Transcript of STAYING ALIVE: Will Arnett, Part 1!

Hey, SmartList listeners, it's John Gabris, one of the hosts of Staying Alive, a health and wellness podcast hosted by the Unhealthy and Unwell, that's Adam Pally and I. We've got Will Arnett on our pod today. We got to spend some QT interviewing our pod father, and we went deep with him about Is this thing on? Bradley Cooper, eating right, fitness, sugar, all the stuff we cover on our show. So please enjoy the first part of the interview with Will. And if you like what you hear, come on over to Staying Alive in to hear the second half. Hit subscribe or follow while you're there. Hey, Will, thanks for doing this. What?

Dude, thank you so much. How are you doing? Dude, you look awesome. Look at that facial hair.

Really? Oh, thanks.

Yeah. You got some- Tony Stark. You got some sun. Yeah, you got some sun, and you got some Iron Man fucking Iron Man.

Yeah, I was just shipwrecked.

You don't hear about it that often anymore, about people being shipwrecked.

It's fucking old school.

But I knew I had to do staying alive, so I paddled to shore to make sure I did this stupid fucking podcast with you. I hope that the intro...

Are we allowed to play other artists' intro music or it just has to be ours?

I think we should keep it to be just ours.

Oh, okay. It would be cool if today we could play something from Bruce Springsteen because the boss is here.

Yes, our boss is here. We will learn that he does not like to be called the boss, but he's our pod father.

He is the boss.

Will Arnett on the podcast today. Big guest, so we're not going to go into a long cold open because we don't want to turn off anyone who's here to hear Will and not understand that.

It's for anyone new, welcome. We hope that you You can learn a little something about what it takes to stay alive as you get older, and you don't necessarily play by the rules all the time.

Yeah.

Well, without further ado, I'm learning French.

Will Arnett. Or is that your next Duolingo?

Trio-lingo. No.

The podcast lately... I've been feeling a little podcast burn lately I'm just... Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Oh, yeah?

I know, of course not. Advertisers, we love it.

I made a joke-You're working your ass off? I did this podcast with this guy in the UK. He's so funny. I mean, I forget how long ago. It was like, whatever, a couple of months ago. Do you know this dude, Romesh? Yeah. This guy, he's so funny. He's really, really funny. So this podcast, And he asked me, and I told him this, I have this controversial position. I said there's a direct relationship.

Is this tattoo?

Yeah. And I said, the more tattoo-It came up on my feet. The more tattoos you are, the more you have, the more boring you are. Now, I was very clear. A, it's something that I've said to my friends with... I don't have any, that I've said to my friends with tattoos for years, and it's basically a bit, right? Yeah. When I say it with it, the people are freaking out in the comments and the thing. And then I'm like, what a boring response. If you're insult by it, then you're proving my point. But the truth is, I don't have a point. I didn't even mean it because I have a million friends who are covered with tattoos, and people are assaulted by it.

It's insanity, man. Yeah, it's crazy when you realize that bullshit is news. Like, But also you're like, Will Arnett says they did have a guy on Smartlist that they didn't air or whatever. This goes everywhere and you're like, Who does this matter to? It doesn't even matter to Will.

It doesn't It doesn't matter to me at all.

It matters to podcast, not blog spot.

Most of them are bits. Most of them are just to fuck around in the moment, right? Then you're like, and then you hold it up. Let's read this back in court. So your theory on tattoo, it was not a theory.

It's a bit.

You said here you love to go swimming with bow-legged women. Is that correct? I was quoting a fucking movie. I did it.

Anytime you get... Even this is all a net loss. This can only hurt This can only hurt.

That's why we are so thankful that you're coming on our podcast because it's only- You're our boss. It's just a fucking minefield of like- That's a very loose...

How are Well, if you're not our boss, that means Rich is our boss, and that is a problem.

That is. You're right, by the way, that's a problem for everybody.

If you prefer the term podfather, we could do that, too. Oh, I like that.

