofArrested Development and the finale of 30 Rock, Will Arnett returned to the sitcom arena this fall with the new CBS series The Millers. Joining the show’s well-stocked cast— which includes Emmy-winning actors Margo Martindale and Beau Bridges and Curb Your Enthusiasm alum J. B. Smoove—the Toronto-raised actor dials down his Gob-ian smugness to play a divorced news reporter whose parents (Martindale and Bridges) decide to divorce, too, and move to his small town. Hijinks, in observance of the golden sitcom rule, ensue.
In advance of the new episode ofThe Millerson Thursday, the actor phoned VF.com yesterday to discuss the CBS sitcom, his thankfully A.C.-attack-less experience on a Michael Bay set last year, and Toronto’s embattled mayor, Rob Ford.
Julie Miller: Your character, Nathan, on The Millers spends a commendable amount of time with his family. In real life, how long do you think you’d last if you were in that close of proximity to your family?
Will Arnett: How do I say this diplomatically, because my mom reads Vanity Fair? Let me put it this way: I had a great time living with them growing up. But if the situation arose that I had to live with them now, I see myself going insane within 72 hours. I am blessed with awesome parents, but you need to have a finish line—like 10 days or whatever.
I love that a universe exists where J. B. Smoove, who plays Nathan’s friend, is in the same show as Margo Martindale. And not only that, but their characters become buddies.
I think that one of the great things that we have going for us is we have such a diverse cast. J.B., who I think is so hilarious and know from the days that he was a writer on S.N.L., him bringing that vibe with someone like Margo, who is such an accomplished dramatic actor and also a genius comedic actor as it turns out, their energies really complement each other, because they come from such different worlds.
And I love that their characters have weirdly become allies. Sometimes I will come into a scene and I feel like it is them versus me. It’s a weird pairing but hilarious.
I just watched the episode where J.B. takes Margo’s character to get a bikini wax.
We have an episode where J.B. and I try to get Margo to go on a date, and it is awesome. J.B. and I find her a guy on a dating Web site and, as it turns out, my character thinks that this guy looks really cool and I’m way more into the date than she is. J.B. is into it, too, and he is prepping her for her big date and it is hilarious.
How does the off-set atmosphere of this series compare to Arrested Development?
People might be surprised because the shows are so different in terms of their vibe, but they are very similar in that the cast all really likes working together. It never feels like work, and we’ve gotten to the place where everyone knows each other a little better and gives each other shit. If you were to come on a tape night, all of the cast members are so funny that I will have a hard time [dealing with] what I will refer to as “church giggles.” You might also find me doing an impression of Margaret’s Texas accent really badly.
You’re the voice of Batman in the upcoming Lego Movie. Do you feel any competition with Ben Affleck, who has been cast as the next live-action Batman?
I started working on that before they cast Ben. It’s come up in the last few months, but it is such a different gig. I am honestly such a big fan of his that I think he will do an awesome job. Maybe there will be a world where he can do something in the next Lego movie where we have a Batman-off. Your voice is so distinctive and you’ve done a ton of commercials and voiceovers in your career, even before making it as an actor. Do you remember the moment you realized, growing up, that you had this voice talent?
I was dumb enough not to know that voice acting was an area where you could make a living in. I remember, I guess 20 years ago, going out for a voiceover audition and being hired to be the voice of a health-care provider in New England. Here I was, a 23- or 24-year-old punk kid, all disheveled, and there I was selling people health care with this very soothing message like [switches to commercial voice]: “It’s the health care you deserve.” If people could have seen me recording that, they would have been like, “What! This guy is a clown.”
