WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 786 - Will Arnett

Episode Date: February 15, 2017

Unfolding world events are messing with Will Arnett and Marc as they sit in the garage, but they won't let the existential terror stop them from tracking Will's path and finding out how growing up in Toronto, getting kicked out of school, becoming a voiceover actor, hanging out at UCB, doing off-Broadway plays, and working on failed pilots all led to Arrested Development. They also discuss how the lines between fiction and reality got blurred while Will was making his new show, Flaked. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required.

T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fucking nears? What the fuck, nicks? What the fuck, publicans? What the fuckocrats? What's what the fuck nicks what the fuck publicans what the fuck

okrats what's happening i am mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast you're listening to it i assume it's not the first time so welcome welcome back uh and if it is your first time, welcome for the first time. How are you? What's going on? Today, my guest is Will Arnett from Arrested Development and many other things. Also, he's got his show on Netflix called Flaked. He's the voice of the Lego Batman, which is very popular with the adults and children alike. So I'll be talking to him in a little while. But, you know, I spent years not making this a political show and making it a human show. And I'd like to continue making it a human show.

But, you know, things have gotten very urgent. But let's assume that there will be other elections let's assume that this is not the president for life situation let's assume that the process will pick up again in a couple years in some of these special elections let's assume that you know just uh you know indulge me we found out about this new group because they have the same name as us they're called wtf but for them it stands for win the future their whole point is to turn all this energy that you see in the streets and at town halls and on social media into election results next year there's a lot of work to do and there are more than 2,500 critical competitive

races in states across the country. So if you're wondering how you can get involved in an active way, this WTF group has set up a way where you can get involved where you're needed most. The website is volunteer.wtf. Their switchboard is now active and matching volunteers with campaigns around the country. So go get involved at volunteer.wtf. And I've been thinking a lot, you know, when I take time away from my phone and the sort of the panic of refreshing your browser. About, you know, personally, you you know what is horrifying to me you know outside of politics and what politicians do and how they're fucking with people is that i've been through elections before i've been through different presidencies before and the fact is

is that look i talk to people for a living i've always talked to people for a living basically that's what i've done whether it's on stage or for the past eight or nine years one-on-one here intimately and i've always had to believe and i still do believe that that when you sit down with somebody one-on-one that you can talk to a human being that you can talk to a person that if you put aside uh ideological um matters political matters that you know we share more than we don't that we have things in common more than we don't that our frustrations are probably more similar than they aren't how we resolve them and who we are personally in in our fear or our anger or our desperation or hopelessness or our excitement or fury or um vulnerability is common where we're human beings

and i like that dialogue a lot is learned from people over the course of this show many people without designation politically and without even you know know, not even knowing where they come from. I get emails all the time about the struggles of, you know, whether it's drug addiction, psychological problems, anger, financial issues, dark times of whatever kind or another, you know, who feel uplifted by hearing other people talk about personal things. You know, that's what being a human is for, to, you know, sort of carry the weight and burden

and be there to listen to other people. And it just fucking terrifies me that we're not going to be able to get back to that, even with our differences. That becomes frightening. There is a frenzy towards negligence in the name of money and power that has very little to do with most of us. So I get this email. It just says, from a fan hey mark there's a pretty good chance this will get drowned out but it's worth a shot i want to ask you how is it that you create such an

intimate experience for the people you interview there's truth in all your interviews and that's what's captivated me from the first episode i heard i'm doing an assignment where i choose to do some community journalism and i want to ditch the Q&A format. There's no longer any truth in it. Do you think that the way you conduct interviews could ever be translated into other kinds of journalism? I really hope so. Anyways, if there's any advice that you could give me and how to allow people to converse in other places as fluidly as they do in the garage. I'm very interested in hearing it. I've been a fan for maybe seven years now,

and your honesty provided something very special that teenagers don't get from adults very often. I'm headed off to college soon, and you've provided valuable insight, and I'm sure will help guide my creative intentions for the rest of my life. I want to thank you and wish you all the best. Many respects, Jose. creative intentions for the rest of my life i want to thank you and wish you all the best many respects jose jose i've been conducting these type of conversations throughout my life and if i really trace the roots of it is that i think when i was, like when I was in high school, I didn't have a real concept of, you know, a lot of things like, you know, what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to be, who I was, you know, what my interests were specifically. And, you know, my father was not that attentive, really.

So I found myself kind of hanging around places and talking to people that seemed like they knew those things, who they were, what they wanted to do, what the world was about, you know, how to be funny and, you know, take life on life's restaurants, record shops, guitar shops in my neighborhood and just listen to people talking and talk to them and asking questions and sort of just listen to how people navigate their interests and the world. It would make me feel better to be around people that seem to have a handle on shit. And I've done that all my life. to have a handle on shit and i've done that all my life so i think that you know i don't consider what i do journalism but i think that again if you approach people as people i mean if you approach somebody knowing what you want to talk to them about you know maybe you know talk to them about something else for a few minutes first you know ask them questions that involve the immediate environment or or what's happening. I don't know what the setting is. You know, maybe say like, you know, I don't quite

understand this. And, you know, maybe before I ask you this general question about a general thing, maybe you could educate me on something and then get a little back and forth going about the nuances of a particular topic. And don't be afraid to do follow-up questions. You know, there are certain moments in a conversation where you pick up an instinct where people just sort of blow by a detail but if anything during what somebody is saying to you as they just move by it you know seems like something that has more to it uh you know and you're interested in that or you peaks your interest you know get into that ask them piques your interest, get into that. Ask them what they mean by it.

Have a conversation. That's the best that I can offer. And that's the way that you find common ground. And also you get information. Just try to talk to people. If it's not pressing or groundbreaking or there's not breaking news, just try to

talk to the person that you're talking to and uh you'll make what you want to know sort of uh secondary and see if it comes up organically i i you know look i can't teach a journalism class but you know if you've got the time that's what i do. So I guess I talked to Will a few days ago, and I guess I should preface this because, you know, it was the day that the North Korean government launched a test missile. So that there's a bit of thematic underlying stuff there. That was the subtext of my conversation with Will. there. That was the subtext of my conversation with Will. Also, Will is the voice of Batman in the Lego Batman movie, currently the number one movie in the country. This is me and Will Arnett. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls?

Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel

by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. What's happening, Will? I haven't talked to you in a long time i know has it been like i didn't realize like um do you live by me where do you live over there i live over there you do yeah i live in the in the shit as you say i mean it's a little different from the actual shit from vietnam but it's uh you mean the the nice shit it's the nice shit yeah the the place where uh the you know the the up the the elite live i suppose i'm i'm right in i'm cozy with the hollywood elite and uh it's where they put signs up excusing the the lack of uh green

grass on the boulevards because of the drought really that? Please forgive our appearance, but we're all hurting. Yeah. That kind of thing? Something like that. Where do you come from, man? I don't really, like I realized when I was trying to do research, which I'm not good at, that I know nothing about you. You're just a funny man that appears in things.

I kind of appeared out of nowhere. Really? Yeah. Even people that I sort of know, you and I don't know each other that well, but when people say, I didn't know that, I'm like, thanks for Googling me. You know, Jesus Christ, you could find out a lot about me in two seconds. Sure. Well, you know, you can do that, but I have had experiences where I'll Google somebody

and it's all wrong. Really? Definitely. Like, there was, I think it was Pam Adlon. I Googled her because I was going to talk to her and there was just all this information about someone who was her father and her stepfather.

None of it was real. Wait, what kind of sort of past does Pam Adlon have? None of it? She didn't. I thought she was connected to someone who was in the film business. It just turned out as I talked to, that a good chunk of the information on her Wikipedia page was bullshit.

I love, you've probably talked and or thought about this a million times. I love the people, when some sort of news item drops about somebody, they die or whatever. Yeah. And the people who are ready to alter the Wikipedia page to that effect. Who are they? Who the fuck are they? What are they doing?

I don't know how mine appeared. I don't know who's in charge of it or who, did you make yours? No, I have nothing to do with it. I have zero idea. And what I love is the idea, honestly, if you watch, the next time like a celebrity dies

yeah the second you find out about it go to wikipedia and someone's done because you'll you'll get like a breaking news thing or whatever and just if you can think about it go to wikipedia and it'll be there and he died on january already you're like what the fuck yeah who i don't know who does like who are the people that are overseeing it i i know i don't even know how it works to be honest with you. No. I wish I did. I know that the idea is anyone can do it, but there's some sort of oversight somewhere eventually. Well, it gives you pause when you start thinking that that is possible, that anybody can go do it. And it calls into question the legitimacy of anything that we read, right?

That's happening on a large scale now. On a very large scale. But this has been happening for a long time. With Wikipedia? With Wikipedia. And you have to, you know, in a court of law, it's the old, if a witness is caught lying, immediately the lawyers will say, sorry, but this person's credibility is called and everything they now say henceforth yeah has to be taken with a grain of

salt right and if you apply that to what's going on right now uh-huh you'd think that people would would kind of wise up and yet they don't seem to want to know I we can't even begin to we'll just go down a dark hole that, uh, that, that has, uh, validity and a lot of definition, but let's keep it personal and go down that pit. Well, my here, here, here's what we know about me. That's true. Uh, I'm Canadian born. You are born in Toronto.