You know what I wanted to ask you? Will, is- Please be about tattoos.

Please be about tattoos.

No, it's not.

You're talking to guys who have matching tattoos. We are wildly boring. I can give a fuck about it.

When I saw that, he was like, You know what? He's right. I am a drag guy.

My head goes instantly to...

Because now you're a dramatic leading man. Man, is to... How are you thin? How are you looking like this?

Oh, physically.

Oh, yeah. Because our show is about staying alive because we're too out of shape or better in shape now. We're doing pretty good.

I don't know if it's the show or dark medical revelations in our lives.

You guys look good. You guys look We're in a better place.

I'm down 20 pounds. You see? I'm under 300 for the first time in 10 years. It feels amazing. I might have to start buying new budgie smugglers.

What are you doing to stay alive? Because I have a text exchange that you and I have that I found on my phone today from over the summer that I could read to you.

That we might have to edit?

I don't think we do. It's I don't think we do. It's pretty base, and it heads into the question. Starts with, Long Island, baby, where are you at? Headed to Ruby Rosa to eat my weight in red sauce. What are you doing? No can do on pizza, but let's hang out this week. Then I wrote back, What are you doing to keep that Walton Goggins physique? Then you You wrote back, I start by not eating. Then I smoke a couple of butts, repeat every day.

And as always, we are not doctors on this show. Do not take any medical advice.

You're not someone who struggles with everything, including the smoking.

I'm blood-type marinara at this point, so I get it.

It's that old-school diet, man. I think a lot of just I look like that dude who, now that I'm looking on the thing here, I look like that dude who's tan and smokes butts and drinks coffee.

Yeah, drinks coffee, plays chess, beachside.

I became the guy that I used to go to my buddy and say, Look at that guy.

We all do.

That's who I aspire to be.

Look at me. I look like fucking Mark Maron drowned in a pool.

Yeah, I look like an offensive lineman in court for a fucking Why?

I locked the gates.

How come you didn't lock the gates? I drowned in the pool.

Jesus Christ. Jesus. You know what? The truth is about, what are we, about 18 months ago, One of my agents was like, Hey, you should go talk to this doctor. Out of the blue.

Not out of the blue. Out of the blue for you. But that's something that was on the agent's mind.

I was going to say, Everything is ever out of the blue, man.

Meanwhile, the CIA had a morning meeting about my weight. He goes, You should go see this dude who's basically a nutritionist. He's like, What? That's a true story. I was like, I think I always was able to stay thin, and then I got over 50. It just gets hard. When you're over 50, it's just... I'm going to eat what I want, but I'll just work out, and then you just get massive. I was like, What do I do? I went to see this guy, and he helped me look at the stuff I was eating. He was like, Okay. You tell him, he's like, What do you... You tell him, It's not that bad. Then you tell him, he's like, Wow, that's terrible. You're like, Oh, shit, really?

The worst those situations is when you downplay what you're doing and they still say it's bad. You're like, Yeah, I have two beers a couple of nights a week. And they're like, That's really bad. I'm like, Oh, I was lying already. That's a good...

I did that once years ago when I used to drink, and this guy said, I went to this doctor and I could tell him, and I go, This is like early '90s, and he goes, How much do you drink? And I said, I'm thinking like, What is it going to be? I go, Probably six drinks a week. He's like, That's a lot. And I'm thinking, Motherfucker, that's before I go out. I have six drinks.

That's a day.

Adam and I are very adjusted to telling a doctor, not cigarettes whenever they ask to smoke.

I can't even do that anymore.

I've regressed. I've regressed, so I can't even do that anymore. Now I'm lying about cigarettes to a doctor in New Zealand who's filling out a physical... I'm sitting in a... In order to get to set, they're like, A doctor is going to come in here. You all right with that? I'm like, Yeah, whatever. The guy comes in, he's like, Says he 3-5 drinks a day? I was like, I don't know. No, I don't know. I don't know.

