"RE-RELEASE: Ricky Gervais"

His name is Ricky Gervais. He likes a crisp IPA, a ripe international spy thriller, and he also happens to care deeply about humanity. Welcome to another wild & crazy episode of SmartLess. This episode was originally released on 12/7/2020.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Sean Hayes?

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• 0:44Sean Hayes?

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• 0:54Sean Hayes?

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• 1:34Sean Hayes?

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• 2:10Sean Hayes?

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• 2:52Will Arnett?

  Hey there. Will Arnett here from Smartless. It's the podcast where Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and I interview somebody. Two of us don't know who that person is because one of us has brought on a surprise guest. That's the whole conceit. I wish I could describe it better, but I'm not that smart. So it's Smartless, and it's starting now.

• 3:31Will Arnett?

  You never did a guest spot over on The Mork and Mindy, huh?

• 3:35Jason Bateman?

  No, but I would have.

• 3:36Will Arnett?

  What was your best guest spot when you were a kid?

• 3:40Jason Bateman?

  Knight Rider. Yeah, of course. Knight Rider just made my year. I was 15, and so I couldn't drive yet. So this was an opportunity not only to guest on the best show in the world, but also drive a Trans Am owned by The Hoff and see how they do all the tricks over there. They had like a little guy sitting behind the seat that was like looking through this mesh sort of headpiece in the seat.

• 4:07Will Arnett?

  Sure.

• 4:08Jason Bateman?

  I loved all the movie magic.

• 4:09Will Arnett?

  I was gonna say you would have made a good computer if they already had. You would have been a good. I would have cast you as a computer. I'd still cast you as a computer.

• 4:17Jason Bateman?

  Wait, because I know that about you.

• 4:19Sean Hayes?

  It was on the other day, not your episode, but Knight Rider. And Scotty and I turned it on and they did this like super fancy interior shot of the car. And I'm telling you right now, it was disgusting in there. It was like, there was like dust and like wrappers all around it and like all the scratches on it. Like it was not pristine at all.

• 4:43Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, the onset dresser was not great on that show.

• 4:46Will Arnett?

  Thirty-five years later, you're taking shots at, you know, transpo and picture cards. Great, great. We'll have the local on your ass by Monday. Hey, guys, I'm so glad that we're here today because we have a guest on our show. And we say this a lot, you know, deserves no introduction, but, but this is just another example of that. This is a person who has won almost every award it's possible to win in, well, you know what? I'll let him tell you about it. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ricky Gervais.

• 5:18Sean Hayes?

  Oh, it's a nice shot of the awards in the back.

• 5:24Jason Bateman?

  Look at all the awards.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Guys, it's not all of them. It's half of them. There's, there's lots of walls. I nearly laughed a couple of times when I was waiting.

• 5:44Sean Hayes?

  Wait, what did you win the, what did you win the guitar for?

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Oh, that, I, I didn't, I didn't win that.

• 5:49Jason Bateman?

  That's, that's just something for the ladies. When they're looking at your awards, let me play a little tune for you.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Oh, God. Oh, my words. What a joy. What a joy this is.

• 6:00Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's so nice to meet you. I've never met you. I'm a huge, huge, huge fan.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Thank you. How's it going, man?

• 6:05Sean Hayes?

  Good, man.

• 6:06Will Arnett?

  You guys don't know each other?

• 6:08Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:08Sean Hayes?

  No, um, you know, there's one time I saw you standing outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

• 6:13Will Arnett?

  Creepy.

• 6:14Sean Hayes?

  And there was nobody else and I was like, oh my God, that's Ricky. I, I, I'm a huge fan. Should I say something? And then I fast forward in my head if I just go, hey, hey Ricky, I'm Sean. And if, I didn't know if you knew who I was and then you'd be like, hey, and then it would just end. And so I was like, maybe I should skip that.

• 6:29Will Arnett?

  It's kind of how it's going now. It's kind of what's happening.

• 6:34Sean Hayes?

  Well, you know.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 6:35Sean Hayes?

  One time, I was at a Christmas party at Meg Ryan's house. This is decades ago. And Steven Spielberg was in there, and I'm talking, and I've never met him, and he's like, oh, my God. And I couldn't believe he knew who I was. We're talking and talking and talking for like, two hours. It was awesome. And then I made this huge goodbye. I was like, bye, Steven. Nice to meet you. I go out to the valet in front of the house, and nobody's there, right? And I'm waiting for my car, waiting for my car. And then Steven Spielberg walks up, and it's just us two. And we already had a massive goodbye. So then I was like, hey, how are you? And it was just awful.

• 7:09Will Arnett?

  It would have been better if he had just said, hi, how are you? I'm Steven. If in that moment.

• 7:15Sean Hayes?

  Or if he just said, bye, Benjamin. Bye, Benjamin.

• 7:20Will Arnett?

  Ricky, do you remember a few years ago, you were walking across the street in, here in LA? And I saw you and Jane walking across. And I pulled up, and I rolled my window down, and I sort of said, hey, can I get a pic? And you were, at first, you were like, oh, fuck, who's, yeah, how you doing?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  And you went, don't give me the fucking wave. It's Will. And you actually got out.

• 7:40Sean Hayes?

  We're gonna let the guest talk here in a second, but how many times have you guys been in the car, and you like, honk at somebody, and then you pull up alongside him, and you know that person? Oh, yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Oh, you mean angrily honk?

• 7:51Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Americans honk just anything, whether you're really, if, if an English person honks, it's like an affront. It's like, people get out, what the? But in America, it's just like, you honk for anything.

• 8:04Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 8:04Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  It's like, you've, you've, you've really devalued the honk.

• 8:08Sean Hayes?

  Especially in New York.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  You've devalued the honk to nothing.

• 8:10Will Arnett?

  I, I think you're right. We should take it back. I think that you're right.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Take it right back. So a honk is like, is like the finger or something. What the fuck are you doing?

• 8:18Sean Hayes?

  We should take him out of the car. Hold on, hold on a second. What about time differences? So you're in England, I'm in, in LA, so I'm drinking coffee. Was that ale I just saw?

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Ale.

• 8:27Sean Hayes?

  Is that what you people call it?

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Yes, forsooth. It was a mead, sire.

• 8:32Sean Hayes?

  Look at that. God, that looks good.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  It's a beer.

• 8:34Will Arnett?

  As opposed to a lager?

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Uh, well, it's a, it's an IPA, an Indian Pale Ale. Yes.

• 8:41Sean Hayes?

  And what is that, by the way? That, that, that came in after I stopped. So what is IPA?

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, am I the only drinker here now?

• 8:48Sean Hayes?

  Well, Sean.

• 8:49Will Arnett?

  No, no, no, Sean is a big drinker.

• 8:50Sean Hayes?

  Sean's still up from last night.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Good.

• 8:53Sean Hayes?

  What is, so the Indian Pale Ale, do we, do you know what that is?

• 8:58Speaker 03

  I can't be more specific.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  I mean, there's a three-word description.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  I don't know of any other drink that's got three words already to really specify what it is.

• 9:19Jason Bateman?

  But wait a second, though. But wait a second. Indians were not known for making beer when I was last drinking beer. So where did that come from?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Sorry, are you saying Indian in the real term, the subcontinent of India in Asia? Or what you call Indians, which are Native Americans? Just what you arrogantly called Indians?

• 9:41Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I just want to say, Ricky, just give Jason enough rope. He's about to hang himself. Go ahead, Jason.

• 9:47Sean Hayes?

  About to end my career. Leave some slack on it.

• 9:51Jason Bateman?

  But I'm assuming the Indian of Indian Pale Ale means people from India, yes?

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Yes, I think so. I think it was.

• 9:59Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  It was probably something equally racist in that sort of British colonial history, yeah. So we said, we're having that. We're having that. This is Indian Pale Ale, it's ours now. It's ours now. I don't, I honestly, we've gone into rounds beyond my knowledge of what I'm drinking. All I know is it's 5% alcohol, it's 6:00 PM. That's all I need to know.

• 10:24Sean Hayes?

  And do you have, is this a daily thing about this time that you have in Indian Pale Ale?

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 10:30Sean Hayes?

  Sure.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 10:31Jason Bateman?

  Are you only good for about 20 minutes?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Is this an intervention?

• 10:34Will Arnett?