Are you leaving? Are you going back? No, no, not anytime soon. Why, why is that about Canadians? Like even when shit gets real here and shit gets ugly here, you're just sort of like, nope. Well, you know, I'm sure that there's a lot of A on a professional level. It's difficult for me to do the things that I want to do there. Sure.

There are a lot of great artists and a lot of great things that happen there. And now I feel safe having said that. Yeah. things that happened there um and now i feel safe having said that yeah um but uh uh i sort of realized at a young very young age that if i wanted to be an actor and and have you know realized my dreams whatever the fuck they were they're different now but uh that i was gonna have to leave well how so how big is your family what do you got brothers and sisters i have two sisters older older really yeah are they there they're there uh they're three years older and they have kids and everything you got nephews and one of them has kids and they're um and she has uh uh two boys and they live on the street that i grew up on really yeah in toronto in toronto she lived

um that sister lived in the states for a long time and both her kids were born in brooklyn and she just moved back a few years ago um are your folks still there are they around my folks are still there they're around really yeah and uh i see my folks quite a bit you do yeah they come out here a lot because of the kids because of the kids and because i'm really i'm really close with my family really yeah and. And my mom will probably text during this as we're talking. She texts me a lot. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

It's really good. I'm really lucky in that my parents aren't, you know, they've been very, considering that my dad's pretty conservative in a lot of ways. What's he do? He's retired now. He was for many years, he was a corporate lawyer. Yeah. Was he one of the good guys or the bad guys?

Well, it depends on who you ask. He, for many years, he, you know, he was a, uh, he was a, uh, a senior partner in, in arguably Canada's biggest, uh, law firm. Um, and he did a lot of, uh, his specialty was mergers and acquisitions. Yeah. So he worked on a lot of big deals around the globe and he traveled a lot when I was a kid and, um. And you always got along with him throughout all of that? I did, but you know, he was, But, you know, he worked a lot.

Yeah. And I don't mean that as an indictment. It was just that's what you did. Yeah, my dad did that too. Yeah. And your mom would cover for him. My mom would cover. He'll be home sometime.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it was, but I don't have, you know, I didn't like pop into a therapist chair at age 25 and say, God damn it, my dad wasn't around. It's just the way it was. Having said that, he was great when he could be. Sure.

And we were very close. Actually, in a lot of ways, my dad and I got closer when, probably when I graduated high school. Yeah. And I was kind of at a place where I was trying to decide what I wanted to do you know you say to your parents um you want to be an actor especially my parent you know I went to all boys boarding school my dad uh went to Harvard so you grew up with some bread and you were you know there definitely had all the options available to you and yeah you have, you know, given that

pedigree that the trajectory could have been some big business. For sure. I have a lot of friends who have gone into banking, uh, et cetera. Um, a lot. And, um, and when you were in high school, were you acting and shit? I was, I was trying to, I left a boy's boarding school. I was asked not to return. Oh, good. So they uninvited you. Yeah. What'd you do to deserve that? That sounds like, I was kicked out of a private school at one time as well. It's a badge of honor, right?

That's great. Yeah. I just got kicked out for being a smart ass. It wasn't even a respected prep school. Right. It was the shit. It was like the secondary one. What part of the world was that?

In Albuquerque, New Mexico. Okay. But there was the kind of private school, the academy. And then there was sort of like, no, Sandy, a prep. I was always the kid that's sort of like, well, he doesn't pay attention and he seems creative, but he's bright. Same here. Yeah. Let's put him in this one.

Same here. Not reaching his potential. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Doesn't seem to pay attention no doesn't pay attention and for good reason when you look back um i think in a lot of ways it's funny not to to uh digress too much but my my own kids watching them you know they're in school now they're in first and second grade and you know i'm pretty involved at their school and looking at their

curriculum now versus what it used to be the way that they actually teach things like math um it's much less uh uh they they put they stress less uh on memorization and things like that we used to right the way we learned it and it's much more about using your own sort of you mean learning it yeah learning it your own inherent cognitive skills like all and applying that too and using re things like reason yeah and it's much more engaging in that way i could never fucking wrap my brain around algebra no like like geometry was okay shapes i could handle but like it stopped there i mean i have chemistry couldn't fucking manage it it's just memorization

of boring shit i guess but the way things work together yeah i mean it would have helped if someone could have taught me how how it worked but yeah it is it's it's like uh they're like puzzles yeah i couldn't i don't i just can't do it i don't know if i had the patience or add attention deficit disorder i don't think i do because I can get pretty obsessed and focused when I want to, when I feel compelled, when I'm terrified. Yeah. So imagine if somebody

had built the drama in geometry or in algebra for you, maybe you would have been. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. So you were a problem kid or what? To an extent. I was a smart ass.

Yeah. And I was, you know. Getting big laughs. Smoking To an extent. I was a smart ass. Yeah. And I was, you know. Getting big laughs? Smoking in the woods. I was getting big laughs. I still remember some big laughs. You do? Sure, sure.

What's the big laugh? Gosh, I don't know. Every once in a while, I'll think about some. Like prep school laughs? Yeah, just something that. Where you completely undermine the authority structure? Constantly. Yeah, they can't.

There's no tolerance for that eventually constantly and i would have you know back in the day a lot of the and i think this has changed a lot but yeah back then a lot of the guys uh the men who became teachers in uh boys boarding schools yeah out in the middle of fucking nowhere canada yeah you have to think that a lot of those, some of those people are pretty depressed and have given up. You think so, but I mean, there are people that like want to teach. Yes, there are some, I will say that there are some, and I had some fantastic teachers,

but there were a couple who were, who had a, who resented the student body who were like, these are a bunch of rich little kids and fuck them. And I'm'm gonna i'm gonna be the one to grind them down you know and their parents aren't around and i'm gonna have my foot is gonna be on arnett's throat every fucking day and uh you know yeah i got into it once um you know i i when i was in i went away when i was 12 yeah and so when i was 12. Yeah. So it's a boarding school. Boarding school.

And it's way up north. Uniforms? Uniforms. And so I was 12 years old, and my shit was all over my room. I was 12. Yeah. And my housemaster, as he was called, had told me a couple times, you've got to clean up your shit.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I came back one day from class, and all my shit was packed into his car and um he said hop in and he drove me six miles away yeah and i had like six garbage bags or four garbage bags full of shit and he said you uh you'll you'll clean up your shit now and he dropped me on the road there in his middle of winter and these bags were heavy and had and i had to kind of i was like what the fuck am i gonna do and i thought what an asshole it's your clothes and everything clothes and everything and just shit right yeah so i was like i was at first i was like all right this is one of my so i take two of the bags and go 100

yards go back and get the other two. And this is untenable. So I sat there for a second and felt sorry for myself. And then I got the idea. And I started putting everything on. Yeah. Like the Michelin man. And then I was tucking everything in. And I had all sorts of shit.

And I managed to wear everything. Yeah. And I must have looked insane. and i did it and i walked back and i i walked back in you know record time and i came back and the look on his face he was so pissed that i had figured out an easy way to do it and in my mind i'm thinking like this is brilliant he should be celebrating you were learning that was that was learning actual learning applied cognitive skills and he was so pissed at me. I still remember that guy.

He wanted you to walk back somehow? He wanted me to walk back and I have to drag them. He also did this thing where, I forgot what it was, but we had gone to this thing and we had bought a bunch of food and we hadn't okayed it or whatever.

And he wanted us to write letters to our parents saying, sorry that we had bought all this food. Right. Cheeseburgers and shit and charged it to our thing. What the fuck are your parents doing? I mean were you like the. Well my parents didn't care. So my parents find out and they're like that's fine we're happy that you got some

food and whatever and but this guy was like you know fuck these guys. Yeah. So he said I want you to you gotta each one of you has to write a letter to your parents apologizing. And then I'm going to okay them. I'll look at the letter before you send them off. So knowing that he was going to write it, that he was going to read it,

I wrote this letter that was just an indictment of him. Yeah. And I said, Mom and Dad, I'm so sorry, but obviously Mr. Shalhoub, et cetera, et cetera. And I just ripped into him. And I left it at his door. He came flying in. He said, you little fucking, and I said, how dare you? That's a correspondence between me and my parents.

You're violating federal law. I was like, you know? Yeah. And did he send it? No, he made me redo it. I was a, that was a, admittedly, it was now that I say it out loud, it was a dicky thing to do.

And yet I still maintain that it was. You to it was funny yeah sure you gotta you gotta like you know you know kind of prod those guys for sure so you can see what they're really made of yeah um and so what so what happens you go through all of high school at that place so no i i leave there and i go to high school what made them kick you out just a collection of things yeah just a collection literally same thing just being a smart ass yeah yeah and they just they didn't say you're kicked out but at the end of uh 10th grade they said uh we'll see you later my they recommended military school for me really my parents would never do that no they're like yeah i remember there was a period where they were looking maybe you should go here like i they they were so clueless your parents were kind of you know they

just you know i don't think they were that engaged. They were like, well, go to that school. It should be fine. And then, you know, when it comes down to it. But maybe not. I mean, the fact that they didn't, if they were really clueless, they would have said, yeah, you're right. Okay, we'll send them to military school.