I didn't even fill that out. Somebody else wrote that.

Someone else gets that when they saw me.

Well, it's metric down here, right? So yeah, it's not actually the same amount.

Yeah, and a day, you mean tomorrow? Because tomorrow is our yesterday. Yeah, we're not doing time zones?

Okay.

Next thing I know, he's writing like, Psychopathic conversation.

Borderline personality disorder.

Yeah, borderline.

The truth is actually, I ended up cutting up basically sugar Which is, I think, my number one addiction because I'm not addicted to cigarettes. They're addicted to me. You're such a badass.

Cigarettes and I are synergistic. We help each other.

They've never let me down. They've never lied to me. They always told me what they were going to do.

Meanwhile, they're like, lying to you from the moment you...

I know.

I was going to say, when you say no sugar, how strict are we talking? Are we talking like, no, like you go out to sushi, you're doing sashimi?

Yeah, basically, when I'm really doing it, so I go, I eat. God, it's so boring.

Notnot on this podcast.

I know. I know. I know. I did not for us.

Also, we live in the boring world, so don't let us.

I got a bunch of tattoos, man. This is the shit I'm into.

You're right. It's so good.

You're like, I hated that this blurb went around, and we brought it up 11 times in one interview.

No, I love it because it's so dumb because it was so meaningless. Ramesh is laughing.

You know what I took from that clip is Ramesh is He's like, I have a lot of tattoos. Am I boring? I wanted to be like, No, but the Apple Watch is making you boring.

We should be.

Tattoos are fine. It's the Apple Watch.

You cut out sugar.

Basically, I-Was that difficult?

Do you have anything that you did for yourself? Any substitutes or anything like that that were like-Dude, I'm addicted to ice cream.

I fucking love ice cream. My favorite sweet. It's my fucking favorite. Every day for me is like a nine-year-old's birthday party leading up to this. Every day, you'd be like, What are you doing? To answer your question, I didn't even go for sushi because I was too nervous that I wanted to eat the rice. Every day I'd wake up and eventually I started. I was doing a little bit of oats and then some berries and whatever, and then a little snack. Then at lunch, I have a salad with chicken. Then at dinner, I have to have 18 ounces of protein, fish or meat, and some veggies. Actually, there's a crazy thing here. I did that, and then eventually, I could have a cup of rice with lunch. Then he got... Then like, 45 days in, he's like, Now you got to cut all the carbs. So now I have none. I don't have a cheap day. I have a cheap meal once a week. Every seven days, I have one cheap meal. Jesus. Yeah. He's like, Don't go downtown. Go uptown. Meaning, don't eat a bunch of crap on your cheap meal. Don't go to like, taco Bell and McDonald's.

Have a nice dessert. High class. Yeah, have a nice dessert that doesn't have a bunch of preservatives in it. I've stayed to that for the last year and a half, and I've had a couple of times where I haven't been able to, but for the most part, I've stuck with it and exercised at the same time, and it's been pretty good. Here's a cool thing that he taught me.

What exercise are we doing?

I just do street fighting, mainly.

A lot of street fighting. Yeah, your Kimbo slice in the backyards of Florida.

It's hard to find a good gym. It's hard to find a good gym.

It's easy to find a street fight.

I'm doing pretty light in terms of the gym. Pretty light. I was doing this thing where I was like... I don't do it as much anymore just because of time, whatever. But I was doing this boxing thing called fight camp. Thoreau turned me on to it, and it's almost like Peloton for boxing. I look like theI'm into it. Loserous boxer of all time.

I'm the worst in there.

But the cardio of it was really great. I do that a couple of days a week. I do these long I do hikes, and then I do stuff with Kettle Bell. Pretty light stuff. You got a trainer?

Are you doing this on your own?