  Yeah, this is Intervention the Podcast. I don't know if you knew about that. Come on in, Jane. Jane, come on in.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna jack up in a minute, is that all right?

• 10:43Will Arnett?

  Oh, that's fine. It's just drinking, we don't mind.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 10:47Will Arnett?

  So did you just, now you're rewarding yourself because you've just probably, probably just popped out of the gym. You're probably in and out.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  I have.

• 10:53Will Arnett?

  Yeah, have you? Would you, oh, of course, yeah, look at that.

• 10:56Sean Hayes?

  Showing us his guns.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  And that's all natural. People say to me, hey, you're on the juice. I go, fuck you. Fuck you.

• 11:03Will Arnett?

  But that's why they think. Because your rage is outrageous.

• 11:09Jason Bateman?

  You know, you do have a build, Ricky. You always have. Was there a time in your life when you were, when you were a gym rat? And you just love to just blast buys and back?

• 11:22Sean Hayes?

  Blast.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Listen.

• 11:25Sean Hayes?

  Blast.

• 11:26Jason Bateman?

  You must have, because that's, that, you're not born with, with pipes like that, are you?

• 11:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 11:30Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  It's a shame this is only audio, because they can't see me.

• 11:34Jason Bateman?

  Oh, they can imagine.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  But I'm posing at the moment, and I've got terrible, my fake tan is dripping off me.

• 11:40Jason Bateman?

  With a guitar and an IPA.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. I do, I do, I work out every day, I try to. It's getting harder and harder.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  But, and I probably shouldn't be, because everything is absolutely fucked on me now. I've got two sprained ankles, which I, which is terrible, I still run on. No, terrible knees, I can't bend without them cricking, I've got a bad back. My shoulders are fucked, I've got tennis elbow. Yeah, I'm absolutely, but I refuse to stop doing anything.

• 12:13Will Arnett?

  Mostly from street fighting, is that right? Because I heard you just.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm like, yeah.

• 12:18Jason Bateman?

  Hand to hand.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm punch drunk.

• 12:23Jason Bateman?

  But how, how old are you?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Fifty-nine.

• 12:25Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I'm about to be fifty-two, and everything hurts a little bit.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Fuck off, you're older than me.

• 12:30Jason Bateman?

  No. How dare you, this is, this hair is real, look at this.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I've had no work, I don't have two body waxes a day.

• 12:38Jason Bateman?

  Wait a second.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  And fucking botox, you twat.

• 12:40Jason Bateman?

  I'm on swim team, I can't have any hair on my body.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  You're only, he's only fifty-two, is he telling the truth, Will?

• 12:47Jason Bateman?

  No, I won't be fifty-two till January.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Christ.

• 12:50Will Arnett?

  He won't turn to the side, because then you'll see the Scotch tape and all the rubber bands and stuff. But he, from the front, he looks amazing, from the front.

• 12:59Sean Hayes?

  Ricky, do you have a place in LA, or do you only live in?

• 13:02Speaker 03

  I've got a place in New York, I've had it for a while, actually. But especially this year, I've spent most of my time in leafy Hampstead. Will's been here.

• 13:14Will Arnett?

  It's beautiful, it's a, it's a great spot, and you live next to the vicar.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  I do, yeah.

• 13:19Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, who is that?

• 13:22Speaker 03

  It's just a vicar. He said the vicar, but it's a vicar. There's thousands that I live next to one of them.

• 13:29Sean Hayes?

  What's a vicar?

• 13:31Speaker 03

  A vicar?

• 13:31Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  You don't know what a vicar is?

• 13:33Sean Hayes?

  Uh oh.

• 13:34Will Arnett?

  Allow Ricky to relieve you of your ignorance. Go ahead Ricky.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  A vicar?

• 13:39Sean Hayes?

  It's a deep list.

• 13:40Will Arnett?

  Like a preacher, like a preacher, like a local priest.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:43Sean Hayes?

  So you live next to a priest?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  A vicar, yeah, it's true.

• 13:47Sean Hayes?

  You live next to a priest's house?

• 13:50Speaker 03

  This podcast is, I mean, it's like, it's like I'm teaching you lot English. I say a sentence and then I have to explain it. I mean, we spent three minutes on what's Indian pale ale. It's not that important. What's a vicar? Fucking hell.

• 14:07Will Arnett?

  Well, you, listen, you've spent time with Bateman before, for Christ's sake. You know what you're getting into.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  I have. I couldn't believe my luck. I was a, I was a huge fan of Teen Wolf.

• 14:20Will Arnett?

  Sure, two.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Two? Oh, I haven't seen two.

• 14:24Sean Hayes?

  No.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  You're not, you're not, ah.

• 14:27Will Arnett?

  Can I, so, so can I tell you, so the first time Ricky that I became aware of you was from watching The Office. And Janine Groffalo had videotapes at the time of The Office and she brought them back and she gave them to Amy and me. And we watched and we were about to start Arrested Development and Jason and I started watching both obsessively. And we were just absolutely obsessed with The Office and we just thought, we'd never seen anything like it. It was just brilliant. And I remember about, you were coming, you would come to LA for maybe the Golden Globes or something and, and we met briefly. And we exchanged numbers and you were going to come to the set of Arrested Development, you remember? And I remember saying to the, the set P A, I said, can I get a drive on at the lot?

• 15:10Will Arnett?

  And she said, yeah, give me the name. And I said Ricky Gervais. And you weren't yet a household name in this country.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Still not.

• 15:16Will Arnett?

  And she said, well, and she said, what is it? I said Ricky, can you, and she said, can you spell it for me? And I actually stopped her and I said, I want you to remember this moment of you not knowing this name. Because you're going to be really. He embarrassed when you look back at it. And she was like, okay, whatever. And, uh, and you came, and that was our first experience. And we were just, Jason, do you remember how blown away we were back? We couldn't.

• 15:42Jason Bateman?

  I couldn't get enough of that show. And I, I still, it's uncomfortable for me to even talk to Ricky. I'm a little starstruck. He, the, it was.

• 15:50Will Arnett?

  Oh, I, I, I ended up getting enough of it. I ended up getting enough of it, but you.

• 15:53Jason Bateman?

  It, uh, that was at the very beginning of the show. It, that and Jeffrey Tambor shaped, at least for me, the whole comedic tone of Arrested Development.

• 16:02Will Arnett?

  Hundred percent.

• 16:03Jason Bateman?

  I, I kinda knew that there was that kinda funny, but I'd never seen it executed so consistently. And that was just sort of my north star, what I was trying to, you know, point towards.

• 16:13Will Arnett?

  It was, it was a weird way to say this, but it was liberating to watch you in that show. It really was. It opened up a whole other, for me anyway, it felt like it opened up a whole other way of like, okay, this, this is a possibility to go.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  If he's not acting well, we can all get away with it.

• 16:29Will Arnett?

  Then I can do, yeah, I mean.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  If he's just mumbling and not looking.

• 16:33Will Arnett?

  Yeah, he makes me look like a genius. I mean.

• 16:36Jason Bateman?

  The comedy of discomfort and, and awkward pauses and, and loss of dignity with just sort of a look or a moment as opposed to jokes or anything like that. And, and that the length of those episodes allowed for that kind of, that editorial pace too, is something that we sort of tried for. I don't think we could with, with our format, but, uh.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Well, I think it was lucky the format allowed me to do that with a fake documentary, because I was emulating something. I was trying to emulate a very ordinary man who wanted to be famous. So it was sort of, it was easy to not be a trained actor doing that. Do you know what I mean?

• 17:12Will Arnett?

  Yeah, of course, but what, what was the genesis? We've never really, I'm sure you've had to explain it before.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  It was an impression I used to do of like, uh, bosses and stuff. I worked in an office for like 10 years. So it was like a Frankenstein of people I'd met growing up. And you suddenly, and I was always, I was always the idiot. I was always trying to make people laugh and, you know, I, I was that guy. I was sort of that guy without ambition, or rather without, without nerve. I think I'd lost my nerve. Been a failed musician after like five years of trying. I got a normal job and then I worked my way up to sort of middle management um in an office like that. In fact, the the the little pre pilot that we shot, I went back to the office I used to work in. And I used mates as extras and I just I just ad libbed around this character showing off to the camera.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  And the the seed of that was uh we had ten years of these quaint docu soaps in the nineties on British TV. The new big thing was docu soap. We had one called Airport. We had one called Hotel. We had one called um Lina, was a sat on a and it was just normal people filmed. And they'd become sort of stars for ten minutes.