At least they didn't do that. Well, yeah. Well, they weren't disciplinary and that's for sure. But I don't ever remember them helping me with homework or anything. I don't ever remember, you know, like, you know, what's going on in school it's a different world my my kids um said to me a few months ago i picked them up yeah and you know do the the carpool lane and one of my sons said you know john michael's mom she comes in she doesn't do carpool she comes into the class and gets him and as i'm driving i'm like leaning over i'm saying hey granddad my dad granddad didn't even know where my school was

You got are you guys? I never saw my dad at my school ever. Yeah, I mean either unless they were called in. Yeah, maybe Yeah, did you ever I remember had a drunk electronics teacher? Really like there was like I had three drunks for teachers It was much more acceptable back then for teachers to be drunk. Just smell them drunk. Yeah, I don't know if I ever Smell, but I knew that there were teachers who drank because they lived on campus back then for teachers to be drunk. You could just smell them drunk. Yeah, I don't know if I ever smelled, but I knew that there were teachers who drank because they lived on campus. Yeah. Who drank at night.

You want me to check and see if the missiles have been launched? Yeah. That's at any moment, right? God, I hope not. But it's a sad fucking state of affair that we've got to... Not yet.

Not that I've got. You got? What do you got? Anything? Let me see nothing yet i feel like yeah okay okay no i feel like we're good we're good for now okay so what so okay world we live in oh it's i i can't uh i know i'm having a hard time dealing with it yeah me too i i can't imagine it i just can't like anyone who's Anyone who's connected intensely to what's happening, I can't imagine anyone going like,

this is good. It's going well. There's no way. But let's get back to Canada. I think Toronto's a great city. The difference I always notice is this feels like a real city without the menace. Yes.

Yes. You just see people sitting on park benches at 12 at night you know just taking it in and i'm like what's happening yeah no there's nothing happening and and you know it's funny since i've since i've left toronto there are people including my parents who will say oh no no they had some shootings it's almost like they're trying to validate its its status as a real down and dirty city. I used to make this, it's a stretch calling it a joke, but I would say a lot of people say that Toronto is a clean New York and I prefer to think of it as a dirty Winnipeg. But there's some truth to that, which is, yeah, I mean, as a kid growing up and as a

teenager, there was never any fear that anything bad was gonna happen yeah there's no edge to it and like you know right now i i could use that i would feel like it would be a pleasant few weeks if i were just yeah i wasn't terrified of my own people well it's it's it was true that i moved you know i moved to new york in 1990 i was 20 years old so wait let's go back then let's so you get you get kicked out of the prep school you go to a regular high school I went to a uh what they call an alternative school in Toronto yeah um where I didn't really have classes per se and it was all kind of essay based and it was run through the Toronto Board of Education I love that when creative people actually go to those schools that where you sort of do what you want how is that going to end up well well it you know it did it turned out okay for me um you know i'm here you just like it wasn't like uh like it

was kind of like this i was drinking coffee and talking to people i mean i've been doing i've been doing this for 40 35 years whatever it is yeah i guess it helps you learn who you are it doesn't give you any practical skills for life, but... Not if I were to want to do anything other than what I'm doing. Which is a gamble. It's a big gamble. It worked out. It worked out.

I said to my dad recently, I said, who knew that goofing off was going to pay off so well? Yeah. What did he say? He agreed, reluctantly. But yeah, I went to this school and I actually, I studied theater and I was able to get credit for it and you studied it on your own or with a guy no I went to a there was an actual theater in Toronto called Tarragon Theater and they had a sort of a studio component there where they had and my I had my godmother ran this school she was a good friend of my mom's and she's still around and my aunt Judith and

she's ill right now, but she's one of the more influential people in my life. And she, she was the person who actually kind of really got me interested in learning on a different, in a different way. And I, I sort of rue the fact that that didn't happen earlier because she encouraged me to read you know she'd say oh you know don't just read hemming don't just read the sun also rises read all of hemmingway and tell me and and i just did it on my own and i discovered things like reading became such an important part of my life because i was encouraged to do it and to engage in a way this is by your aunt yeah no it's nice to have one of those influences, you know, the sort of creative, intellectual-

Yeah, push. Yeah, for sure. And who, when I'm 16 and I say, you know, I think I want to be an actor, she's like, that's great. Yeah. And here's what you should do. Yeah.

And- Yeah, and don't tell your parents. And don't tell your parents. And well, I'm looking for, from her'm i'm looking for from her i'm looking for sort of official certification that this is the right move right um and and that was a great move for me going there uh and learning with her and uh it was a good time in my life what was the theater like i mean what did you do there you know what's funny um my i i took a class there it was monologue writing yeah and there was a guy in my class who was writing these bizarro monologues and they were

really funny and he performed them himself and i was 16 and he was probably 25 or 22 yeah um and he's trying to be an actor comedian etc comedian, et cetera. And one day between, you know, like on a smoke break, because I was already a heavy smoker. When did you start? You know, 13 or something. Yeah, what, Canadian cigarettes? Yeah. Which ones?

Players Light. Oh, yeah? Yeah. They're good. Yeah, I used to like going, I used to like getting exotic cigarettes. Like Export A and DeMori. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I never liked the taste of them.

They're too much. I smoked these. You know, I quit. the taste of them they're too much I smoked these I you know I quit welcome well I quit and then I'm back yeah kind of like on my last look at those these are Marlboro Gold's from Europe there that's all all smoke for a while I was like I'm only gonna smoke those because I can't get my hands on them and then I just had people mewling them for me oh I have any time I hear about somebody going to Europe, I'd be like, hey, can you give them 40 bucks to grab me some smokes? It's fucking terrible.

So you're smoking and you're talking to the guy. And I'm talking to this guy and he says, why don't you come down, you should come down next weekend. We're doing, I've got this comedy group and we're doing some stuff, some sketches at The Riv in Toronto. And I was like, yeah, sounds great.

What are you guys called? The Kids in the Hall. And it was Mark McKinney. that's who was talking yeah and i took a monologue writing class he doesn't know he has no idea who i am i'm sure and today i think or at that time he probably knows who you are now maybe maybe but you know i was 16 and he was in my class yeah and he was funny oh my god he was so funny he was the star of the class yeah uh and he was absurd yeah and i loved how absurd he was i had an appreciation for that so what'd you do wait you go the kids in the hall show i didn't go i've had so many things like that

happen i had years later in new york um i uh i had i lived in a building uh on hudson street right across from the Holland Tunnel. Yeah. And the guy living upstairs from me, it was terrible. Yeah. The building's not even there anymore. Yeah.

It was rat infested. And it was before that area was cool. Yeah. We used to call the neighborhood work. Yeah. Because the only people who went there were people who went to work in those buildings that are all condos now.

Right. And the guy upstairs from me was Damien Loeb, this painter. Yeah. Who kind of had a moment 15 years ago right uh but he uh he and i my roommate worked at goldman sachs um and so he paid more rent than i did and uh and then damien and i would spend the day smoking cigarettes and yeah his art at that time consisted of he'd take high def he was one of the first guys i knew had a high def uh camera and television high def videos of himself um having

sex with his asian girlfriend and then he'd make paintings of that um so i loved going to his studio yeah it was great right upstairs just watching him fuck people on camera yeah it was amazing and he had a buddy of his same thing he's a dj i'm a dj come see us play blah blah and i'm no i'm good moby uh yeah same thing uh so moby was hanging around that must have been when he was just starting out because he i think moby's from connecticut yeah like he you know and so so is damien maybe that's where they knew each other but but uh you know i didn't really know him um and he was he was definitely he didn't have a record deal or anything sure um and then he made two records and made enough money to uh live the rest of four lives yeah unbelievable yeah man that's a fucking racket that's the business yeah i mean there's guys that did one record two songs even yeah i'm good back in that sweet spot

right before it went away that was it all right so you wanted to be a serious actor yeah so i moved to new york to and i studied at least strasburg oh you did so after the the theater thing how old were you moved to new york 20 oh really so you're like i'm out i'm out i went to i went to college for half a year and I dropped out, Concordia University in Montreal. And I got to college and I remember it was right around Christmas time. Yeah. And I remember all I was doing was partying like everybody else. Sure.

And I remember thinking, this is it. I really did. And not like some fucking visionary or i was 19 years old and i thought what what else i'm just gonna kind of do this and then move back to toronto and a lot of the people i grew up with were there in montreal at college and then everybody's going to go back to toronto and just be friends forever in the same group yeah sort of upper middle class white kids yeah and i thought oh my god this is a nightmare and i gotta get out of here yeah and i i remember calling my parents from a pay phone yeah there used to be a thing called a pay phone where you'd go and you put

money in just for the listeners yeah and they were kind of they were kind of dirty they're kind of dirty yeah and they had stuff i see some of them around sometimes. I'm like, wow, look at that. I saw two in New York last week. Yeah? Bizarre. It is weird. Well, one of them didn't have a phone in it, but I used it to make a call because it was quiet.

Right. And it was out of the way. Or light a cigarette. Yeah. I used to duck into pay phones to do one hits off of weed. Sure. Oh, the one hitter. Oh, the best.

