"RE-RELEASE: Matthew Rhys"

Open a bottle of beer with a key and grab a fire poker, we’ve got Matthew Rhys on the horn this week. We sit down with the intelligent yet dashing yet wise yet charismatic Actor (and skilled traditional Welsh Chef) to hear recipes from the heart and tales of yore. Grab a slice of meat pie— it’s cooling on the windowsill. #EatSmart #SmartLess This episode was originally released on 5/22/2023.

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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• 0:43Sean Hayes?

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• 1:22Sean Hayes?

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• 2:05Sean Hayes?

  to give the gift of scent this holiday season.

• 2:14Will Arnett?

  Sorry that you guys caught me off-guard. I was just talking to Jason's wig maker, and he had said that they don't make the hair that Jason uses for the wig anymore because it's a synthetic thing and it has to do with... because they use a certain petroleum component to it, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the point is, if you see Jason on the street, just please say, "Hey, man, your natural hair looks great." It's an all-new Smartless.

• 2:59Will Arnett?

  Are you guys excited?

• 3:00Sean Hayes?

  I'm excited.

• 3:01Will Arnett?

  Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 3:03Jason Bateman?

  I think... Are you talking about we're on the TV?

• 3:06Will Arnett?

  Yeah, with the doc.

• 3:08Sean Hayes?

  We're gonna be on TV. I told my whole family.

• 3:09Jason Bateman?

  Smartless on the road?

• 3:10Will Arnett?

  Smartless on the road, on Max.

• 3:12Jason Bateman?

  On Max, that new platform, yes?

• 3:16Will Arnett?

  Yeah, yes.

• 3:17Jason Bateman?

  Should we do... What... Should we watch it together?

• 3:20Sean Hayes?

  Let's watch it together. That'd be super fun.

• 3:22Will Arnett?

  Oh, God, that's not a bad idea. I'm really excited. I'm excited for people to...

• 3:26Jason Bateman?

  See Will Ferrell?

• 3:26Will Arnett?

  It sounds weird to say. Well, yeah, I'm excited for people to see. Well, we have so many great guests.

• 3:30Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, so say some of the guests. We have Will Ferrell.

• 3:33Jason Bateman?

  Will starts it off, though, doesn't he?

• 3:34Will Arnett?

  Will starts it off, and then we have Conan.

• 3:37Sean Hayes?

  Conan, Kevin Hart.

• 3:39Will Arnett?

  Well, hang on, hang on, hang on. Then we have Letterman. Then we have AOC with special appearance by... Can we mention that Bradley makes a special appearance?

• 3:48Jason Bateman?

  Bradley Cooper comes in and changes the light for us.

• 3:50Will Arnett?

  And then we go to Chicago. We have Andy Richter and Jeff Tweedy from Wilco.

• 3:56Jason Bateman?

  Mark Cuban.

• 3:57Will Arnett?

  Mark Cuban, and then Matty Damon.

• 4:00Jason Bateman?

  Matt Damon, the Matt.

• 4:02Will Arnett?

  Yeah, Octurtle, Cordle, Wordle, perennial third-place finisher, Matt Damon.

• 4:07Sean Hayes?

  And then one of the biggest guests of the entire tour is Tracy from Wisconsin.

• 4:12Will Arnett?

  And then we have Tracy from Wisconsin. Tracy, Sean's sister.

• 4:16Sean Hayes?

  My sister, yeah.

• 4:17Will Arnett?

  Oh, Sean's sister makes an incredible appearance.

• 4:19Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it was really good.

• 4:20Jason Bateman?

  And doesn't your mother's right eye make an appearance as well?

• 4:23Will Arnett?

  Your mother's eye makes an appearance, too.

• 4:24Sean Hayes?

  It's all true. By the way, it's all true, and you can see it. Get it?

• 4:29Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Sean Hayes?

  On...

• 4:30Will Arnett?

  Don't get it.

• 4:31Jason Bateman?

  On Max, Smartless on the road. Check it out.

• 4:34Will Arnett?

  I'm glad you asked because I don't think they get it. And then, by the way, we come back to LA, and then we end here with Kimmel.