• 18:22Jason Bateman?

  Hmm.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  And of course nowadays they become stars forever and make millions. But then it was that was their fifteen minutes of fame and you know you wheel them out. So it was ordinary people wanting to be famous.

• 18:34Jason Bateman?

  And was it the same type of format? Would they address camera? Would there be testimonials and things like that?

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Uh yeah, there there was usually a narration as well. But um we we didn't do that, but there was often it was things like. The cement for the swimming pool is late and they have to open in an hour. It was stuff like that.

• 18:53Jason Bateman?

  Right. Was it was sort of a Michael Apted? Was it inspired by the Up series at all? Uh do you think?

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Well, that was that's the the greatest. That's incredible. I mean, that's still going and and uh.

• 19:04Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that but that's that really is beautiful social commentary.

• 19:09Jason Bateman?

  Sure.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  These got watered down, you know, and then people would be doing them because they think, well, I can be famous. Everyone says I'm a laugh. I'll go on there. And and it's like there was suddenly too much, you know. So then it was people trying to be famous. And so that's what I picked up on with Brent that. He he was he was a bit sad. He was forgotten and he thought now's my chance. And if it wasn't a fake documentary, it wouldn't work.

• 19:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Because once you know why David Brent is acting like that, it's it's it's so tangible. It's it's so great that he just wants to be loved and famous.

• 19:44Jason Bateman?

  And it's heartbreaking in a hilarious way, yeah.

• 19:47Jason Bateman?

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• 20:27Sean Hayes?

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• 22:28Sean Hayes?

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• 22:43Will Arnett?

  I think that one of the things that I, certainly I personally really connect with what you do is, is it that desperation? So many of your characters have this sort of misplaced or they're just so desperate for whatever it is.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  It's so funny. It's so funny and sad at the same time that I think the funniest characters, and obviously in real life, you know, the documentary aspect of it, we like, real life is the most dramatic and the funniest. Comedy and fiction can only try to emulate all those things in real life. So, but someone trying to be funny and is successful isn't as funny as someone who doesn't want to be funny and wants to be taken seriously.

• 23:28Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  So my favorite characters are those people that demanded being taken seriously. And so it undermines everything. Someone being pretentious and then slipping on a banana skin is funnier than a clown slipping on a banana skin because we know the clown doesn't care. He wants to slip on a... So I think when someone wants to be taken seriously or says things like, "I am a comedian", that's funny. I remember, I remember getting a letter soon after The Office, right, by someone writing to get a part. And the letter started, "Dear Mr. Gervais, I am a brilliant actor." And I thought it was...

• 24:05Will Arnett?

  Signed, Sean.

• 24:08Sean Hayes?

  Oh, so you got it. You got it.

• 24:11Jason Bateman?

  Because I didn't, I still haven't heard, so I don't know if you got it.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, desperation's funny, anger's funny, people with no sense of humor is funny, people with no sense of humor is funny.

• 24:22Jason Bateman?

  One of the things I think is so admirable about you, and there's no question here, so don't feel the need to respond, because I know your humility will keep you from doing that, but your, all the vulnerability that you put into, all the vulnerability that you put into David Brent and, and many other characters that you play, is really the root of the, of the comedy. The man is so broken and, and a mess inside, that that is what I find so heartbreakingly hilarious about it. Yet, on your, your stand-up, it is almost the polar opposite of that, in that there's so much confidence and judgment, sort of the, the character that you play, and you can still get equal laughs with that. So the fact that you're able to make people, you know, double over.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Well, that's very interesting, because, um, I don't think you need, stand-up's slightly different. Stand-up is slightly different to fiction in the sense that when you do a sitcom or a film or whatever, you do your best and you try and, you try and make the plot work and the characters work and the art, and you do all that, and then you put it out there and there's nothing you can do about it. With stand-up, you do it every night and the audience, it's more like, um, evolution by natural selection, because they choose the bits for you. It's more like a science, because it either works or it doesn't. And by the end, you've got a perfect thing that works every night to everyone around the world, because it's tried and tested, it's, you know, they've, they've chosen it for you. So that's slightly different. So what you don't want with stand-up is an audience to feel sorry for you, because you haven't got time.

• 25:52Jason Bateman?

  You don't want that.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  No, you don't want that, no, because, because it's the purest, like the purest, sorry, because it's the purest, because jokes are more of an intellectual pursuit. You don't really need a context for jokes. Again, because they work or they don't. A joke can sort of work on the page, you can read a joke and it still works, you don't need someone telling it. Obviously, you add to that. I think my favorite stand-ups do add to that. They've got a context, they, they build character.

• 26:18Jason Bateman?

  They've got props.

• 26:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:20Jason Bateman?

  Props in a bag. Sure. Those are your favorite stand-ups. You love a prop comic, be honest.

• 26:26Will Arnett?

  You are being humble here. What I'm trying to say is that you're, the comedic flavor, right, your comedy comes from vulnerability, let's say, in David Brent, but with the stand-up, it comes from sort of this feigned, brash arrogance, and that you're able to do both so well, I find just incredible.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Well, that's just because it's another character and you commit to it, and that evolves as well.

• 26:48Will Arnett?

  But you can't just write a bunch of jokes and anybody can say them and they're gonna get the same laugh.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  No, but you can, because like, by the time humanity came around, I'd sort of hit that sweet spot where the audience had known me for 15 years, so they knew what I was doing, they knew the irony, they understood the nuance without me having to explain it, so I could come out and hit the ground running. The important thing is this, behind the scenes, right, I think with particularly stand-up, is traditionally, it's a low status thing, it's a, we're a court jester, we go out there with the other peasants and we tease the king, okay? And everyone knows what comedians earn these days, so I can't really go out there and pretend to be struggling, right? I think that would be nauseating and dishonest.

• 27:34Will Arnett?

  I would like to see you try, though.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I keep my low status in two ways. One, I invite them behind the curtain, I say, "What, you think it's plain sailing, do you? Being rich?", "Well, look what happened to me when I met so-and-so", or, "First time I took a private jet, they thought I was the cook", so I do all that, right? And the other way I do it is I talk about things where I'm worse off than them. I talk about being fat and old and in pain and going bald, and, do you know what I mean? And being hated by the press.

• 28:01Will Arnett?

  I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you mean. But let me, do you think, I mean, Ricky, you started as a stand, you were doing stand-up before, right? You'd been doing stand-up off and on, yeah, for years?

• 28:13Speaker 03

  No, I started, I started before The Office, but I only started in about 1999, I'd say, was my first try.

• 28:23Will Arnett?

  And then you started doing that in 99, then The Office hits, and then over the last 10 years or 15 years, as you've grown and done more and more stand-up, you kind of, you build that currency, right, with your audience, like that... That's the thing, you build the momentum of that sort of relationship that you have.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have to go out there and I, and I wanna be the one that says the wrong thing. Whatever, whatever the current regime is, I have to say the wrong thing. I have to go against the grain. Which is why it was hard for the last sort of few years, you know, I, I didn't realise half the people would agree with those things on face value. So irony was put in danger recently.

• 29:01Will Arnett?

  I remember, I remember going to that small little theatre, you were working stuff out. I remember like a couple of years ago, I came up there.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:08Will Arnett?

  And you were working out jokes in the audience. And I remember you, first of all, the relationship was, they knew you, they came because they were huge fans. You had a limited number of seats. It was basically free, but you were working stuff out. And the relationship was, hey, I'm trying stuff and some stuff was, you know, over the line for them or whatever. But you were figuring out.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Well, that's the thing, you know, um, you do have to find the funny, but you have to go for it and you have to be able to play. And that's the problem again with today as well, because I've done shows that I'm trying stuff out and it's been reviewed. And I'm gonna go, well, that's mad. You, you can't do that. You can't, you can't do someone who's just started a painting going, it's rubbish. I haven't done it yet. I've just done the back, you know, it's, it's crazy. So you, you have to fight against that. And um, I try and keep politics, explicit politics, out of comedy. Cause I think if you're relying on the audience agreeing with you and getting a round of applause, it loses something comedically. I want my jokes to be liked. I don't care whether they're right wing or, or, or left wing or whatever, right?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Cause the joke either works or it doesn't. And it actually shouldn't matter. It's meaningless anyway nowadays, left and right wing. It's, it's, it's a meaningless term. But I think it's important that you evolve, but not with those reasons. You don't evolve because it might be taken the wrong way. You don't evolve because you might be bullied by a reviewer. You don't evolve because you want everyone to like it. That gets you nowhere.