Oh, the best. God damn it. And yeah, so i called my parents the white light moment yeah you saw your your your death through mundanity and exactly and i and i to my dad's credit he said okay i said i gotta do this and and they said well what do you what are you proposing i said i gotta go and try go to new york it was always gonna be new york yeah and they said okay well you're gonna have to come back and i got a job for six months yeah in toronto to make enough money so

that i could i could move to new york what was the job i was selling uh paper towel and toilet paper and stuff like that this guy knew started this company really yeah do you remember um do you remember oh not you remember, oh, not do you remember, they still exist. It's that Swedish company that says it's Torque or something. And you know, you pull the paper down

from the middle. It's like a big round dispenser. And then some of the toilet paper rolls are huge rolls. Yeah, you see them in airports. In airports and shit. Yeah. And at the time,

they were just coming to North America from Sweden and this guy got a distributorship or whatever and I worked for him. He was a year older than me and he had this company and- And you'd go to places and go, look at this.

Yeah, go to bars and restaurants and sell it to them and then I'd install it as well. I was a one man, you know. One man twerking seller. So I'd go in, some restaurant be like okay yeah we want to switch over all our and by the way i knew nothing about construction

i mean installation all that kind of shit and i had like a toolbox yeah and i go into their bathroom and i'm like putting in fucking in through the drilling through tile like i just learned i'd fucking crack shit and whatever and i'd ruin and then you know i i just did it the commission gig it was a commission gig and uh you were a good salesman i was decent yeah i was decent you made enough to go to new york i made enough to to move to new york for uh for one year yeah and now you know about that company what is it called torque torque torque torque they're still around yeah rq i think yeah they're they're sort of problematic with toilet paper sometimes because if if the if the end is not hanging out then you're screwed yeah it's hard to get in it's heavy so you got to roll it

with your hand yeah yeah yeah i'm not happy with the no especially in a place where you want a refund well where you want to touch the least amount of things as possible i say to my kids now when we go into public i'm like don't touch anything um do what you got to do and make it to the sink yeah and then air dry your hand and just do what just don't touch uh so i did that yeah and then i moved to new york and what was the plan that was where you lived in the work neighborhood that no first i lived uh i lived on the upper east side i got an apartment from i sublet an apartment from a girl who was who had been at Strasburg and she sublet it to me all right so how oh so how did you get into that program I went down and met with them uh flew down to New York before you went before

I went yeah um and uh and met with them and uh and then I went back that was sort of like did you audition or who was it did you remember the teachers I don't remember the teacher then I went back. That was sort of like- Did you audition? Or who was it? Did you remember the teachers? I don't remember the teacher then. I did like a monologue. I don't remember who the teacher was then, but I had a very influential teacher at Strasburg.

Who was that? Acting teacher. This guy, George Loras. Yeah. L-O-R-O-S. So I get in. I go back to Toronto. Yeah.

I grab all my shit, which was nothing. Yeah. The first five years that I lived in, I go back to Toronto. Yeah. I grab all my shit, which was nothing. Yeah. The first five years that I lived in New York, I moved a lot. I could move with one cab because I had like two bags. I had nothing. And a futon. And a futon. Yeah.

Barely. I didn't even own a bed at first. Just go buy a futon. Buy a new futon. Throw it on the floor. You know what? A futon mattress on the floor, I still, to this day, think that's the best sleeps I ever had. You think so? Yep.

I had one on 21st Street for years. I lived on 21st Street between 7th and 8th. And I remember those as being like the deepest sleeps. Maybe I had no worries back then. Maybe. I mean, I remember the day I realized that futons were kind of a racket. I mean, I remember the day I realized that futons were kind of a racket. You had your basic futon that got hard over a year or so, which was pretty good. But then he started doing foam cores and layers.

And I started to realize beds in general, I think it's some sort of scam. Maybe. Although people will argue, hey, listen, you spend a third of your life in bed. It should be. Yeah. That should be the highest ticket. I remember when I got a very expensive futon frame pulled it up off the floor but my apartment on the lower east side was not really big enough to accommodate it spatially yeah so one room was just the bed frame sure yeah i i see now i never liked the frame uh-huh they were

never comfortable to me so i just had and i would roll it up during the day yeah so i had more space yeah uh all right so you're there five years what are you doing well i'm there what'd you learn what do you what do you use now what did you take with you uh what's your technique and craft yeah the only thing i like talking about more than actress craft is independent film yeah um no but i mean it's like i talk to people that go to strasbourg and i've talked to actors and like they're you know i i guess it's all like i believe that if you have some sort of talent forward you have it but i mean you do learn something well you know it's yes you do learn something and i i you know i had a lot of great i did have some good teachers i had you know you first start there you're learning it's all sense memory stuff

it's methods you know all that did you you could wrap your brain around that uh a little at first i thought well what the fuck is this shit and then and you're doing you're sitting in a chair and the whole point is to try to relax as much as you can on an uncomfortable chair yeah um what in your mind you're like this can't be happening. How is this going to help me be on Law & Order? But what it did do was it helped me kind of tap into the idea of sort of focusing on and concentrating on what I guess, what I, you know, being in the moment, I suppose. But I had a, George Loris was great because when a lot of the other teachers were talking about the method and all these things that you in preparation, he would then say he, he'd been a working actor, he'd done a million things.

And, and he said, there's no set and there's no director who's going to wait for you to fucking get into fucking character. You've got to be ready to go. And he was much more about the practical application. Right. And his number one thing was about being sensitive to the material and and he was he was a really great teacher in that way i remember him uh this other guy doing a guy and a girl were doing a scene i forget what it was from yeah and george would sit in the front row of this little theater and they're doing a scene where the guy's bringing

the girl home for a date or something yeah and he says i'm gonna stop you right there yeah and he says to the guy t Tony, he says, Tony, what is your objective in this scene for your character? And this guy, Tony's like, well, you know, I'm going to come home and this girl. And he goes, no, no, no, no, no. Tony, you want to fuck her cunt. And then everybody goes, oh, Jesus, George.

And all the women in the class were like, George. He turns, I remember this thing. He turns and he goes, I'm he goes i'm sorry i'm sorry vagina uh as hilarious as that was it was also very helpful you know it helped me kind of break down like oh yeah that's breaking down scenes and all that kind of thing is very just it's all just about applying logic and yeah i need to get better at that as an actor too because like i just sort of show up in it and you know from the lines i'm like all right i need to i know what's going on but like i think if you really put an objective in there yeah in your head yeah it probably it'll probably hang the words on

something a little better yeah i think yes and it probably will i there are all sorts of like little things i feel like it's always just about stuff that you pick up along the way. Yeah. And you hear things here and there. I remember a girlfriend that I had years ago whom I lived with in New York. Yeah.

She did Dead Man Walking. She was in the first bit of that. And she had told me, I heard this secondhand, that Tim Robbins had said, the most important thing is entrances and exits. And that stuck with me as a 25-year-old. I was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And that's always- Open big, closed big.

Yeah. And it's always been a thing that's kind of in the back of my mind. I don't know if I actually practically apply it every time. And I since have gotten to know him a little bit and I sent Tim Robbins and I saw him a year ago we were shooting in Venice

and he came by on his bike and said, by the way, do you remember Missy who was in your... I remember years ago she told me this and I told him that

and he kind of like, oh, did I? Like he didn't even remember. That's not even his thing necessarily. Or he thought it was like a Buddha moment. He's like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah. But no, but it's weird how things like that,

that makes sense to me. Like, you know, when you walk in, or right when your scene starts, plant yourself, and then take the beats necessary to exit beautifully somehow. Absolutely. People don't remember everything in the middle. All they remember is you coming in and you leaving.

Especially if it's a laugh line on either of those. the exit laugh line very powerful memorable even in life if i if i get a decent enough laugh i'm looking for the exit yeah oh yeah and then like usually you do it and then you come back and you're like i don't know where i was going yeah it was like where the fuck are you going you're driving this airplane airplane. I do that in fights, too. Like, fuck this. Fuck you. I'm out. And then you walk out, and you're like, where am I going?

Hey, I don't know. I'm okay now. Do you have a lot of fights? Used to. You did? Yeah, I tried to cut back on it. Yeah. I had to sort of search myself and figure out what was really going on there.

And it was um just a an insane uh discomfort with intimacy and the idea that was being manipulated constantly yeah shit man i mean it sounds like you're on top of it can i smoke in here yeah no like i what like what i realized lately because of the woman i'm with now was is interesting is that you know i'd get upset about something and I'd start a fight and she says to me, she goes, you know, you're arguing with yourself. You're just making up all this stuff that I'm doing and I'm not doing anything. And I had this moment like, that's kind of true, but you're kind of fucking with me now though, right? But you've already, so you've already kind of had half the argument before you get to the

conversation. Yeah. You know, projecting,, projecting, you're just projecting all these things that they did or they're doing or they're thinking and it's really all your insecurity. I think- You're like arguing with yourself. It's funny you say that. I think I do that.