No, I do it on my own. I'm pretty consistent. That's cool. Yeah. That's been good. He taught me this really cool thing, which is, he's like, 40 minutes before you go to bed, before you're going to go to sleep, eat a cup of berries or a sorbet. And he gave me a couple brands so that you get that spike of natural sugar, and then you'll crash, and you'll go into sleep better, and you'll sleep better. And God damn it, he was right.

Oh, and there's probably the psychological element of like, now I get to have my treat. You get a little treat. A little treat, and then you're going to bed and like, Oh, that's a real interesting wind down.

Pretty insane.

My version of that is I switched from a joint and a bourbon to a joint and a chamomile tea. Oh, that's nice. I'm out on my balcony sipping a tea and having an indica, and I'm like, I'm going to sleep like a baby. It's so much better for me than two fingers of fucking Baisal Hayden's. Two fingers. Much like my OnlyFans, I prefer a little more than two Well, I mean, alcohol is the big thing that... It's the saboteur of your health. It's like you let it in.

It's the A1 killer.

It's trash, and it's for a lot of different reasons. I'm I don't drink. I'm so happy that I don't for myriad reasons. But one of them is every time there's a new study that comes out, which is every four hours.

Every four hours, Huberman is making a fucking proclamation about, I can't believe we ever drink alcohol. You're like, Oh, come on, man.

I just think, Oh, thank God, I don't. I do feel better as a result of it. You can't do it as you get older, too. You just can't. Your body can't do it.

It's harder. It takes more and more of a toll on you every year.

I want to quit smoking buts. I really do. I don't smoke as much as I used to.

Are you sitting?

Yeah. I just put one out. I just stopped one out.

That's I have a problem zinning. I can't do it.

I can't. So many of my friends are zinning. So many of my friends are zinning and still blasting cigs, which is like, I'm like... Yeah, that's me.

I don't do it at the same time. At the same time, it's not.

I've got people who are telling me that nicotine is actually like a neutropic, and it's like a performance in the answer.

We actually just had Huberman on the podcast. I got to say he was pretty great, and I ended up being fascinated with everything he was saying, and I didn't want it to end. I was like, And then what if I do this? What if I... I was like the little kid. And he talked about nicotine and how great it is.

Yeah. I just look like I have nine zins in my mouth at all time.

Will's hitting the five What do they call them? The five mil lip pillow or whatever?

I'm on the three right now, but I go back and forth between the three and the sixes.

What does it do? It's just a pouch like a baseball player? Or is it like Or you swallow it?

No, you just put it between your lip and your teeth. It takes a second to get used to. It's like these little pouches like this.

I know for a fact, based on our experience, that Adam can't handle just packing a lip with something. We did recreational ketamine together, and you're supposed to just put it in your lip, and Adam's like, I chewed it and swalled it. I was like, What the fuck?

You can't leave it there.

It's like a little kid.

I played baseball in high school. I've been like-Swallowing sunflowers.

Instantly, as soon as that shit started, as soon as you go from sunflowers seeds to the first kid brings in chewing tobacco, I was just like, I can't.

I could never pack a lip. In high school, I can't do it.

I have a weird... It's funny you're saying that I have a weird time off. Half the time when I would go to get it out of my lip, I start the gag.

Something about that place. I also gag when I put my contact lenses.

Well, I think you're supposed to put them in your eyes, not at the back of your throat. I thought you swathed. I have no gag reflex. Again, I'm sorry. That's for my only fan. Clip that for my only fan.

Fuck, that's a great clip on its own.

That's going to be the clip.

I somehow get credited to Will, unfortunately.

It's like Will Arnett's got no-Will Arnett says, Tattoos are bad.

Again.

Never a limit down. It does make you think. It What does it make you think about Tom Hanks? God, he's done so many different things. The dude's unreal.

I was just thinking about his run the other day.

It's unreal, right?

His run from Joe versus the volcano, maybe. Even if he splashes the original, he made a few clunkers.

They never stuck. They never stuck to him. They didn't stick to him.