• 30:35Sean Hayes?

  When did that happen for you? Because that's a certain fearlessness that I think you have to achieve. Uh, you, you can't, I'm sure there was part of you when you were much younger that you.

• 30:45Will Arnett?

  Didn't have that, right?

• 30:46Speaker 03

  I've probably got more fear now, but you have to fight it. You have to be, you, you, you have to know that art is being brave. It is being brave and putting it out there.

• 30:55Will Arnett?

  Cause you've got more to lose now, right?

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Well, it just makes me angry. It makes me angry if people don't get something or so, so that makes me work harder to still get the same joke out there and everyone like it and be able to defend it and sleep at night, which I always have done. There's this myth that I, I go out there and I say what I want and I don't care about what people think of me. That's just not true. It, it, it's, it's, it's a hell of a challenge to, um.

• 31:22Will Arnett?

  I do love it what you do say at the end of it. I don't care, you know?

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 31:26Will Arnett?

  I love that.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  And that's, that's marketing.

• 31:29Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  And it, and it, and it, you have to be militant about it. You have to act like you don't care.

• 31:33Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Um, but actually, you know, it annoys me when I, you know, a, a, any sort of, um, someone thinks that you've, you've, you've done this or you've gone too far or I wanna go, well, I've worked that joke for a year with like hundreds of thousands of people. You've thought about it for three seconds and you've got it wrong.

• 31:51Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  I think because reviews now are so fast and people don't think there's no nuance on social media. Like 10 years ago, say 20 years ago, if someone complained about something, it would make me think, I'd go, oh God, I, you know, really? Now someone says I'm offended. I go, yeah, of course you are. Everyone is. It doesn't matter.

• 32:07Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I brought this up before that you had that great tweet that's been shared millions of times, I think now, would you say? Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  I know. It, it, people even understand that and they still fall for it. They still think, no, this is different. Uh, I did a tweet when I was do- doing the warm up for this new show. I said, um, guys, are there any things I should never joke about? And of course, everything people said was funny. Everything people said was funny. They, this disease, this thing that one person said, um, losing two children. Which I thought was just an amazing thing to tweet. Just an amazing.

• 32:43Will Arnett?

  As opposed to one?

• 32:44Speaker 03

  I think so, so specific, so specific.

• 32:49Will Arnett?

  It's sadder than one, but funnier than three.

• 32:53Will Arnett?

  That's a definite for sure. I remember, I said something similar years ago on Twitter for you, but something along the lines like, apropos of nothing, like, I hope you're not offended. And all these people immediately got on me, a few people sort of saying like, well, what is it you're talking about? They were pre-offended.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:11Will Arnett?

  And I hadn't even said anything.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 33:15Will Arnett?

  So, yeah, so you're right, it's watered it down. Who gives a shit?

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Because it amplifies it, you know, Twitter is like reading every toilet wall in the world, okay? And when you look at it like that, you shouldn't ever be offended by anything on Twitter.

• 33:28Sean Hayes?

  But it also depends on the messenger, like, I think you are a messenger of that. Like you said, like, it's all branding and marketing, that's who you are. It's kind of like Don Rickles, who I thought was always hilarious. He was so offensive to everybody he met, but because it was Don, it was almost okay. But if it's somebody else trying, it's not gonna work.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Well, that's the other thing as well. It's like, I'm offended when a comedian says sorry.

• 33:53Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Because it usually means they've got a film coming out or something.

• 33:59Sean Hayes?

  The last, the last big venue stand-up I went to was you at the Hollywood Highland, I don't know how many years ago. That business of big venue for stand-ups.

• 34:11Will Arnett?

  Ricky would text me from time to time on his way to an arena, just like, oh, God, 18,000 tonight. I don't even know if it's a big number. Sorry, I've gotta go.

• 34:23Sean Hayes?

  Lost perspective.

• 34:23Will Arnett?

  18,000 people are waiting, sorry, I've gotta dash.

• 34:25Sean Hayes?

  Wait, Ricky, can I ask you something? Because I don't know if I'm, I hope I get to see you again, I just.

• 34:31Jason Bateman?

  So far, it's not looking great.

• 34:32Sean Hayes?

  It's not looking good. I think you're brilliant, but, you know, I always wanted to ask you, like. I always found it interesting, you and I share several things in common. Like, I started out really early wanting to be a pop star like you. But you kind of succeeded with an album and everything. And we're both gay, right?

• 34:51Jason Bateman?

  I don't think he was ready for that. I don't think he was ready for that. It's not this podcast.

• 34:56Will Arnett?

  This episode is about to go huge.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  We've both slept with Bainton, yeah.

• 35:00Jason Bateman?

  We're guys.

• 35:02Sean Hayes?

  And live to tell about it.

• 35:03Jason Bateman?

  Not this podcast.

• 35:04Sean Hayes?

  Um, no, but-

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Can I go and get a beer?

• 35:06Sean Hayes?

  Oh.

• 35:06Will Arnett?

  Yeah, go get a beer. Hang on, let him go get a beer.

• 35:08Sean Hayes?

  Okay, good.

• 35:10Jason Bateman?

  Hi, guys.

• 35:11Sean Hayes?

  Hi. JB, what happened to your hand?

• 35:13Jason Bateman?

  Oh, I was pulling my golf bag out of the backseat of my Tesla.

• 35:18Sean Hayes?

  Oh, God. Is that, wait, is all of that true so far?

• 35:21Jason Bateman?

  And I sprained the tip of my ring finger.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:26Sean Hayes?

  Well, I'm glad you got ill. So maybe we can get back to my question about music.

• 35:29Will Arnett?

  Sean, sorry.

• 35:29Sean Hayes?

  So, listen.

• 35:31Will Arnett?

  Jesus, Sean.

• 35:33Jason Bateman?

  Keep us on the rails, Sean.

• 35:34Sean Hayes?

  I'm actually, I'm actually interested just because I find it interesting that you were also very seriously, like, I've seen those music videos and I just thought it was interesting that you pursued that. And were you all in on that and then it didn't work out? Or were you pursuing that and acting at the same time or whatever made you famous? You know, and then you had it because it didn't work out?

• 35:55Speaker 03

  All in, yeah, all in. But, but in retrospect, did it all wrong. Um, I, I was in a band-

• 36:00Sean Hayes?

  Because I love those songs, by the way.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Thank you. Um, it was, it was very fast. It was, it came and went very, very quickly. And I think you only know about it now because I'm famous for something else and those pictures and videos pop up on Jimmy Fallon. So like anyone else in every generation, um, I think it was-

• 36:19Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I found it fascinating because I was pursuing the same thing and I also then went into comedy.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  Well, it, okay, so it started at, at college and we did a demo tape and we got signed and we did two singles and then we were dropped. And it was like, it started and finished within a year and that was it.

• 36:35Will Arnett?

  Oh, wow.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  You know? I think even if it had been a success then, in 1984, whatever it was, it would still have been over quickly.

• 36:43Sean Hayes?

  But there are some bands that were good back then that are still around, like-

• 36:46Will Arnett?

  And would you and Rick Astley have done it?

• 36:48Sean Hayes?

  Duet, do you think you and Rick would have?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  It would have.

• 36:50Sean Hayes?

  A wham or?

• 36:51Speaker 03

  It would have certainly been, um, uh, you know, we started with the sort of the hair and makeup and synth pop. But this, this is the mistake I made. The mistake I made was I wanted to be a pop star and I should have wanted to be a musician.

• 37:04Sean Hayes?

  Uh huh.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Um, and I, when, when I started doing this, I realized that I, I, you know, I consciously and militantly called myself a writer director. So people didn't think that I, I just wanted to be on telly because I didn't. And, um, I came to it very wary. I came to this very, very wary, not because of the music thing, but because of, I think the press in England. And I never revered fame. I never, I've never asked for an autograph. I've never been impressed by seeing a famous person. And I, and I thought, I thought that of myself. I thought the people I admire, I admire because they've done something absolutely brilliant. But my heroes are like scientists and things like that, but you know.

• 37:45Sean Hayes?

  And, and Andrew Ridgely.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So.