I realize that I sometimes will maybe do a version of that and then I'll come in and I'll go, everything okay? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, why not? And then they're like, oh, because we've just had an argument.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I went through some shit with you in my head. Is that is there an ashtray that works over this is okay did obama smoke no okay good for you he had a tea did he sat there and had a tea i was hoping he smoked but he didn't he didn't smoke i i think he manages it yeah i think he's a gum guy do you think he's smoking now has he had one do you think since yeah i probably i i don't know that i i don't i can't assume but i think he's a gum guy. Do you think he's smoking now? Has he had one, do you think, since? Yeah, probably. I don't know. I can't assume, but I think he's got it down because he's got a family and he's older. And it's sort of a hard habit to defend after a certain point.

Oh, it is the worst. I liken it to, I often say that it's like I'm cleaning the gun that I'm going to use to shoot myself with. Oh, this? Oh, no. This cleaning the gun that I'm going to use to shoot myself with. Yeah. Oh, this? Oh, no, this, this is the thing that's going to kill me. I'm just getting it ready. Yeah, yeah. It looks good though, right?

Feels good. I eat these nicotine lozenges all the fucking time. Let me look at these. They're great. Nicotine lozenges. They're great. Are they?

Oh, my God. Like, you know, like for me, because I'm a fucking drug addict. Yeah, same. Not drug addict. Drunk. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you're an addictive personality. Yeah. But like, you know like for me because i'm a fucking drug addict yeah same uh you know drunk yeah i know yeah you're an addictive personality yeah but like you know i get what i get the buzz do you know what i mean like if i like i look forward to it at night i'm gonna wake up and

have one with my coffee and i'm gonna feel it yeah yeah like sometimes the gum it's like you feel it but then it goes away too quick because you chew it too fast but this these you kind of let them linger in your mouth yeah it's a good feel it, but then it goes away too quick because you chew it too fast. But this. But these, you kind of let them linger in your mouth. It's a good delivery system. It is. That's exactly right. Yeah. Good delivery system.

So how do you land the first roles? What are they? What happens? Do you think like when did you become Will Arnett? That was Arrested Development where everyone was like, that's the guy. I was always him. I was just waiting for everybody else to figure it out. Yeah, but you did some things that weren't necessarily comedy, no?

Or was it always comedy? No. I did some – well, first I started working in New York. I did a – I was doing a kind of about as far off Broadway one-act play. And a girl who worked at William Morris in New York back then. What was the one I could play? It was called Answers. Yeah.

And it was like about a guy and the cops get him to confess to something he didn't do. And it was like, you know. And I played this kind of like- Small theater. Tiny theater, like 99 seat theater. And I played this kind of like sort of junky kind of, you know.

And by the way, when I was, and I was 23, when I was 23, I looked like I was 12. It was not. Um, but, uh, I was applying all my acting. You were doing it and taking those pauses. Oh my God. Oh yeah. And she brought me into, uh, William Morris. And while I was there meeting with these agents and they were going to start sending me out, one of them said, you should go and talk to the people in the voiceover department.

And I said, sure, what's that? And they said, have you ever thought about the voices on commercials and stuff? And I said, no, it's never occurred to me. Those are people? Yeah. Oh yeah, there are voices on commercials yeah uh and i went and i talked to them and they they said well we're going to start sending you

out and and immediately they started uh you know sending me to auditions and it wasn't very long i'm going to say probably two months into it maybe yeah i got my first gig uh for for a health care company out of new england called harvard community health plan uh-huh we're what health care should be yeah yeah i'm in yeah yeah and they flew me to boston to to record it which was kind of unusual um but it was i guess it was because it was a whole radio and television campaign, and they were all there. It was like kind of 20 commercials that I was recording. Right. They brought me up there, and I think they were probably surprised when I walked in

because I sounded like an older guy who was refined. You've always had that voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was like a punk kid. Yeah, but you did it. I did it, and then I started working a lot um in voiceover and i was able to pay the bills and and then some and you know i became the voice of evian water and uh you know boston market and lays potato chips wow hershey's cookies and cream really

so you were making money yeah the the i was making real money. And the funny thing, I said recently, actually, it occurred to me, I was making like executive level money. Yeah. And I would do things like Lockheed Martin. I would do all these weird corporate things like Sunday golf type commercials. Yeah. Aim investments. Invest with confidence.

Yeah. You know, stuff like that. And again, I was like this punk ass kid. Yeah. It was like burning out in New York. And, uh, but it was, it became, it was very lucrative and it meant that I didn't have to have, you know, a lot of my friends were waiting tables or whatever and I didn't have to do that.

And I probably got lulled into a sort of a comfort level. Were you boozing a lot? Yeah. Yeah. That was, was that constant? No, there were a few years where I wasn't. lulled into a sort of a comfort level. Were you boozing a lot? Yeah. Yeah? Was that constant? No, there were a few years where I wasn't, and then I was in the mid to late 90s, I was.

And I was boozing a lot. And I would go to McManus a lot on 7th Avenue and 19th Street. That was my spot. Oh, yeah? It ended up becoming like a big kind of after UCB hangout um oh it's a shitty little bar right yeah so you were like you were the kind of drinker that was a shitty little bar but it was still a shitty little bar it was yeah it was before it was like

a hangout it became that because my buddy you know ali for an hour yeah i do so it was because of ali used to hang out with i knew knew Ali through different guys from North Carolina. Really? That's how I kind of met all those sort of UCB people and stuff. And my ex-wife was through Ali. Oh, yeah. I remember him. Doesn't he teach now?

Yeah. He's got his own theater, the pit. Right. And I remember there was like period, because I remember when the UCB showed up in New York. Yeah. I remember when they were doing Luna Lounge with me and then they started that first theater

with the weird seats. The one that Walsh lived on top of. Oh no, yeah, that one. That was the one on 22nd Street. That was their first theater. But before that they were doing, they would do ASCAT on Sunday nights upstairs, 17th Street. What the fuck was that place called?

And I remember a young Jake Fogelnest being in the front row. And he was just a fan. And him kind of tittering with his friends. And, of course, now I've since known Jake for years. I knew him when his dad used to bring him to comedy shows. Yeah. Like when he was like 10. Well, I remember.

And his dad would be around sometimes back then. dad used to bring him to comedy shows yeah like when he was like at 10 well i remember and his dad would be around sometimes back then and uh one of my agents from willie moore from back in the day in 1996 it was like january 96 and he says to me you've got it i've i've just got this new uh young comedy troupe from chicago and they've moved here yeah and they're performing at the West Bank Theater on 42nd Street, the restaurant downstairs. There's a little theater. Yeah. I remember that. And it was UCB doing Bucket of Truth, their sketch show.

Yeah. And it was Walsh and Besser and Ian and Amy. Yeah. And they did Bucket of Truth. And that was the first, and it was Peter Principato. Yeah. Was then, who's now my, has been my manager for years still still i remember him yeah yeah and peter's been and he was my agent starting in 93 i remember when he was an agent yeah him in his leather jacket coming

around i just spoke to him the whole way here yeah um yeah and peter had said you got to go see this i think i was kind of a dick to him yeah i was i never really had the social graces to uh understand uh how show business worked i i would always go out of my way to be a dick to all the people that could possibly help me sure that was your badge yeah that was yeah that was that's what kept me out of the uh the the real work for a long time so wait so so this agent so you do all these voiceovers. So when do you just start kicking into the acting? So I did a couple independent films. Yeah. And none of them kind of really did anything.

And it was back when they were making a lot of independent films all over the place. It was very in vogue. And I got my first kind of really sort of paying acting gig. I did a pilot for CBS and it was in 96. It was that same winter, 96. Yeah. I did a pilot for Warner Brothers CBS. Yeah. Called Grant and Lee and Kevin Pollak was the star.

Yeah. And I was auditioning in New York for pilots and they saw my tape and flew me out to test for it. It was a big deal. And I guess I never, I always liked sort of the idea of comedy, but I never really talked about it in that way. I wasn't a standup.

I didn't come up through sketch. It just didn't seem like something that was on my it just wasn't on my radar right yeah and it wasn't a thing in new york as much there was stand-up certainly but the sketch thing hadn't happened yet hadn't really happened as you know yeah um and so anyway i i went i did this pilot and and it didn't get picked up, but I kind of did okay, I think. And then I started auditioning and testing more for pilots. And every year I would sort of test, I started testing, they would fly me out for five, 10 pilots and I'd get really close. And then I did another pilot a few years later for,

at this time, I will say I was boozing and I probably didn't look my best and was not in the best form. Yeah, right. But I could still do my voiceovers and make an increasing bank. Yeah. So I was like, fuck it, I don't care.

And then I had a moment, I was like, all right, I got to get my shit together and kind of pare that down and quit it. But right before that, I did a pilot with my friend Michael Malley called The Michael Malley Show. I remember him. NBC, yeah.