Yeah, a clunker for Tom Hanks.

Yeah, but he made 60 movies, and he made 30 really good movies. Half of them. I'm going to let them have. I mean, mine is I made only clunkers.

Dude, I was going to say, if you looked at my IMDb, my average, I'm batting 164 in the minors.

Hanks also did 10 years of dominating comedy and then switched to drama and then was the go-to drama guy for another decade. Similar to you, Will.

You're a little late, but a little late.

I don't think I'm done.

Brother Solomon.

I don't think I'm dominating anything.

I don't know, dude. I think it depends on how you look at it. This is your turn to Hanks run it just a couple of years later than he did.

We're just doing a few more Terminals than anyone else.

I decided to wait till I was 55 because I didn't want to embarrass anybody.

I love it when people do say to me, sometimes they're like, Do you ever think about doing a drama? Changing up and always like, Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm trying to do comedy. I'm trying to think about it all the time.

What do you got? You know what you got to do? You got to work with really good directors. Okay. Yeah, great. I'm done. I'm available.

I would love that. Have you shown them my extensive 20-year television career? Yeah.

Because you could Google me. You got a number on them? Let me just... You got a number on them?

It's like, Oh, it'd be so cool if you worked with Wes Anderson. You're like, Fuck, yeah, it It would be fucking awesome. It was the rule.

That's the real grown-up version of your aunt saying, You should do the Conan O'Brien show. You should do what he does. You're like, Yeah, I would love to.

You're right. I should.

I should get on SNL at 44. I could speedrun my fucking speedball death.

I was going to ask you about this press run that you've been doing because it's a dream dream of mine as someone who's worked in comedy the way you have for a long time, to see you doing the Academy Award run press tour where you're in cool clothes. You know what I mean? There's pictures of you in a swimming pool with clothes on. You're sitting cross-legged in the W with a bourbon or something. Then there's an interview with you and Odessa Zion together. You're like, You're doing it. How does that feel? Does the comedian part of you ever... Because I consider you a comedian. You're a comedian. Does that side of your brain ever click on while you're doing it all, while you're like, Wow, this is new?

A A gazillion %. And so the difference is-How do you do that? I spent a long time doing stuff and fucking around. And what happens is by the end, when you do something with As part of that, when you go and you do something with Ramesh and I'm just dicken around, it's so fun because then I just get to dick around, which is why I say a bunch of stupid shit that I don't mean, because you're just having fun. But a lot of those things, you got to go. Look, the movie we made, this movie is this thing on that Bradley and Mark Chaplin and I wrote, and we worked on it. It took from the time that we decided to start doing it until the time that it came out was seven and a half years or something, right? Jesus. Yeah. We took it really seriously, and we did it, and we spent a lot of time on it, obviously, and a lot of care. You come out with it, and then when they start thinking I'm like, Hey, maybe this has a chance for people to recognize it for X, Y, and Z, you're doing a bunch of different stuff, and so you want to speak very...

It's tough because for me, I feel like, Man, It's hard for me to be that earnest in a way.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Comedy is inherently like...

You want to undercut yourself and undercut the situation so frequently.

Yeah, but you know what? The same rules apply in that you just got read the room, which is these are people here who are appreciating it, and so that you do take it seriously. I did take seriously doing the project itself, and I do really like it, and I am really proud of it. But there were There are times, where you just you fuck around. But a lot of the time, the questions are different, too. The questions are like, why did you do this? Or what is the message? Or what was the process like? You're I was like, Well, actually, the process was pretty serious. Yeah, it took a lot of preparation. Yeah, to do those scenes took a lot of... We workshop for a long time, and you find yourself down this road. I did have a few times that there were some really cool interviewers who were like, I see that you're struggling with talking about it in this serious way. There's another layer to it, too, that you're a comedy guy doing serious interviews about a serious movie about comedy.

It's like a quadruple 4D cake or something.