• 37:51Sean Hayes?

  Right, right.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  So I fe- I feared fame. I didn't wanna, I, I didn't sign that deal with the devil, make me famous and you can go through my bins. In fact, I probably feared it too much. I was probably two minutes. Now I'm sort of chilled and, and, and it's fine, you know.

• 38:05Sean Hayes?

  But don't you think people that have fame wanted it?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Uh, what, to a certain degree, yeah. But, uh, uh, the other thing is it's a bit ambiguous when you're an actor, isn't it? Because I think you're allowed to really want to be an actor and because it's fun and it's great and it's interesting and it's better than most jobs. Uh, uh, without saying, I wanna be famous. I, I think it can be, because if you're a successful actor, you're probably a famous actor. But, um.

• 38:30Sean Hayes?

  Thank you.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Uh, and certainly there was easier routes to being an actor than actually writing and directing a sitcom for three years. Whatever. There's easier route. In fact, it annoyed me once when the office broke and it seemed like I was, I was just famous overnight without all the work. Someone on the red carpet said to me, uh, what advice would you give, uh, anyone else who wants to be famous like you? And I said, go out and kill a prostitute.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  And they looked at me like I was mental.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  It just really annoyed me. Like that, like there's such easier ways to be famous than actually writing a sitcom from scratch. Right, right. You know, I mean, there's.

• 39:14Sean Hayes?

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• 39:55Sean Hayes?

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• 40:34Sean Hayes?

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• 41:23Sean Hayes?

  Do offers come to you and you kind of flirt with that? Or do you only create your own things and only want to create your own?

• 41:28Speaker 03

  They've, I think the offers have dried up because it's been no for like 10 years that I've used to be busy. And, and you start off in your flat. And I remember, I think the, the second episode of The Office had gone out in like 2001. And my agent got a call from a, a, a studio making this movie and they sent me the script. And I said, what part am I? And they said, the lead. And I said, it says here he's 26, right? And I was 39 at the time, I was sort of 40. And they went, we can change that. And I, I thought, okay. And I said, I think you need, I said, who's gonna go and see this? No one knows me. And they went quiet. And I went, you need John Cusack for this. And they sort of went, okay, well, thanks for the call.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  And in my head, I was oozing integrity and they were going, what a guy. But actually, they probably went, what a fucking idiot. Who do you think he is turning down a lead movie? He's not gonna get a lead.

• 42:22Sean Hayes?

  That's interesting.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  And so, and so it was no because I was busy. It was no all the way. The first one that I said yes to, uh, cause I read it, the first one I read, actually. Um, but Jane would read them and say, no, no, no, or you might, uh. And the first one I did that I, I thought, if I don't do this, I'll never do one was Ghost Town. Um, and it just, I was reading it and I was laughing and I thought, this is me.

• 42:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I loved it.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  This is, this is me, this is written for me. And so I, I did it and I loved it, but, um, it's still, it, it still doesn't feel like mine. The things, I've done loads of things. I've popped up in things. I've done the Golden Globes. I've done this and that. But if I was to say, what have you done? I'd, I'd list, you know, three or four sitcoms, a, a couple of movies and my stand-up. That's what I'd say was mine.

• 43:09Sean Hayes?

  Right, right.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean?

• 43:10Sean Hayes?

  Is Jane, uh, your filter of pretty much, like, is she your go-to barometer of, of everything?

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, now I don't even, I say no to everything because I'm sort of busy. But when I'm working stuff out, yeah, I, I run things by her. Um, uh, if I go for a run and I've got an idea for a routine, I come back and I say, what do you think of this? And she says, please don't do that. I know it's, I know it's good. I know.

• 43:36Will Arnett?

  I love how many times we've, we've been fucking around or having dinner or whatever. And how many times Jane has said, you guys have to keep your voice down.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Shut the window.

• 43:44Will Arnett?

  Shut the window.

• 43:47Jason Bateman?

  I have one more question about The Office. So it was an incredible success on its own. And then when it got brought here to America, another incredible success and feather in your cap with that. Was it comfortable or uncomfortable to watch it take its, I don't know, necessary or unnecessary, slight comedic tone shift to an American pacing and whatnot?

• 44:12Speaker 03

  I, you've got to think that it's not your baby. You think that, you know.

• 44:18Will Arnett?

  Ricky, just including that, because I was sort of going off what Jason's saying. It was such a huge shift. When you see, it changed the way, certainly in this country, people started making comedies. For sure, there was such a direct effect. I remember watching somebody on a very fame, who created a very famous, successful sitcom here, saying, you know, and then we decided in the pilot, why not have the characters talk to the camera? And I thought, shut up.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  Well, the thing is, I didn't invent the genre. In fact, my biggest influence, I think, writing it, there was someone else's work was Spinal Tap, which is a fake documentary. That's just, I mean, that's no, no one owns fake documentary. I suppose what was different, slightly different about it was that it was, we left the boring bits in. Like David Brent made bad jokes and no one laughed. I, I, I wanted that. I want to explore that gap, that social, that, because that's the worst thing for me. I don't get embarrassed, but I get embarrassed for other people. If, if we're in a group and someone makes a bad joke and no one laughs, I just want to go back in time and go, right, do it like this. Let's do this again.

• 45:22Will Arnett?

  And Ricky, what you guys did so well on the show, and I remember this kind of reminds me of when, when Mitch Hurwitz was putting together the pilot of Arrested, what, what you've done so well is.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Anyone listening, Arrested is short for Arrested Development. It's a TV show. He just, he leaves off the last word. It's just, we haven't got, there's limited time. If we, I worked out that if we said Arrested Development every time, it'd be three months of our life.

• 45:48Will Arnett?

  Great, now we've got to go cut that out. But you.

• 45:52Will Arnett?

  By the way, Ricky has called me on that like out loud in a restaurant. Arrested Development. So, but, but you, what you did such a great job is, and then when you put that show together, you recognized you'd have David Brent do the worst joke or do something super embarrassing, and then you always made sure to anchor that by looking at the reactions of the people around him. You whip hand or whatever, and that's what happened. I remember with Arrested, hang on, Development. But, but that Mitch said that when he was putting the pilot together of Arrested Development, that he had, uh, do, he was like, it's not working. And he realized that he needed to have all these crazy characters do stuff, and he needed to see Jason's reaction to it, because that put it in the context.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  Well, that to me is, that to me is the comedy. Someone doing something weird is one part of it, but it's how does it fall? What's the, what's the fallout of it? That's, that's what's always interesting to me. And again, I learned that from Laurel and Hardy. So Stan doing something stupid was funny, but it affecting Ollie was the joke for me. That's what comedy, some comedy didn't have before that. There was no fallout. No one got hurt in the wake of someone doing something ridiculous. Like, people would be acting and they'd be saying something, but they'd be acting like he'd said something normal. And so you have to react to that, people.

• 47:10Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, there's nothing weird about Martians on Mars. You put a Martian on Earth, that's, that's, that's interesting.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  Well, that's another good, very good point, because that's why, um, again, David Brent was the boss. Um, and so he shouldn't have been acting like that. He should have been the grown up, but he was acting like the child. So again, it was, the, the big thing there was, you know, men as boys and women as adults, which again, I think is reflected, but again, Laurel and Hardy did that. The Laurel and Hardy, they were children and their wives had to catch them doing naughty things. Who was it that said steal from the best? And, and I certainly have in, um, you know, Laurel and Hardy and, and Chris Guest and those guys.

• 47:50Sean Hayes?

  So Ricky, what, what do you, because I'm like, this is gonna be over and then.

• 47:55Jason Bateman?

  And he'll never talk to you again.

• 47:56Sean Hayes?

  And we're gonna go, and in my mind, you go off and you start writing and creating and do. Doing all of these things, but what is the reality like? What is your days consist of? What do you, what do you do? Like, what will you do tonight?

• 48:08Speaker 03

  I'll, uh, I'll go and watch, um.

• 48:10Will Arnett?

  Arrested.

• 48:11Jason Bateman?

  Arrested.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  A Scandi noir serial killer or spy thriller on Netflix or Amazon Prime or Walter Presents or BBC Four. I want European or Middle Eastern or South American drama. I've just found, I've just found now that with all these scripts, I can find the best dramas in the world and.

• 48:32Sean Hayes?

  Why don't you be in one? Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Cause I can't, I can't speak any languages. And also.