• 4:42Jason Bateman?

  With Kimmel and Kevin Hart.

• 4:43Will Arnett?

  I mean, we get to have... What a soft landing to come back and have our good buddy Jimmy Kimmel. And then Jan makes an appearance, and God, I mean...

• 4:53Sean Hayes?

  And then what's the final meal of the whole thing?

• 4:56Jason Bateman?

  Oh, yeah, then we're over at Shawnee's house for some...

• 4:58Will Arnett?

  Oh, we go to Shawnee, right.

• 4:59Jason Bateman?

  Was it spaghetti meatballs? Sloppy Joe's.

• 5:01Will Arnett?

  We went to Sloppy Joe's.

• 5:01Jason Bateman?

  Sloppy Joe's.

• 5:02Sean Hayes?

  I made Sloppy Joe's from scratch for you guys.

• 5:04Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Sean Hayes?

  It's all on the dock.

• 5:06Will Arnett?

  It's all on the dock.

• 5:07Jason Bateman?

  We're all... Are we watching it at your house?

• 5:08Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, let's watch it.

• 5:09Will Arnett?

  Let's watch it. We'll watch it on Max. It's kind of so fun. I think... I hope people like... Who knows? But...

• 5:15Jason Bateman?

  We hope. It looks real good, too. Sam Jones did a great job directing it. It looks real handsome. It's black and white.

• 5:20Will Arnett?

  I hope people like it. It's white. It's May 23rd, right?

• 5:23Sean Hayes?

  May 23rd on Max.

• 5:25Will Arnett?

  Okay.

• 5:26Sean Hayes?

  I have a crazy story that happened. I told Will. I said I was gonna save it to tell you today.

• 5:32Jason Bateman?

  You have some pre-show patter?

• 5:34Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Will Arnett?

  You know Shawnee's... Go ahead, Shawnee.

• 5:36Sean Hayes?

  No, this is crazy.

• 5:37Jason Bateman?

  Shawnee, what have you prepared?

• 5:38Sean Hayes?

  I've prepared this.

• 5:39Will Arnett?

  Shawnee, by the way, don't interrupt, but speaking of prepared, there's somebody preparing something in the kitchen behind you.

• 5:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, Scott is gonna make me some tea right now.

• 5:46Will Arnett?

  Okay.

• 5:46Jason Bateman?

  Tea? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you fasting?

• 5:48Will Arnett?

  He's on Broadway, man. He's on Broadway.

• 5:49Sean Hayes?

  I'm on the Broadway.

• 5:50Jason Bateman?

  Oh, to keep your pipes nice and lubricated?

• 5:53Sean Hayes?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 5:55Jason Bateman?

  Well, it is 1 o'clock there. What was for lunch today?

• 5:59Sean Hayes?

  I just had a...

• 6:01Jason Bateman?

  Wait.

• 6:03Sean Hayes?

  I had a... What's it called? Like a Kaiser roll with egg and cheese and a little bacon. And apple juice.

• 6:10Will Arnett?

  I had... What do they call it? Like a foot-long sub.

• 6:14Jason Bateman?

  A Kaiser roll?

• 6:16Will Arnett?

  Kaiser.

• 6:17Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Jason Bateman?

  Where do you have to go to get that? Like a bread shop?

• 6:20Will Arnett?

  Downstairs.

• 6:21Sean Hayes?

  Downstairs. No, Zabar's, Kaiser. Zabar's is a Jewish deli. We live right near it. And then there's a café, and they don't do bagels with egg. You'd think they would do bagels because they sell bagels in the store part, but not the café part, which is really crazy.

• 6:36Will Arnett?

  You gotta go full Kaiser.

• 6:37Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Will Arnett?

  All right.

• 6:38Sean Hayes?

  All right, so this is the story. This is crazy. This is gonna blow your mind. I think it blew my mind. So the show takes place in 1958 backstage at The Tonight Show. Oscar Levant is the guest on The Tonight Show that night. The other guest, which we never see, we only reference a lot, is Jane Mansfield.