Yeah, man. That's the thing. Yeah, it's complicated. But at the same time, and then what happens is it's very alluring because people do respond to it, and they're like, Hey, we really liked it, and we thought it was a great story. And you're forced to put your guard down. It was tough for me to talk about it, me and/or it, in this way that didn't feel like I kept trying to... I was catching myself. I didn't want to seem like I was being self-aggrandizing. Do you know what I mean?

This is the most understandable headspace to be. My therapist one time said to me, Do you ever use positive self-talk with yourself? I was like, No, why? That would be corny. He's like, No, that is something you need to do. I'm like, Oh, fuck. It's so easy to just downplay everything. But then when you're a part of something larger, a piece of art that you're involved with other creatives, that you're I was like, I can't go out here and downplay this because I worked hard. Other people worked hard. My instinct is to undercut myself for the sake of comedy and to not come across as a guy who is too serious.

What made it easy in certain ways was that the people I worked with, A, Bradley, he's-I got a billion questions. Yeah, he's an incredible filmmaker, right? I've known him a long time. His capacity for all of it is so insane. His concentration and his focus is so intense in the best way. Laura Dern, who's one of our greats, and she's just incredible. She's just incredible. You start to get in that. I heard, but what's interesting is, so that part of it made it really easy. Then when you listen to that and the way they talk about it, you're like, Okay, yeah, I can talk about this thing, and I did take it seriously. What's weird is, as Pally, you were saying that you go and you're doing these screenings for the academy and stuff. Of course, we didn't get any nominations for anything for our film. Not about that. I know, but what's weird is you get put in this place where you've got to go and do that, and then you're disappointed, and then you're like, I heard Ben Affleck talking about it, I think on Kimmel maybe or something recently, and he was much more articulate than I was, but about this idea that people are like, Oh, man, sorry, he didn't get the thing.

And you're like, I didn't even... When we made it, it's not like I was thinking like, Wow, we're going to make this academy award-winning thing.

When you get drafted in the NFL, you're not like, Fuck, if I don't win the Super Bowl, this is okay. I just want to get on the field. Exactly.

And that was it. We just wanted to make something good. Played a great game. So it's confusing. I remember my 15-year-old said to me, and he's such a great kid, and you want to talk about this kid is so funny. He's an absolute bit machine. It'sit's unreal. It's unreal.

It's in the jeans.

Do not introduce him to my son.

I do not. I don't need two of that. My son is a nightmare.

Yeah, a bit machine. It's insane. We were driving him home, and I was driving him home somewhere. I was out here in California, and we found out that something came out. We didn't get recognized. And he goes, and I hung up, and I go, Yeah. He goes, What I go, Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer. And he goes, Don't let the fact that that happened ruin what you think about this great movie that you made, dad. I was like, You're right. You're absolutely right. It was so dope. It was so dope. It took my 15-year-old to give me the perspective.

Yeah, the clarity comes from the wildest places sometimes. You worked with our mutual friend. Oh, real quick, my buddy Bob Castrone. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dude, Bobby Castrone is one of the all-time funny dudes.

Yeah, he's one of the best. I met him when I was a PA at Best Week Ever, like 20 something years ago when I graduated college, and we've been tight ever since.

I mean, you want to talk about BitMachine? Bob Castrone. Bob came with us when we were doing because, as you know, he used to be a stand-up back in the day. Yeah. When I started doing stand-up and was going to the cellar when I was living-were you using your name?

Were you Would they say, Ladies and gentlemen, Will Arnett?

No, I was using the name of the character. Cool. Which was...

Some fucking Kaufman shit.

I know. I was doing... I think people were like, Is he doing some low Rent, Andy Kaufman ripoff? Daniel Day-Lewis over here. Daniel Day-Lewis doing it.

On the set, everyone call me Will.

I'm living the life.

All right? Everyone treat me like Will. Okay? A stand-up comic. He's going through a divorce, all right?