• 48:36Sean Hayes?

  What about English?

• 48:37Speaker 03

  I see my favorite thing, right? This Scandi drama is like series three. And suddenly an Englishman or an American pops up and I go, oh, fucking hell.

• 48:46Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  They just, they just ruin it.

• 48:48Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  They just fucking ruin it.

• 48:52Will Arnett?

  Have you watched Long Grenage, otherwise known as Spiral, that French cop show?

• 48:56Speaker 03

  It's, it might be one of the best programs ever.

• 48:59Will Arnett?

  Me too.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Amazing. Another one as well. There's only one thing that might even be better than that. Um, and that's The Bureau. Have you seen it? Le Bureau.

• 49:06Will Arnett?

  Of course, it's incredible.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  It's incredible. It's incredible.

• 49:09Will Arnett?

  There's a great Belgian show as well called The Break. Have you seen about this?

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Amazing. Have you seen, oh, the twelve, another Belgian thing, the twelfth.

• 49:16Will Arnett?

  The twelfth.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 49:18Sean Hayes?

  Wait, did you, have you guys seen Quincy?

• 49:22Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, and what about Chicago Fire, guys?

• 49:25Will Arnett?

  These guys, Jason spends all his time trying to figure out how IPA is made. So he doesn't have time.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  Well, that's, that's, so, so, okay, to quickly answer, um, uh, I get up, I have a coffee, breakfast, we go for a, a long walk, which is, which is habit now. We get that where we used to do that when we were allowed to go out one hour in lockdown.

• 49:45Sean Hayes?

  Dogs, cats? I know you have Pickle.

• 49:47Jason Bateman?

  You don't walk a cat, you stupid ass.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Well, I, I, my, my, our cat died at the beginning of lockdown. We just got a new one.

• 49:53Jason Bateman?

  You see what you've done, Sean?

• 49:55Will Arnett?

  Way to go, Sean, you fucking dick.

• 49:58Jason Bateman?

  Go on, sorry. So you're walking the cats?

• 50:00Speaker 03

  No, we go for a walk, just, I go for a walk, an hour's walk. I scrabble dogs.

• 50:05Will Arnett?

  Ricky, why don't you and Jane have a dog? Because I know you love dogs, I know, but why are you guys more, are you consider yourself cat people? Or why don't you have a dog?

• 50:12Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I, I, I absolutely love dogs. I love, I love all animals. I think to me, all animals are unconditionally perfect and beautiful. And, and you know, the only animal that I think you can ethically keep is, is a, is a pet, a domesticated animal. Uh, but I love all animals. But the reason I don't have a dog is, we travel too much and a cat, you can have a cat sitter, it doesn't care. Okay?

• 50:34Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  A dog, I can't stand the dog. The dog doesn't understand. They have an emotional intelligence beyond some people. I can't bear that I have to travel so often with a dog.

• 50:45Jason Bateman?

  So wait, well, then what happens with the cat? The cat just stays home? You leave out a big, big bowl of milk and, and?

• 50:50Speaker 03

  No, we have people look after it, don't we, you fool?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Like the Flintstones.

• 50:57Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Yeah. So your guess is that cats are so emotionally stable and secure? That you can go travel around doing all your shows for a couple of weeks and they're good. But a dog, your guess is that they're just emotional basket cases and they need you there a little bit more often than once every couple of weeks?

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Well, it's, it's, it's, it's based on, um, it's based on knowledge.

• 51:18Will Arnett?

  No.

• 51:19Sean Hayes?

  Science, science.

• 51:20Jason Bateman?

  Cause, cause of all the interviews they've done with the cats and the dogs?

• 51:25Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. So is Jane, is Jane a dog or a cat?

• 51:28Jason Bateman?

  Jane's a woman.

• 51:29Sean Hayes?

  Oh, no, I'm kidding. Is she? Is she like independent? Like you can go away and I don't, I don't need to see you? Or is she a dog like where she's like, I, I'm gonna miss you. I need you back.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. Oh, um, uh, uh, oh, I see.

• 51:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I was trying to elevate.

• 51:45Jason Bateman?

  Jane's got some sexy indifference, like a cat, right? It's like she, she doesn't really need you. She's all fine by herself, you know, right?

• 51:53Speaker 03

  No, Jane, Jane, um, Jane.

• 51:55Jason Bateman?

  She needs you.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  I'd like to, I'd like to think Jane needs me.

• 51:59Will Arnett?

  Wait, wait, wait. Can you get through that one more time without laughing? That would be great. We're, we're still rolling. She needs you and then don't laugh. She does need you. And you could bring the dog, you know, because you you you're only gone a couple a night here, a night there, because you've got to go and do these arenas and God bless you. And I feel the same way. I need to do arenas too. But so let me ask you this. So what do you what do you think? You've been at home. You've been working on. I know you're working on.

• 52:27Jason Bateman?

  Your body.

• 52:28Will Arnett?

  Three.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  I'm working on my body now.

• 52:32Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  That's why you can't see my hands.

• 52:34Will Arnett?

  Oh, he's doing he's doing leg lifts. He's doing leg lifts under the table. But you've written series three of Afterlife. Yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I did that quite quickly.

• 52:45Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 52:45Jason Bateman?

  And series three is is.

• 52:47Sean Hayes?

  Season three.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Season three, yeah.

• 52:50Will Arnett?

  Sorry, we're European.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  And that's ready before sort of workshopping and, you know, and all that. And I've basically cast it in my head and that's ready to go. We're filming in April. So I feel like I fill the gap. I can't do gigs at the moment. Again, that's ready to go. In fact, all my gigs this year, I've been postponed till next year. So I do that after I film. So that's ready to go.

• 53:12Jason Bateman?

  What about the jokes in that that might be topical that are not going to work next year? Or you just kind of update those?

• 53:16Speaker 03

  Well, luckily, when you're still doing stuff about, you know, Hitler and famine.

• 53:22Jason Bateman?

  Uh huh.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  AIDS.

• 53:23Jason Bateman?

  Sure.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  It's pretty fucking timeless.

• 53:25Jason Bateman?

  Evergreens, yeah.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:27Will Arnett?

  Good for you.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  We're always we're luckily, we'll always have killer diseases and fascism. So.

• 53:35Jason Bateman?

  Keeps us going.

• 53:36Will Arnett?

  How do you think that looks? So you're ready to go back on the road. You've been working on your stand up sort of nonstop and refining it.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  I will have to change it slightly. I will have to. I think depending on what what happens, because I think if a vaccine comes in I think people will want to forget it. And so it wouldn't be it wouldn't be timeless. And if I was doing it now, I'd start with it. In fact, I did a couple of little warmups when we were doing socially distance gigs. And I started off going, it's great to be gigging. I haven't I haven't gigged this year. The last normal time was Christmas, wasn't it? That was the last time with friends and family. And we didn't have we didn't have a traditional Christmas. You've got to move with the times. We're multicultural. We had bats. We had a load of bats.

• 54:17Will Arnett?

  Oh, you ate bats?

• 54:19Speaker 03

  So I started off as going.

• 54:21Will Arnett?

  Oh, shit. We should talk.

• 54:26Will Arnett?

  Ricky, uh, who, who makes you laugh? I know you get asked this a lot. It is like one of those standard questions, but fuck it. Who, who makes you laugh?

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Well, you do, you know that.

• 54:35Jason Bateman?

  Well done, well.

• 54:36Will Arnett?

  Present company excluded, present company.

• 54:38Sean Hayes?

  We got what we wanted.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  Oh, you have to, you have to categorize it. You have to categorize. I mean, who makes me laugh? I mean, I.

• 54:47Will Arnett?

  Are there people who, the way that they?

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Larry David.

• 54:49Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  I think, I think Larry David is underrated. I, I know he did the biggest sitcom of our generation, but I think curb enthusiasm, ten series of curb enthusiasm, uh, and the, the, the quality just hasn't changed. And, um, uh, he's remarkable and he's brave and he's funny and he's a great performer. He's fearless.

• 55:11Sean Hayes?

  You guys are very similar that way.

• 55:13Jason Bateman?

  Self-effacing too.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I, I think, I think he's the comedic, all round comedic creator, uh, of the past 25 years.

• 55:22Jason Bateman?

  And Chris Guest, it sounds like Chris Guest you like a lot too, yeah?

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Chris Guest, probably the biggest single influence.