Didn't he famously lose his mind for a minute? No, that's one of those, that's a story that's kind of taken on its own life. He had, during this show, it was back when they were giving out these big development deals. Right, I remember. I had one, not as big, but but yeah you had one and they and lots of people had these yeah

and and uh mike had this this big deal and he went he went to make a movie from the time we shot the pilot to the time we were shooting the the series he went made the movie i think it was 28 days it was yestere right wasn't that the he ended up being on yesterday right yeah so he went to make the movie so he went to make the movie. So he went to make the movie and he comes back and he felt like the writing staff had gotten way off of what the original idea was. Yeah. And Mike

is, he's still a very close friend of mine and one of the all-time great guys, great people. He's a solid person. Yeah, I always see him in things and he's good. You know, I saw him, he was in Scully. He was good. He's really good. He's a good actor. He's a really good writer. Yeah. But him in things and he's good you know i saw him he was in scully he was good he's really good he's a good actor he's a really good writer yeah and and but but most of all he's a incredibly good guy yeah um and he wrote this what became to be known as a manifesto to all his writers yeah saying look i've i've got this responsibility he's he's from new hampshire

he's you know sort of blue collar. He took it really seriously that they gave him all this money. He felt a sense of responsibility to do the right thing with his show and make it the best version possible. He wrote this thing and really out of a good place. And somebody in the writer's room

immediately faxed it to every other writer's room. Yeah. Leaked it. Leaked it. And then they printed it in the Hollywood Reporter and he became, and everybody was know he was basically the laughingstock and i remember

the day that that happened and he was so he's like i fucked up i i shouldn't have i guess i shouldn't have given a shit and he was so despondent yeah and i thought you know what fuck everybody else that's bullshit he's such a guy. If there's anybody that did not deserve it, it was him. And he became known as the guy who lost it for a minute. And he, by no means, there's nobody who's, if there's anybody who never lost it,

it's Michael Mallory. Yeah. I'm glad he survived. Because it was, at that time, I'm sure I was like, oh, geez, that guy. I know.

Probably had my own resentment about him. Well, as you know, it's like, it's the, everybody, you know,, as you know, it's like everybody in this town especially, it's like don't let them see you trying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I did all these things, and then eventually around 2000 I got sober,

and I kind of got my shit together. You've been sober that long? Well, I had a moment last year where after 15 years, I kind of went out. Because everybody was talking about Rosé, and it was never around before. Rosé? It's a bit. But I ended up having a sort of a moment. For how long was that moment?

Let's call it six months, but I don't want to get into the particulars. Yeah. And I actually talked about it recently, and I sort of did this interview with the Hollywood Reporter last year, and I kind of mentioned that, and then, of course, immediately, it's like the Daily Mail is like,

Arnett, hits the bottle, like as if I'm living under a bridge. I'm like, no, fuck, that's not what happened. Yeah, you can't do it. So I'm like, you can't talk about it because people just use everything against you. This is quick bait. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, that was the moment back then that kind of my- In 2000. 2000. Yeah. Summer of 2000. And that was a sort of a pivotal moment in my life.

And then I was living out here briefly in Venice. Did you get married? Were you married twice? Yeah, I got married when I was very young, when I was 24 briefly for a month. It's on my Wikipedia page. I put it on there a long time ago. Yeah.

For a month. Literally like a month, yeah. I was 24 and kind of caught up in the moment and as soon as we did it i was like oh god i'm not kidding like at city hall in new york how long had you known her a month no yeah sort of gone so you knew her month and went and got married and i wasn't drinking yeah. And it was just no good. It was just stupid. It was like- And she thought it was stupid?

Eventually she did, yeah. Initially she wasn't psyched that I came to Jesus before she did. Yeah. But again, I was so dumb. I was 24. I mean, young people are dumb. No, I know. And I include myself in that, young people. You get caught up in know. And I include myself in that, young people.

You get caught up in feelings. We're sensitive people, us people. Yes, yes. Yeah, and you're like, this is it. And then you realize, like, well, I learned what not it is. Yes. And, you know, I realized years later, like, oh, I still am capable of making major mistakes. Hard, man.

Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, getting to know, like, the patterns. making major mistakes. Hard, man. Yeah. Yeah, because getting to know the patterns. Yeah. That's a fucking trick. Yes. And then knowing them is one step. Then the next step is like, don't do that. Yeah.

Well, learning to go, the hardest thing for me to learn how to do was to go take a beat. Yeah. Don't be impulsive. Ugh. And take a, take a beat. Yeah. Um, don't be impulsive and let it sit for a second. Yeah. And then react. And you know,

I don't need to have a reaction. You can do that. Yeah. I'm, I'm better at it. Yeah. Yeah. So,

all right. So tell me about, uh, how the rest of development happened. Cause that's like, so I moved back to, I was in, I was living in New York now.

I moved back to New York. I'm going to check in and see if we're at war. Yeah. Let's see. Um, I don't get anything was living in New York now. I moved back to New York. You want me to check and see if we're at war? Yeah, let's see. I don't get anything. Oh, wait, shit. No, it's Beyonce. We all agree that Mar-a-Lago is not the Winter White House, right? Well, we all agree it's not the place to have national security confidential classified briefings at the table.

With other diners around, yeah. That's not the best way to that's not the best way to conduct uh classified uh international security issues yeah yeah um uh i moved back to new york um amy uh my ex-wife amy when did you meet her though i mean i know you met her way back and you know you met her way back. I met her way back. We had sort of met before, and then I met her. I went, as Ali Faranakin's date, to a dinner to Cafe Lou in New York. In the 90s? No, this is like late 2000.

I'd gone back to New York. We had met before, but this was the first time we were. You'd just gotten sober. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. We had met before, but this was the first time we were- Right, and you'd just gotten sober. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Like four months before. Oh, so that's always a good time

to make impulsive decisions. Yes. Well, you know, in my defense, I wasn't really doing, I was just kind of, I'd come back to New York for a couple weeks.

I was visiting my sister. Ali said, I'm going to this dinner with my buddy Fred Weller and his then girlfriend, now wife, and Ali and my buddy Jack. My friend had gone on a date with Amy and then she was coming to this dinner,

but it wasn't really working out with them. This is post-Matt Amy. Yeah, post-Matt Besser, yes. And we just, we hit it off and we started, we chatted the whole night and, uh, and then she came to California and they were doing shows out here that January and we continued to, and we went out a couple of times and it was great. And then we started dating and she was basically out here kind of with me and I did a pilot, another pilot.

She was doing a pilot at the time with Judd, uh, called North Hollywood with, with, uh, uh, Jason Siegel and Judge Reinhold. Um,

and then, and then she got SNL. Right. Um, and it was like July of that year, uh, 2001. And she was like, should I do this? Yeah. And it was like July of that year, 2001. And she was like, should I do this?

Yeah. And it was like a real, I mean, I'm not violating it. It was just, you know, we talked about it and she wasn't sure. And I said, yeah, let's go. And so we moved back to New York. Arrested happened like this. So Amy was doing SNL and- Not married yet.

We were not married. We were, we, then we then got engaged. Yeah. Like a year and a half later. And I did a pilot, another pilot for CBS, 20th for CBS. So you're working. I mean, you know, between voiceovers and pilots and guest appearances and you're making a living

and it's good. Yeah. I was making a good living and I was kind of content in a way and we were, I was doing a pilot basically every spring

it seemed like and I do this pilot though and it gets picked up and everybody's kind of celebrating and I had a bad feeling just about the way that everybody was kind of dealing with me and I remember a bad feeling just about the way that everybody was kind of dealing

with me. And I remember saying to Peter Principato, there's something, something's up. And he's like, no, you're crazy. You're paranoid. And I said, yes, I know. But in addition to that, something's up. And sure enough, I got fired off this pilot, this show called Still Standing that ran for a few years on CBS. And I remember getting the call from Peter saying, I don't know how the fuck you knew, but you were right. Yeah. And I felt at this point I'd been doing it long enough that I could sense shit like that. Yeah.

And I was really mad on a lot of levels. I was disappointed that I was fired. You feel kind of embarrassed. You feel like people care. Obviously, nobody notices. Yeah. But you feel like, you just, you feel shitty. And I remember my friend Brian Callen, who's a stand-up.

Do you know Brian? Brian saying to me, oh, what, you're mad that you're not going to have one scene a week where you come in and you're the guy who goes, hey, what the hell happened to my couch? He's like, you should be happy. Yeah. They're doing you a favor. And it was, he's like, stop. Stop feeling, you know, sorry for yourself.

And so that fall I decided to do a play. There was a guy I had done a reading with the summer before, a couple summers before, a New York stage and film up at Vassar. And he was coming to New York and he was doing a play about the the tragedy at Lockerbie called the women of Lockerbie uh-huh with the new group in New York I call Peter Principato and I say I'm not reading for anything for pilot season and he's like don't be and I said no you know what I'm done I'm done with being disappointed um and I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore you know I'm not going to audition and boy the TV business is going to be really missing me

yeah um and then I get a I remember my friend started talking about this script arrested development and the woman who cast the show that i got fired from the year before deb burilski when i was fired sent me a handwritten letter yeah and said um which is really sweet and she said i thought you were great on this show. I don't want you to, don't take this personally that they fired you. I think they made a big mistake. I think you're a talented guy, and I think it's a real injustice, et cetera, et cetera.

And it was very sweet. Nobody's ever done that before or since. And she was casting Arrested Development, Deb Borilski. And she called Peter Principato and she said, there's this part of the brother who's a magician and they can't cast it. And Will should come in and read for it.

And Peter called me and I said, you know what? It's very nice of Deb, but I'm not interested. I'm doing this fucking play about the women of Lockerbie. Remember the tragedy over Lockerbie? Yeah. And so Deb ended up calling me. Yeah. And she's like, you just got to read for it.