• 6:53Will Arnett?

  Sure.

• 6:54Sean Hayes?

  Okay? Who was, you know, this big star back in the 50s. Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield, very similar. So Mariska Hargitay. You know Mariska Hargitay?

• 7:03Will Arnett?

  I do.

• 7:03Jason Bateman?

  Sure.

• 7:03Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, she's the star of the SVU thing. Oh, thanks, Scotty.

• 7:08Will Arnett?

  Thanks, Scotty.

• 7:09Sean Hayes?

  For the... She's maybe... So she's the star of this show for like 20-some years, right? So she's like, "I'm outside of your theater. Come out." And I'm like, "Oh, my God." I came out, gave her a hug, said hello. We took a photo. And she go... And somebody in the show whispers in my ear, "Her mom is Jane Mansfield."

• 7:27Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Sean Hayes?

  I go, "Wait a minute. What?"

• 7:29Will Arnett?

  Yeah, well...

• 7:30Sean Hayes?

  Mariska Hargitay's mom? I go, "Your mom is Jane Mansfield." I go, "Do you know that we reference your mom in this show over and over again? Did your mom know Oscar Levant?" And she's like, "I don't know. You know, unfortunately, she was very young when her mom died." So then we go back, and we say her bye's. I go back in the theater, and I forgot. I text her. I go, "By the way, your mom made her Broadway debut in this theater that we're working in right now."

• 7:56Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 7:57Sean Hayes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 7:58Jason Bateman?

  This is crazy, crazy, yeah. So did you at least offer her tickets to the show?

• 8:05Sean Hayes?

  No, she's gotta pay for those.

• 8:06Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can give her access to the house.

• 8:08Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I can get her.

• 8:09Will Arnett?

  Her dad was Mickey Hargitay, who was like a bodybuilder guy from Hungary.

• 8:15Sean Hayes?

  How do you know that?

• 8:16Will Arnett?

  I know that.

• 8:16Jason Bateman?

  Because he just Googled it.

• 8:17Will Arnett?

  No, I didn't. I knew that before, and...

• 8:20Jason Bateman?

  Wait, why do you know vague Hungarian bodybuilders?

• 8:26Sean Hayes?

  I should know that.

• 8:26Will Arnett?

  Do you want to see my magazine collection or not?

• 8:28Jason Bateman?

  No, I don't want to see your search history either.

• 8:30Sean Hayes?

  I do. I actually do.

• 8:32Will Arnett?

  I read somebody in my search history the other day. There were such a bonkers all over the map. The weird... I go, "Here, you want to know what I've been searching up the last 24 hours?" And it was just the weirdest, stupidest stuff. I want to say, just because I want to be... And I don't want to bring it down, but I gotta be honest about where I'm at, if that's okay?

• 8:50Sean Hayes?

  Yes, yes.

• 8:50Will Arnett?

  Today, and then we can switch gears. Is that okay?

• 8:52Jason Bateman?

  Yes, of course it is.

• 8:54Will Arnett?

  It's very real.

• 8:58Jason Bateman?

  Do you want me to say, you want me to describe it?

• 9:00Will Arnett?

  My, my, my oldest friend in the world, Jeremy, passed away. And I loved him so much.

• 9:08Sean Hayes?

  Oh, well, I'm so sorry.

• 9:10Will Arnett?

  And.

• 9:11Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, you just found out yesterday, yeah?

• 9:12Will Arnett?

  Yeah, and, fuck.

• 9:15Sean Hayes?

  Oh, God, I'm so sorry.

• 9:17Will Arnett?

  And I just gotta be honest about it, because it's what's going on in my head and, and

• 9:22Will Arnett?

  I just wanted, I just wanted to say that I just, I love the guy so much and it's so, Jason and I were talking today, this morning, and it's funny, we always get surprised when people say it's such a surprise, such a shock, and we know that the deal is that everybody's gonna die at some point.

• 9:41Sean Hayes?

  We're here for five minutes, yeah.

• 9:43Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Sean Hayes?

  Did he pass suddenly, Will?

• 9:45Will Arnett?