• 55:27Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  On me is both a sort of, uh, his style, a friend and a mentor. Cause I knew no one in the industry and, um, when The Office, uh, went out, Chris Guest called me. He said, his wife had seen it and said, you've got to watch this and he loved it. And I could see why, he must have seen his influence in it. Um, but he called me up and just said, I don't want to say, and I was blown away, of course. And then we became friends and then I'd call him when I wanted advice. I remember, uh, uh, uh, uh, early film I did, they wanted to do one of those screenings where 40 people give you notes. And I said, I don't want to do it. And he said, why would you? He said, if you're letting them edit it next time, why didn't you write it with them? And I just thought that was such a lovely.

• 56:08Will Arnett?

  Wow.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  And then, uh, he told me a story that the, uh, director of Rain Man did one of those things. And his favorite comment was, I enjoyed the film, but I was disappointed that the little guy didn't snap out of it by the end.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  And so he'd given me that, those, those little nuggets to, to, to fear, to fear my TV by committee. And he's, he's just lovely and he's still funny. I remember he asked me once, he said, um, we'd just be mucking around like, you know, idiots, like kids. And, uh, he said, uh, if we're not suddenly not funny and no one finds us funny, how will we know? And I said, who cares?

• 56:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Who cares? We're laughing.

• 56:55Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 56:57Jason Bateman?

  Now Ricky, I have a, a semi-serious question here. I don't want you to cry when you answer it, but with, uh, all of the, uh, information we've heard about how you started and what you thought you were gonna be and the music and whatnot, you're in your mid 50s, have you exceeded your expectations?

• 57:11Speaker 03

  I'm fucking out. I, of course I fucking out.

• 57:15Jason Bateman?

  Well, but I mean, I'm, I'm assuming there is a higher place. We always sort of reset our goals as we start to approach them, right?

• 57:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:22Jason Bateman?

  Uh, where, where are you at right now? Are you satisfied and, and yet still want more? Or have you hit, ah, I'm, I'm where, I'm past where I ever wanted to be and, and I could get, I could get happy with retirement even and know that I've done it?

• 57:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:37Will Arnett?

  Before you answer that Ricky, just know how great it is to hear how Bateman's brain works. Go ahead.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Um, I, I think you, you, you hone it and hone it. You keep folding the samurai. You keep honing it and what you like, and what I like is no interference and only doing things I absolutely love. So I, I wanna do less and less and just more of the thing that I absolutely love. And that, that's come down to, I suppose, i- i- if I'm doing sitcom, it's just doing the,

• 58:10Jason Bateman?

  And no compromise.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  What, with no compromise, yeah. And stand-up is already there, really. There's already no stand, uh, compromise with stand-up. I, I think stand-up is like just about the purest art form outside the novel where what you think is what you can say and it's what they hear. And, uh, that, that's pure. Cause even with something like Afterlife, you know, I get final edit, I, I do it all, but there's still 60 P. People involved. You still have to go, they have to give it to someone and they still have to go, we put it out on this day. Whereas stand up, I say, I want to do this venue on this day, sell the ticket, the tickets are, I go up, I'm doing this, this is it, good night. And I did, and it's every single step of the way is absolutely as I wanted it. So it's more and more, how do I get to that?

• 58:54Speaker 03

  And I've always known that the most important thing is being sort of happy, really. I've, I've always tried to cut out the middleman, just wanting to be. I'll, I'll show you a story that sums it up. I think we're, must have been like nineteen seventy one, I was like ten in school. And there was a big, there was a big thing in the early seventies where a lot of um unskilled or semi skilled workers were getting money to go on oil rigs. So you had carpeters that they were suddenly going to oil rigs. And where they were earning like fifty quid a week, they were earning like, you know, five hundred quid a day on these oil rigs. It was a big thing, it was a big thing in the paper. And I remember the teacher doing a thing to the class, saying, okay, kids, what would you do with the money if you could earn five hundred pounds a day?

• 59:38Speaker 03

  And it went round and the kids were saying, I'd buy my mum a house, I'd buy a car, I'd buy a horse. And it came to me and I said, I'd work one day a week. And I remember just thinking, I, that, that would be amazing because I could have the other six days.

• 59:55Will Arnett?

  I'm with you, man. I, I, I, I really admire, first of all, I'm, you know, you know, I'm a huge fan of your stand up and I think it's so. I watch it in awe because I think it's so scary to, you know, I've never done it. It just seems like the scariest, it's. Like you say, it is so raw. It's just you. And your relationship with the audience and everything that's coming out and man.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  But it's, but it's, it's not, it, it's not scary. It's, it's the thing that you do it. I think, I think driving a car is scary because I, because I can't do it. But when you realise that you, you've got that safety net for the first, you go out there and you try stuff out. And if it's not working, you don't, you don't put the tickets on sale. I've done fifty gigs before I sell out a real gig. And I know what it's gonna be like. It's gonna be the same as the, you know, I mean, the scary thing is, you know, recently, the scary thing is. Cancel thing, being cancelled if you say the wrong thing and suddenly, you know, Netflix can take you off their platform or, you know, um. So that that's the scary thing, but.

• 1:00:52Sean Hayes?

  How do you vet that then? How do you really go through your stuff and who's gonna be the arbiter?

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  Well, you can't, you can't because you don't know, you could be the most woke, politically correct stand up in the world at the moment. But you don't know what it's gonna be like in 10 years' time. You you can get cancelled for things you said 10 years ago because you don't know what it's gonna be like in 10 years' time.

• 1:01:11Sean Hayes?

  And it also seems like the people that try to, you specifically, because I remember the the Golden Globes where all of them, they're so fucking funny. But you were so great. But I remember the same people, it seems, that try to cancel you are also your fans. Are also the people that hire you and also the people that still want to work with you.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  The thing is about this, I think the the miss of the standing about cancel culture is, you know, some people think that you should be able to say anything you want without consequences, and that's not true because we're members of society. And people are allowed to criticize you, they're allowed to not buy your things, they're allowed to burn your DVDs, and they're allowed to turn the telly off. What they're not allowed to do is to bully other people into not going to see you, or there's some people that are that are that are doctors, who are great doctors. They're getting fired from a hospital because of a bad joke they made on Twitter. And I'll go, well, that that's not relevant to what they do. So, um, I don't think, I don't think you, what's being cancelled.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  Um, it's having no platform, isn't it? And what can they do to me? Because I've got, I've got this now. Who's gonna cancel me? Twitter? YouTube? If I have to, I'll go to Hyde Park and stand up on a bench and shout shit, so.

• 1:02:25Will Arnett?

  I got in a lot of shit. They almost cancelled me because because I've, I I killed a hobo. And I thought that's nothing to do with my job. That's something that I did on a weekend.

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  Well, that's the other thing as well. You, if you don't break the law.

• 1:02:39Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  People just cannot or not buy your material. Whereas some people get cancelled because they've they've actually broken the law. I talk about this in my new stand up about, um, you know, uh, you know, what, what, what is being cancelled. And I suppose that's a scary thing because it's a real consequence.

• 1:02:55Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 1:02:55Speaker 03

  No one looks at the argument anymore. They look at who's saying it and they make their decision. There's no nuance.

• 1:03:00Will Arnett?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  And if some of it's down to politics, some of it's down to social media. Because it's too fast. It's way too fast. As I say, twenty years ago, if you were offended by someone on television, you got a pen and paper. You went, dear BBC.

• 1:03:12Will Arnett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck, I can't be bothered. Now you fire off a tweet and that tweet goes on the fucking news because someone else argued with it. So it's it's this road rage. It's things happening too fast that you can't take back.

• 1:03:24Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  And, um, people dig in and people want to be heard. People want to feel that they had an effect. It's why people heckle a comedian. They want to feel they were there. I was here. And so now people are heard.

• 1:03:37Sean Hayes?

  And the microphone is the same volume. Everybody has equal access to it.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Yes, an idiot stands next to a genius on Twitter and it looks the same. It's the same font and exactly, yeah.

• 1:03:46Will Arnett?

  And that's what's so dangerous. And the genius has earned it and the idiot hasn't. And yet people don't, they don't make that distinction a- at all anymore.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. And it comes back to what we said at the beginning. Just because you're offended, it doesn't mean you're right. Uh, and in recent years, we've had this thing where people would say, uh, my opinion is worth as much as the next person's. And that's true. But recently we had my opinion is worth as much as your fact. And that's simply not true. Now people are offended by facts. People now know that when I do happy birthday, Earth, four point six billion years old, I'm having a gut fundamentalists. And they know, they go, why are you?