And I said, fine. And he faxed me, faxed rolled paper. Yeah. To our apartment that we had down in Tribeca at the time. And I took the subway up to read, to go to some office on the west side. Be put on tape by an assistant. Yeah, and I just read the, I just got the size.

I don't even have the script. I might have the script, but I didn't read it. I was like fuck that, I'll read the size. Put it on tape, don't think about it. I get a call the next morning, they're like great, they want you to fly out to California and they're gonna make a test deal. And I'm like Jesus Christ.

It's funny when you don't give a shit. You're like all right, all right. Not only do I not give a shit, I go to meet my buddy Giles, who's my oldest buddy who lives here now. Pete Giles, he and I are at McManus. He's still drinking at the time. So it's like Friday at one and we're playing video golf.

We played golden tee for hours. The amount of money and time I put into golden tee, I could have gone to law school twice. Do you golf in real life? I do, but my golf, you know, these days I hurt my knees. I'm old. But so I'm playing video golf. I'm playing Golden Tee at McManus with Giles. And Principato calls me again.

He's like, listen, man, you got to go home and sign your test deal. Because you know you sign a test deal before you audition your final test. Sure. They work out your contract. And then you go before network? You go before you audition your final test sure they work out your contract and then you go before network you go before network so that if they want you you can't go great so my price is double right i get it you've already made your yeah i've been in that situation it makes it it makes the it makes this sort of that fucking when you got to go in that room full of the network people and everything else and you've signed a test deal it's just the worst

fucking experience it's the worst and if you think about it if you're an out-of-work actor who doesn't have a lot of dough you've now got the extra carrot of oh you could make x amount of money yeah if you do this right and if you don't your year is fucked yeah it's terrible and you pay your own flights yeah all that shit yeah so i go so he keeps calling me have you i'll go home and i'll sign it the deal was the studio couldn't look at my tape until I signed my test deal. And he, they keep calling and I go, Pete,

if they keep calling, they've already looked at it. Yeah. I go, why aren't you renegotiating the deal? You fucking come on. Anyway, I go home,

I sign it. I fly out to California. I, I remember so well that we can have a cold. Uh, I felt crappy. It was like February, late February 2003. And I hang out. I see Brian Callen.

Yeah. I see him there. And it's like a work session with the Russo brothers and Mitch. And Brian and I read with each other out in the hall at the old TV building over at the Fox lot and Brian says to me, he's like, you're going to get this. I wouldn't read him. I said, no fucking way. He's like, yeah.

And I was so jaded. I was like, not happening. Yeah. I go in, I work with those guys. It goes kind of okay. Fine. I leave it. I'm sick enough that I don't even, again,

I still don't care. Yeah. And you hadn't read the script. And at this point, I maybe had read the script and at this point i maybe had read the script but like whatever do you remember liking it or thinking it was yes it was it was good yeah it was very good but it it also had it had mitch had written like a disclaimer on the front on the cover letter yeah saying this is going to be shot handheld they're going to be no it's not going to be uh business as usual no trailers it's gonna be

all guerrilla style i remember thinking fuck you dude yeah um what do you think this is art and it's commerce man and i go in jaded so jaded already tv 33 year old jaded yeah i go in monday morning and i and i tony hale was out there, who played Buster and his wife Martel at the time was a makeup artist on SNL. I knew Tony a little bit. Yeah. He and I read the same morning also with Jessica Walter, whom I'd done my first pilot with Kevin Pollack. She played the mom on arrested.

She and I had done that together. It was just like a weird kind of everything coming together. And I go in and i test and and i got the show um and that doesn't sound menacing does it no okay good if they're looking for anybody out here it's you by the way um and uh as well and i stayed i stayed in california because we we had we did a table read that night. And I stayed because over the course of the next few weeks, we just made the- Did they cast you? Yeah.

I go in. I remember going in. Right before I go in, Mitch is there. And he says, he's like, you're going to get this. Now, it's his show. And I go, don't say that. Yeah. And I was reading against Alan Ruck. Yeah. The guy I remember from Ferris Bueller's and he was i was reading against um uh alan ruck yeah i remember from ferris

bueller's and he was on spin city yeah yeah yeah good actor yeah he's funny yeah alan and rain wilson yeah alan goes i go in first uh then i come out and i go again i'm sick i go in to like blow my nose and wash my hands i feel terrible terrible. Then Alan comes out in that time. Yeah. And then Mitch and everybody comes out and Mitch is like, you got it, to me. Yeah. Alan's barely left

and Rain is still sitting in the thing. And I've been in his position. He's fine now. Yeah. But I've been in that position so many times when you're not the guy. Yeah. And I said to Mitch, hey, hey,

I knew Rain to say hi. I said, hey, that guy's didn't, I didn't mean to say hi, I said, hey, that guy's still there, go and let him know or get him out of here before we celebrate. I can't, I felt too badly about. But you'd already read. He didn't even read them. But you, you'd already done that.

I'd already read. Yeah, yeah. I read alone and then we did a group scene with Tony and Jessica and Jason. And it was like, it's so funny looking back on that now and Mitch in those moments, like Mitch and I are, you know, he's been one of my best friends of my life and we still work together and, you know,

he produces our show Flaked with us and he's just such a part of my life. And Jason is, from that moment on, we were, we've been like brothers. It's so funny to look back at that actual day. Yeah, I mean, you guys sort of reinvented television. I mean, it was a completely new thing. People fucking love it.

Cross is hilarious. Everyone's hilarious. Yeah, it was weird. It was such a funny, like when we first started, I knew David a little bit from New York. Yeah. Not well, but we started shooting that show and immediately, from the first time we did like a big group scene, it felt different.

Um, and Mitch is such a brilliant guy and he's a brilliant writer. Um, he's probably the funniest person I've ever known. You just knew that we were doing something that was, you know, the writing was so good and that the, that it was funny. you know the writing was so good and that the that it was funny um but at the same time that whole first fall before it started to air it didn't air until november we started shooting in august uh we were making it in a vacuum and and it was odd and you it was you knew it was different we knew it was different but there was no reaction to it yet. Yeah. So we were just making episodes. Yeah, yeah. And there was something kind of freeing about that. There was no pressure to do it one way or the other.

And then when people started reacting and liking it, I never even thought about shit like reviews because I was so concerned with just trying to get a fucking job for so long right that that was so far down the right and you weren't necessarily as invested in the show you were working yeah yeah exactly wasn't on you no it wasn't at all yeah and uh and so and then and then it sort of started to pick up steam became a phenomenon i guess yeah definitely but at the same time don't forget we had zero ratings yeah so you know we were constantly every monday morning bateman and i would be like sort of pouring through the ratings and trying to like hey we

went up a tenth and girls 18 to 19 the worst the fucking the worst he's a good guy i talked to him baby's the best um and i gotta have so many memories of just him sitting in his little shit trailer with the door open wearing his stupid michael yeah costume pages yeah back then it was paper yeah going over the ratings yeah oh really yeah freaking out yeah yeah yeah i got something good we're just holding on so how did it ultimately you know stay on the air we got nominated that first it started airing in november yeah and then in december out of the blue we got nominated for a golden globe right and we were like holy holy shit, Golden Globe. Yeah. And we get to go? Yeah, hang out. It was so far removed from everything where I was at.

Yeah. I mean, I guess, that's not entirely true. Amy was doing SNL, so she was kind of in a high profile thing. But for me, it just seemed like that was her game. And then after the first season, we got nominated for a bunch of Emmys. And then we won the Emmy for Best Comedy.

And that was so gratifying. I remember before the ceremony, Kross saying, if we win, we're on the same road. We should get up, celebrate with each other, you know, walk out to the aisle and then go the other way out the theater and get in our cars and leave. And I was like, that's, yes, hilarious.

I remember Amy saying to me, don't listen to Cross. You cannot do that. But yeah, it was very validating. It was such a thrill. Yeah, it was great. And then the ones you did a couple years ago went over well. Everyone was excited. Yeah, there were people who had complaints.

There were a number of reasons that Mitch constructed those shows the way he did. Yeah. Some of it had to do with schedule of getting everybody back on board. with a schedule of getting everybody back on board. But I feel like when you go back, the format was that each character had their own episode, some have multiple episodes, and then everything kind of sort of,

you could follow, everything kind of collapsed on itself and the storylines were all intertwined. I feel like when you actually go back and look at it as a whole, it's a pretty masterful,'s very complex yeah what he did and i spent some time in in the writer's room on that and it was it was like a like a code breaking room in from world war ii i'm not kidding it was different colored index cards with piece different colored pieces of string uh sort of denoting character or cause and effect and stuff going back and forth.

It was insanity. Yeah. And it was like such a window into Mitch's brain, which is scrambled eggs. Wow. But yeah, but he pulls it together. He makes the omelet. He really does, honestly.

So what now, he produces Flaked. Is that, now is that your, that's your show? Yeah. You created it. Yes. And it's sort of based on? Well, it's not really based on show. Yeah. You created it. Yes. And it's sort of based on. Well, it's not really based on reality. Right.