  You know, the, the, the last few weeks were, kinda came out of nowhere, certainly, but then, and then he finally passed, and I'm happy he did, he was, he was, you know, obviously he was in a lot of pain, and I'm just thinking about his family and, and all of them, and I've known them forever, and, and, you know, his daughter and his wife, and, and his parents, whom my parents knew, and our grand, and our great-grandparents knew each other, our families are intertwined for generations and, and.

• 10:12Sean Hayes?

  So Jeremy was up in Toronto, or?

• 10:14Will Arnett?

  He was in Toronto, yeah, and, and he was one of the great guys, he's a, I always say he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer, just a great guy, you could always rely on him, and, and I miss him, and, you know, you never, and I was just thinking this morning, and I was taking the kids to school, and I was just thinking like, oh, man, hug the people you love.

• 10:37Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 10:38Will Arnett?

  Tell them as much as you can, and if you're thinking about somebody, call them, let them know.

• 10:42Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 10:43Will Arnett?

  Just let them know you're, you're thinking about them, you love them, how important they are to you.

• 10:48Sean Hayes?

  I love that.

• 10:49Will Arnett?

  And I just wanted to say that, because it's on my mind, and I love you guys so much.

• 10:52Sean Hayes?

  We love you, we love you too.

• 10:55Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it is, you're right, it is this sort of like, you're, we're always shocked that people die, but everyone here is going to, everyone listening will, and it's like, it's a terrible thought, and we somehow have managed this little device inside our head and our heart to kinda put it in a little box and keep it away, and deal with it at, near the end of our life, we just kinda pretend it's not ever gonna happen, but, oh, it does, and we just hope we use our time correctly, yeah?

• 11:23Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure, you know, I, I just did this, I just did this article, this interview, and Jay, you were so kind, I just read it, you said such nice things about me, and I appreciate it.

• 11:34Jason Bateman?

  Well, you got what you paid for, I appreciate your generosity.

• 11:37Sean Hayes?

  And, and I said,

• 11:42Sean Hayes?

  I said, you know, if I can pull this thing off, great, if not, I'm still alive, is my quote, you know?

• 11:50Jason Bateman?

  About the play? So you're feeling bullish about the play, yeah, it could suck, but at least I'm not dead.

• 11:56Sean Hayes?

  No, but the point is, to your point, Will, is like, we're still, we're here, we're here, right?

• 12:01Will Arnett?

  We're here in.

• 12:02Sean Hayes?

  We're here, nothing matters, other than our health and our people we love and all

• 12:06Will Arnett?

  And the people we love, and, and I just, yeah, I wanted to say that, just say, Jared, we love you, and, and that's it, you know, I'm thinking about you, buddy, and, and I also know that he was, he was always so quick with a laugh, and he loved to frickin' laugh, this guy made me laugh, and, so, I don't know, he would, he'd be like, great, well, get to your guest.

• 12:30Jason Bateman?

  You have a nice opportunity to give him a nice goodbye, this weekend, with all of those people you're talking about.

• 12:36Will Arnett?

  That's right.

• 12:36Jason Bateman?

  It'll be a wonderful thing for, for him to watch, too, you know, I mean?

• 12:42Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Jason Bateman?

  The, that, that's one, that's one of the good things about after we go, right? We get to, like, it's a narcissist delight, you get to just pull up a chair and watch everybody say nice things about you.

• 12:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I love it.

• 12:55Jason Bateman?

  At least that's my fantasy.

• 12:57Will Arnett?

  I know, well, it's one of your fantasies.

• 12:59Jason Bateman?

  Right, just a big Jason session for a whole day.

• 13:03Will Arnett?

  What are you eating?

• 13:04Jason Bateman?

  Right now?

• 13:05Will Arnett?

  No, in that situation where you, where it doesn't matter anymore.

• 13:09Jason Bateman?

  Just super salty puff-inducing things, because, you know, you can be as puffy as you want upstairs.

• 13:15Will Arnett?

  Sure you can.

• 13:16Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Sean Hayes?

  Turns out you can be as puffy as you want downstairs, too.