• 1:04:22Sean Hayes?

  I love that.

• 1:04:23Speaker 03

  Because they take facts personally. People take facts personally.

• 1:04:28Sean Hayes?

  I could talk to you about all that stuff for like nine hours straight. I, I, I love that. I loved everything.

• 1:04:33Will Arnett?

  Oh, man, I bet he's looking forward to that. Listen.

• 1:04:37Sean Hayes?

  And I mean straight, no interruptions, no sleep.

• 1:04:41Will Arnett?

  Ricky, what was that joke that you talked about? You said that sort of that idea of people being offended or online or on social media was the equivalent of running down to the town square and...

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Oh, where people, yeah, I do it in humanity when there's a woman's arguing with me, getting offended by a tweet, like I was tweeting them. Like, I'm just tweeting, I don't know who's following me. That's like going into a town square and seeing a message says guitar lessons. And you go, I don't fucking want guitar lessons.

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  It wasn't to you. People jump in the way of a bullet and say, why are you shouting at me?

• 1:05:21Sean Hayes?

  I love that.

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  And people have done that on purpose. They've tried to give ideas a human rights. That's why, so if you criticize Christianity, people say, why are you criticizing Christians? And I go, I'm not. I'm criticizing the idea. I'm, you know, I'm discussing an idea. It's like me getting offended where someone hates maths. And it's not mine. Maths isn't mine. It's a, it's a concept. It's an idea. So, but anyway, this is for our, this is for our nine hour podcast.

• 1:05:51Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I love that stuff.

• 1:05:53Will Arnett?

  Man, that's gonna be a real hit. I tell you what.

• 1:05:56Sean Hayes?

  Part, part two through 12.

• 1:05:58Jason Bateman?

  When are you coming to Los Angeles? Or when, when can, Will always gets to see you, always gets to hang out. Well, I wanna, and I won't bring Sean.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  I see, I do, I do actually see four people when I'm in LA, don't I?

• 1:06:11Jason Bateman?

  Well, I can be small, have a four and a half.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  Will and Mitch, we always invite you, but you're always, you're always having a body wax or something.

• 1:06:19Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Jason Bateman?

  Hurry out here, please, or I'll come see you there. Don't make like you don't know me when I call you.

• 1:06:24Speaker 03

  Never, you'll never come to England.

• 1:06:25Jason Bateman?

  I wanna go, what did you call it? Leafy? Where do you live?

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  Will's been here, Will, Will calls me up and goes, I'm in, I'm around the corner. I go, what? He calls me up, he's here all the time, back and forth between Sammerrits and...

• 1:06:36Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, hopping off yachts and shit.

• 1:06:38Will Arnett?

  I never go to Sammerrits, only Gustad. So, listen, I'm not, I didn't even say it right.

• 1:06:44Jason Bateman?

  No, you didn't.

• 1:06:46Will Arnett?

  Well, listen. Yeah, I do, I do miss, I do miss hanging out. And I do miss going over there. I love spending time in the, in the UK and I love spending time with you.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  Um, all right. Goodbye, we love you.

• 1:06:56Sean Hayes?

  Goodbye Ricky, we love you.

• 1:06:57Will Arnett?

  Ricky, thank you so much, man.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Guys, but I remember, well, you tell the other guys, if anyone asks, is he in the SAS? No, he's just a comedian.

• 1:07:05Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 1:07:06Sean Hayes?

  Okay, got it, got it.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Okay? Wait, play us off real quick with something with that. Grab that guitar, play us off with something. Just a quick, just a quick little, just a single chord.

• 1:07:16Sean Hayes?

  Oh, we didn't have to touch this on.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  Here we go.

• 1:07:17Will Arnett?

  Here we go.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Pretty girl on the hood of a Cadillac, yeah. She's broken down on freeway nine. I take a look and get her engine started. Leave a purring and a roll on by, bye, bye. Free love on the free love freeway. The love is free. The freeway's long. I got some hot love, hot, hot love highway. Going home, cause my baby's gone. She's gone.

• 1:07:55Will Arnett?

  Ricky Gervais, everybody.

• 1:07:57Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 1:07:58Jason Bateman?

  That was awesome.

• 1:07:58Will Arnett?

  Incredible Ricky Gervais. Thank you Ricky, you're beautiful, mate.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Ricky, you're gorgeous.

• 1:08:03Will Arnett?

  Hey, listen, it's getting late, you're gonna have to get those, those prop awards back to the prop house. Okay, buddy?

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  Whoa, look at that, IPA, dead.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Love you Ricky. Bye, pal.

• 1:08:16Will Arnett?

  Bye, buddy.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  Bye, pal, thank you. It's great fun.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Oh, what a man.

• 1:08:23Will Arnett?

  How great was that?

• 1:08:23Sean Hayes?

  Well, I love that you guys knew him. I, I've never met him, I'm such a...

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, and I was serious about the, the influence he, he had over me, over the show, over, um, I just, I think he's it.

• 1:08:36Sean Hayes?

  Have you guys ever seen him debate religion with Stephen Colbert?

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  No, I would...

• 1:08:40Will Arnett?

  I mean, I've, I've seen him debate religion with lots of people. He does it online, he does it in person.

• 1:08:45Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's really interesting.

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  Wait, does Colbert is...

• 1:08:47Sean Hayes?

  Catholic.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  And, uh, and Ricky's saying, uh...

• 1:08:50Sean Hayes?

  He's an atheist, yeah.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:08:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's really fascinating.

• 1:08:53Will Arnett?

  He's incredible.

• 1:08:53Sean Hayes?

  Anyway, I'm a huge fan of his. I think he is, uh... Has a brilliant mind.

• 1:08:57Will Arnett?

  He's an incredible guy. He's so, he's so funny and he's such a sweet, uh, which is funny because like Jason, you were saying, you know, some of his characters, he can be very confident. Even though he can be self evasive, he can also be very confident, but he, and he is confident. He's just a smart guy. He's a very level headed, uh, and sweet, uh, sweet guy and, uh, super smart. Which is why it was good to have him on our show because he was able to, uh, help us.

• 1:09:23Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. I love that thing at the beginning where he's like, wow, are you guys just idiots? Yeah, it's called smart list.

• 1:09:28Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, we go ahead and give you a big hint right at the top.

• 1:09:31Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I mean, the, the, the bar is low and, and it's, and it's, and it's advertised, you know? It's like.

• 1:09:38Jason Bateman?

  I want to meet Jane. I want to hang out. Oh, I have met her.

• 1:09:40Will Arnett?

  Have you not met?

• 1:09:41Jason Bateman?

  I've met her, but I want to hang out with her. I, I'm fascinated to see what.

• 1:09:44Will Arnett?

  We'll include you guys. I'll, I'll include you in the dinner.

• 1:09:47Jason Bateman?

  Yes, please.

• 1:09:47Sean Hayes?

  I would love that. Yeah.

• 1:09:49Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Sean Hayes?

  The one thing he didn't say though, as he was signing off was. Bye.

• 1:09:59Speaker 05

  Smart.

• 1:10:05Speaker 05

  Smart.

• 1:10:10Speaker 06

  What do I gift my mom and nieces?

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  Walmart has top brands you know, like Ninja, Disney, Lego.

• 1:10:18Speaker 06

  Oh, dad loves music.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Sonos can bring his songs to life with sound that hits just right.

• 1:10:27Speaker 06

  And my coffee obsessed bestie.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  The Longy Brew's coffee right for mornings extra bright.

• 1:10:32Speaker 06

  All those great brands at Walmart? Who knew?

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  We knew, now you do too. Shop gifts, no love at Walmart.

• 1:10:41Sean Hayes?

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• 1:11:07Sean Hayes?

  And Harvey is already pretty well established in the legal world. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100 and 20% of the Fortune 500 are building with Harvey, accelerating review, sharpening negotiations, uncovering insights, drafting first responses, and more. Basically, Harvey is helping legal teams spend less time on repetitive work and more time on the big picture stuff. This is how the future of agreements is being crafted now. Harvey. Learn more at harvey.ai. That's harvey.ai. Harvey does not provide legal advice. Users should always independently review and verify any output provided by Harvey.