I would go down, and so Bob came with me because we wrote all the stand-up that's in the film that tracks where this character of Alex is going and stuff. I wanted to have that experience, truly what it was like to be this dude. I'm not a stand-up, so I'd never done it before, but I wanted to understand what that experience was going down and being that dude. Really, what I got to do is rehearse for six weeks and going to the Comedy Cellar every night and walking downstairs and being introduced as Alex Novak. And people did get up there, they'd Snicker and think like I was losing my mind or whatever. It's a poor guy. Poor Will.

He's going through it. Sorry, Alex.

I did joke, though. I did joke that people were like, I'm getting divorced, that people were googling like, This asshole got married again?

You were doing a super high-pitch voice, right? Yeah, I was doing like this.

I was doing like this.

The worst part of that was lugging that prop bin up and down those stairs, though, right?

I'm glad you guys did the rewrite to make Alex not a prop comic.

I think that was a smart move. It was such a... I'm glad we dropped that because it was...

It was just hard to get the shit up and down the stairs.

The art department was furious.

They were so happy. I mean, everything, the plunger, the chicken, the glass, all of it.

You got to be careful with it. You can't just throw it down.

You have to place it. No, well, there's an oval in there. You can't throw it down. The anvil is going to ruin the chicken. We come from improv, as you know.

And so there is... That is a different We had all this training at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York.

So much stage time, but no crossover. So much stage time.

Where you're like, Oh, I can get on stage. You're like, I can get on stage with no material in front of however many people and feel comfortable. Then you're like, But that doesn't mean anything. That's not currency. It's not music. It's like shitty jazz. In a way, it's like-What was interesting was When I'd go down there, the first time that I did it at the cellar, we walked down the stairs, and I was there with Bob Castrone and Bradley.

We're standing there by the doorway, downstairs there in the main room there. They're about to call me up. Bradley knows me, and he knows that if I get up there, because I didn't come up through improv, I wish I had, I wish I known about it, I wish it existed in that way when I was coming up.

You're pretty adjacent.

I'm adjacent.

We've hung out at McManus enough for you to be considered an improviser.

Yes. But I just wish that that was around more When I first moved to New York in 1990, it just wasn't. But he knows that my instinct is that if I walk down there and get on stage, that I'll try to figure out a way to make to squeeze out a laugh somehow, to make it work. Like you said, to make it work, to do something and whatever. The first time he stopped me and he puts his hand on me and he leans in and he goes, We're doing something different. Basically, he was saying, You're not doing that. We're here to do this. This is the job. So go out there and do the material as Alex and do Alex's material that we do from the film, which is what I did. That was really dope.

Because the impulse would be to be like, I'll I know how to impress this crowd. I'm a funny guy. Give me a mic.

Yeah, just lean on my sweaty bits. You know what I mean?

Yeah, the tattoo thing. Let me try something out here, guys.

From everything you said, I mean, I've had a director that I've really loved working with that I trust, you know what I mean? But I never had a friend who is also my director who's like... It must have been really bonding where you're doing this. If you guys are going undercover, writing the movie as it's forming. You know what I mean? That's pretty special to have a friend that's like, Hey, man, don't do your bullshit tonight. But trust me that I'm going to have your back and make you look good.

A hundred %. It was, and it was Again, because I got to see under the hood over the last couple of years as we were working on developing it, what an incredible mind he has for this thing and for making movies. So I trusted that in that moment, and it did help us be... You're absolutely right. I mean, in terms of weeks later, when we actually start shooting, that trust is just built, built, built in such a strong thing. Then actually, it was He was coming to those moments where we had these really insanely vulnerable moments in the film, and I've got to trust him. I've never done anything like this on film in this way. I had to... We talked about it, and he'd be like, You got to trust me that there can be no bullshit here. There's no acting. There's no bullshit. We got to go deep. He would pull the camera off. He's operating, too. So that was the crazy part. Soderberg style. Yeah.

Also, where's he going to sit? There's no freaking chairs.