In the sense that that story is fictitious. But you're hip to being fucked up. Yeah. I'm hip to being fucked up and I'm hip to. I decided that I wanted to kind of make something that was I like the idea initially of a guy I've always liked the idea of a big fish in a small pond yeah

and so I remember seeing somebody I know being in Venice and everybody stopping him on the corner and he's in the program and everybody's like hey man what's up and like it was like a business guy yeah fucking homeless dude yeah and I was like how the fuck do you know everybody? Like, what is your deal? And it struck me as being kind of funny.

And Venice is, I love Venice and I've lived there on and off over the years. And it is a place where people go to reinvent themselves. Truly, like you can just go out there and sort of adopt a persona. And we have a character in the show. We didn't really get into it, but I, you know, there was a guy years ago who we knew his name was Stefan. And then somebody else said, we were talking about Stefan.

They said, oh, I went to high school with him. You mean Steven? Yeah. And we're like, holy shit. That's when you're 25 and you just decide I'm going to call myself Stefan and everybody else is going to go and none of these people know me. They don't know my story. And you can create this identity. And so I like that.

And I think that in a lot of ways, I wanted to get into the idea of who we really are versus who we show the world. Right. And that kind of fascinated me. Yeah. we show the world right um and that kind of fascinated me yeah um on just on a personal level uh you know i i started it as a sort of an exploration of things i didn't like about other people um number one sort of uh dishonesty and lying yeah and i ended up it got very sort of murky and and i kind of also became an exploration of things i didn't like about myself sure at the same time yeah um it's so funny because that process of like you

know those resentments that you have against others like sometimes it can take a while for you to realize like oh this isn't like we were talking about before i'm having a conversation with myself yeah yeah absolutely yeah and it was it was tough i it wasn't until it wasn't until i was deep in the process of my my writing partner mark chapel is an englishman who wrote with i met him through cross years ago he wrote todd margaret with oh yeah you're on todd margaret yeah and and so that's how i met chappy um and who's a oxford educated englishman who had never been to venice before and he and i just pitched this idea to him one night. I was in London and he's like, yeah, it sounds great.

And we just started writing an outline the next day. And he came over here and immersed himself. He's the greatest partner I could ever ask for. As he and I wrote every episode of the first season. And as we were doing it, it started to get heavier and heavier. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was in the middle of that process i realized what was going on and you know there's a at the center of it is this guy chip who

is this kind of big fish in a small pond who's created this persona for himself who's created this kind of cool identity yeah um and at the heart of it he is a sober guy who's helping people i also like the idea of a guy who's helping people by selling this life and this thing. And yet he's not necessarily adhering to it himself. Right. But it still works on other people. So is he a bad person? Oh, yeah.

Because he's kind of doing the right thing. Well, I mean, that's where you get into a loop, right? Yeah. Well, you get into and people say, well, that's a pretty simplistic way to look at it. But that life is complicated. Right. It is. It is.

There's no black and white answer. Well, right. And also, like, you know, I think about that stuff a lot. Like, you know, I know that, you know, I can show up for people, but sometimes in my personal life, I'm a fucking, you know, depressed, angry dick. Yeah. But does that, what does that mean exactly? That's just like, like you know people are a little complicated yeah yeah people are complicated and and and if the good column outweighs the bad

column you're you're doing okay 100 yeah and if you can try to own the shit that you've done and go okay fuck i need to try to be better then i guess that's all you can do. Now, where are you at now? You're about to drop the second season? Yeah, so we did the first season, and then we started shooting the set that came out last March, and then we shot the second season.

We brought more writers on this year. And now, do you picture an arc? Because my experience in writing television, I always assume that these people that write these series can see the whole thing through four or five seasons or eight seasons. I didn't have that experience. Well, we did. It's funny.

One of the criticisms of the first season was that, oh, here you have these guys in their mid-40s living in Venice. And you're like a self-help guy. Kind of. Yeah. He's a big sort of like program guy. Right. But as we find out, he kind of uses it a lot to excuse himself of his own behavior in his real life. Like anybody uses a spiritual system.

Yes. That affords you the ability to be forgiven. Yes, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, my God is very forgiving. No kidding. Yeah. Your God forgave you?

That's fucking, what a coincidence. Yeah, yeah. And we, I, you know, we always had this, I always pictured that there would be a sort of a fallout to what his behavior in the first season. And I was never, it was never an endorsement of that kind of character yeah if we never got to make a second season it might have seen that way but we always knew where we wanted to where we wanted to go and i'm not there is a version of

going beyond it i'm not sure it's necessarily something i want to do is it's been a very trying experience for me on a lot of different levels um like what well because just on a purely sort of logistical level you know writing it um and acting in it and show running mark and I run it yeah and you know every decision every fucking minuscule decision we have to make yeah and sometimes you just want to act yeah sometimes you just want to show up not like oh yeah no sorry hang on the cup should be like this and the thing should be like let me see what do you got in the camera what's in it what's okay you know yeah constantly um so there's that and also just the subject matter itself it got i got really close to the bone last year and i ended up kind of as a result uh kind of blurring the lines

and i'm like did i do it because I wanted to get closer is this method acting bringing it back to Strasburg was I trying to get closer to what was going on yeah or was I did I write it as an excuse to do that yeah I still don't know so you're you're you're challenging yourself in ways you didn't think 100 yeah this is not how i how i envision my what i envision doing to myself at age 45 there's not there's not you can't just phone it in no you cannot and you've been through a certain amount of life shit to where you're like this guy's too close to me like am i revealing too much about myself 100 yeah%. Yeah, 100%. It got really, it put me in a nervous space for a while,

which is probably good, I think, in the long run. But yeah, I have been through a lot of shit and a lot of people have been through

way worse shit than I have. Sure. But I've been, in my own way, been through my own shit and I'm sort of at a place now where maybe it's time to lay this one down and let it be. But I'm happy with what we did.

We had some great writers this year. And, you know, Mark and I still wrote. And I directed this year for the first time, which I've never done. Yeah, you got to do that when you got the opportunity. Yeah. I've never been one of those people who's supposed that I can do it. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be any good at it you know well usually like when the the thing that you're afforded when

you're you know in the second season of your own show is you know you've got a dp that knows what he's doing and and usually you know you can be guided it's very hard to direct and act because you gotta keep running back to the playback machine and do another take. But it's like popping your cherry. You've got to do it. Yeah. And, you know, luckily I have Chappie with me, Mark. Yeah. But, yeah, it was challenging.

It's cool because now, like, at least, you know, you're in the guild, and if you want to direct something that's not you, you can try it. Yeah. It's good. I've thought about it, but who knows? Yeah. And now your personal life, you okay thought about it, but who knows? Yeah. And now your personal life, you okay? You and the kids are good and you get along with Amy or?

Yeah. Yeah. It's worked out. It leveled off. It's worked out. Yeah. Everything leveled off and everything's good and, you know. Co-parenting, like it's essential that, you know, that shit levels off.

Yeah. You know what? That shit was, to be honest, that shit was always level. Oh, good. Yeah. It's always been about the kids. Good. it levels off yeah you know what that shit was to be honest that shit was always level oh good yeah it's always been about the kids and um they're everything for me and and for her starts uh every day is you know the kids happiness yeah and that's it you know and that comes to work and everybody i work with and everybody i do things with they all know that that's first and foremost. And then everything else is kind of falls in line after that.

Everything else is gravy. Schedule. I look at everything as it takes me away from my kids. Every job, every meeting, everything. Yeah. And so it better be worth it. And sobriety's solid? Sobriety's solid.

Took me a minute. Yeah. Actually, not really, but it took me a minute to sort of... But you had a program? I mean, like, you know, when you did go out,

you knew where you had to go back to? A million percent. That's the worst part, or the best part. Yeah. But it's always there. Yeah, you can't,

it's sort of like you know. I had enough in me to know as you're doing it, you can't even really sort of like you know yeah i had enough in me to know as you're doing it you can't even really enjoy it no there's no way i can't imagine it i can't imagine it and the best part is you know like best slash worst part is my friends uh in in sobriety who are great who would just be like okay man yeah okay and i'm like oh you're trying to justify it oh i'm yeah now. I'm good now. Everything's good.

I mean, I did some time. You know, I got it. I got it. Yeah. And they're like, okay, man. We'll see you. All right, we'll wait. I'm going to be right here.

We got a seat saved for you. And it's funny. Now my sort of feeling about it is much more like, God, what a jackass I was. But, you know, again. Hey, at least you didn't die. Hey, at least you didn't die. Yes, at least I didn't die. And I consider myself in that sense very lucky. It's like to me, that's the most frightening thing,

you know, having 17 years and you see these guys that go out after like that long and like they don't, it's not good. No. Well, that's the thing. I knew, again, I knew exactly where that goes you know and i've seen it enough and i've been around enough guys and i've been around uh the rooms long enough to know the natural progression it might be okay today yeah here's where it goes right yeah good well

i'm glad you're back and i'm glad things are working out i'm looking forward to the new thing thanks man I'm glad you're back, and I'm glad things are working out, and I'm looking forward to the new thing. Thanks, man. So that was Will Arnett. It was nice talking to him, and we're still here. I believe I will play some guitar, but not think about it too much. Hold on a second. Boomer lives! and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.