On Michael Bay’s last film, he was attacked with an A.C. unit. Do you have any similar tales of intrigue from your time on a Michael Bay set filmingTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
I mean, I don’t remember being attacked with an A.C. unit, but even though he wasn’t directing—and we had the very capable Jonathan Liebesman directing—because it was a Michael Bay production, there is just a feeling on set that everything is really amped up. Anytime we had a fight scene or a chase scene, the feeling was always that it had to be more or bigger. He has really set the bar. If his name is on the movie, it better be great, and if there are explosions, they better be huge. We had these scenes where there would be 40 or 50 stunt guys and guys doing flips and they are shooting off blanks, rounds are going off, and it is mayhem until the moment they yell, “Cut.”
That would be traumatizing to me.
I actually had my kids on set one day. We were just doing a rehearsal and walking through one scene with these 40 or 50 stunt guys, all the crew members, and my kids were off to the side. They yelled, “Action”—Megan Fox and I are going through the motions, rehearsing this intense thing, guys are doing flips off the top of a van coming down while other guys are having these martial-arts fights, and I remember my son yelling, “Nooooo!” [Laughs.] I was like, “Buddy, it’s O.K.”
When you started acting, you focused on more dramatic parts, even appearing on The Sopranos. Do you remember much about that experience or that period of your career?
I remember a lot about that part of my career. It is not easy to forget, because I had a lot of downtime. [Laughs.] I remember going in for The Sopranos. The casting director was looking for the husband for an F.B.I. agent who was befriending Adriana (Drea de Matteo’s character). They needed to establish her home life—they didn’t really know what the part was. They did not have any dialogue. [Sopranos creator] David Chase just wanted to see people. I remember going out to Queens to audition. I went in the room and they told me, “Look there won’t be any dialogue, but they are going to give each actor one line of dialogue to say, just because [David] wants to hear people talk, so say this line.”
So I went in, and the casting director said, “Action.” I stared at her and I just said, literally, “Line,” as if that were my line. It got a laugh, and I think because it got a laugh out of David Chase, that’s why I got the part.
In the past, you’ve talked about attending a private boarding school in Ontario and being asked not to return because of your troublemaking. What happens, though, when you are asked to leave a school and then you become famous? Have they asked you to come back and speak?
They haven’t reached out to me to have me speak. But recently, on Twitter, they reached out to me and told me I was welcome to come back in the meantime. I actually did go back a couple years ago when a friend of mine got back in the area. So I drove onto campus, kind of incognito, and walked around because I just wanted to take a look. But maybe I’d like to go back— if for nothing else, to see what it’s like to have a positive reception at that school.
You were there around the same time that some royals were—Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Felipe of Spain. Did you interact with either while there?
Prince Andrew graduated a year or two before I got there, but I knew Felipe de Bourbon, sure. He is the crown prince of Spain. He was a year or two older than me, but we were—and this is going to sound so gross—we were on the same ski team. But it was Canada!
How many people can say that, though?
Yeah. I got to spend some time with him and not for nothing, he is a very nice guy. At the time, because he was a teenager, he was in all of the kind of teen heartthrob magazines in Spain and Europe. Once every month, there would be a day where they would let all of the European press come to the school and kind of document a day in the life of the prince while he was at school in Canada. I remember those days, where all of these cameras were around, and all of these goofballs and I would, like, part our hair to look nice, thinking, “Hey, we are totally getting into these European__ Teen Beat–type magazines.”__
Last question—being from Toronto, how do you feel about the Rob Ford scandal? And how is your family holding up back there?
When I speak to people back in Toronto, the general consensus I get is that people have a pretty good sense of humor about it on a personal level. Like, “Oh my god, can you believe this?” But you do get a sense that there is a feeling of slight embarrassment. It’s pretty bad news. I mean, from what I’ve seen, he denied ever smoking crack cocaine. And then video emerged that he did. And then, what is he saying now, that he lied about it before?
I think he conceded that he may have smoked it while blacked-out drunk.
Oh right! His defense was that he was in a drunken stupor. You know, it’s not much of a defense. For most mayors, being in a drunken stupor would be enough to have him removed. [Laughs.] He’s using that as an excuse to get out of smoking crack. But you know what, god bless. He’s only human, I suppose. I hope he gets well.