There's no chairs. By the way, there's no chairs. There's no video village. Everything's intense. From the moment you show up from call time to wrap, there's never a break. There's never sitting around. I wish for that. It's amazing. So you're always engaged, and he's right there. He's a foot from me with the camera in my face, and he's talking to me as we're rolling. And he's like, Here we go. Here we go, man. Here we go. And then you go like, We got to go. We got to go deep on this. We got to go. You got to fucking throw it all away. All this shit. It was dope, man. It was scary as fuck.

That is amazing. Can you introduce us to Bradley? I know.

I'm not I'm not ready to hang out with Bradley yet. I need a couple more years.

I'm not ready. I'm not concerned that he's ready to make a movie with me.

You guys should work with Bradley. I didn't say movie.

I don't want to hang out. I'm not ready to hang out with Bradley yet. I need a couple more years because there are people like that in my life who I feel like I'm going to meet Bradley Cooper, and I'll be like, I got to get more like Bradley Cooper. You know what I mean? Right now, I just got to...

I can't handle that identity crisis right now.

I can't handle that right now. I got to just figure out me.

He's crazy inspiring. I mean, again, our whole thing, our whole relationship went into a totally different gear, and he really inspired me in so many ways. It was pretty sick.

Are you going to do it again? Obviously, the material, you're getting a different look now, right? There's got to be cooler stuff.

Yeah.

Or a more variety of things, in in front of you that you can do next.

Yeah, for sure. That's the exciting part. What's funny is, again, I think because I'm 55, I'm not precious about it. I'm not like, Hey, now this is what I do. But I had these really very, what should be obvious realizations, but it's taken me a long time where I go like, I only want to do stuff that respond to.

I haven't had that revelation.

I was like, What? They're like, Yeah, I wanted to do it. It's like, what? And they're like, yeah, what did he do? And so it's been cool. Yeah, it has been different. I just finished this thing with Tony Gilroy, which It was pretty dope. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And with Pedro Pascal, and that was really awesome. And Olivia Wilde and a bunch. It was pretty dope. Just a small little thing, but really cool to be able to to do some different stuff. I'm pretty psyched about it.

Are you looking to downshift and to do a comedy again and be like, Oh, fuck, like safety. I feel like a lot. You know what I mean? You're like, Okay, yeah. Or is it-Let's let that Clyde sail out of the gate. Did you get a taste? Did you get a taste? And you're like, I want to fucking... Let's see what else is in there. Let me keep digging.

You know what? I think it's I don't think that I... I mean, that's always alluring, right? Just because if you read something really funny, you're like, Oh, that'd be really fun to go fuck around and do that. But at the same time, I think that it is much more about like... If it ends up being something that's funny, that's great. I just want to do something that feels... As you know, it takes time away from your life and your kids and all that stuff. So it's got to be something that feels valuable. I get to screw around like you guys do with Jason and Sean all the time. That scratches a lot of itch, broadly enough. Right.

Yeah, that's actually cool when your day job is like, Ripping with other talented funny friends. It's a little spoils you a little where you're like, I don't need to chase this high elsewhere. A little bit.

I hope you've been enjoying the interview with Will Arnett as much as we enjoyed doing it.

If you want to hear the second half where we're Will's morning routine, his kids dunking on him, an extended conversation about Benicio Del Toro, then you got to go over to the Staying Alive feed, anywhere you get your podcast. Hit subscribe or follow while you're there. We've got other great conversations with people you'll know and love, like Manzuckis, Marc Maren, Scott Ackerman, Casey Wilson, Ego Wotam, Eric Andre, et cetera, et cetera. Come listen to a very funny people telling us what they do to stay alive. You have been listening to Staying Alive with John Gabris and Adam Pally. A smartlist media production in association with Sirius XM. Executive producers are John Gabris, me, Adam Pally. Oh, you. Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Richard Corson, and Bernie Kaminski. That's me.