• 13:23Jason Bateman?

  Well, actually, you lose water weight almost instantaneously down there, because you're always sweating.

• 13:27Will Arnett?

  Oh.

• 13:28Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, it's hot as shit.

• 13:29Will Arnett?

  Oh, where you're going, yeah, you're gonna, there's a lot of sweating going on, that's a good point.

• 13:34Jason Bateman?

  It's a constant schvitz.

• 13:38Will Arnett?

  To switch gears.

• 13:39Jason Bateman?

  Sure.

• 13:39Will Arnett?

  Uh, you know, if we can, as much as we can, to somebody who's not puffy.

• 13:44Jason Bateman?

  Really?

• 13:45Will Arnett?

  No, this gentleman keeps it very tight, in the best way, I really.

• 13:49Jason Bateman?

  Lucky son of a.

• 13:50Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I know, he really is, he's got, this is a guy, you wanna talk about first-ballot Hall of Famer, this is the guy who's got it all, I mean, he's, when you got, when you got, when you got talent and good looks, forget about it, when you got an easy way about you.

• 14:05Jason Bateman?

  Oh, boy.

• 14:05Will Arnett?

  For frickin' get it, this guy's done it everything, he's been on the big screen, he's been on the little screen, he's been on the boards, you know, on stage, if, if you will.

• 14:13Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:15Will Arnett?

  This guy's from the other side of the pond.

• 14:17Jason Bateman?

  Uh-oh. Oh, he's British.

• 14:18Will Arnett?

  Yeah, well, he's actually Welsh, his first language is Welsh, according to the internet.

• 14:26Jason Bateman?

  Huh.

• 14:27Will Arnett?

  He's a guy who's done so much, and he's, he's one of those guys who'd like, you just, every time you see him, you're like, oh, I love this guy, everything he does, I, this is the way I feel, you know, he was, for years, he was on, you knew him from Brothers and Sisters, and then he was on The Americans Forever, and the thing I love about him maybe the most is that he is partnered with one of my all-time favorite people, the delightful Carrie Russell, guys, it's the incredibly talented Matthew Rees.

• 14:56Jason Bateman?

  Oh, Matthew, yes, sir.

• 14:59Will Arnett?

  Look at him, is he gorgeous or what?

• 15:01Sean Hayes?

  Look at the stash!

• 15:02Will Arnett?

  Look at him.

• 15:03Jason Bateman?

  No water in that face at all.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  No, not for ye, not for years.

• 15:06Sean Hayes?

  We have a fifth guest today.

• 15:07Will Arnett?

  He just, he proved that the mustache was real, he pulled on it, just to.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm just checking, I'm checking the glue.

• 15:13Jason Bateman?

  Listener, he's got a 30-pound mustache on, and it's looking strong, are you playing a motorcycle cop?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  No, I'm doing the, the Tom Selleck biopic.

• 15:22Will Arnett?

  You could, you could, welcome to Smartless Matthew Rees.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Thank you, thank you very much, you know, that's, that's the, that's the real terrifying moment, the reveal.

• 15:32Will Arnett?

  I know.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Because at the beginning, I was like, is he, who, is he talking about Ian McKellen? Who are they expecting? What, is this, this is gonna go?

• 15:39Will Arnett?

  It's Taran Egerton, everyone.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  The real Welshman who can sing.

• 15:44Will Arnett?

  Sure.

• 15:44Sean Hayes?

  Wow, it's such, it's so cool to meet you.

• 15:46Will Arnett?

  I know.

• 15:47Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, very, very cool.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  And thank you, thank you very much for, for having me on, gents, this is a real pleasure.

• 15:53Will Arnett?

  Matthew, I, I wish, we don't know each other well enough, we've crossed paths a few times, because, obviously, Carrie and I are old friends, and so we've met through Carrie, and she's such a delightful person, as you are well aware, and, and then she's like, I just, I love the idea, I'm like, you're as good as the people you hang out with, and the fact that you and Carrie are together, I'm like, Matthew's a good guy, he's a great guy, I can just.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  No, I just, no, I took, I took, I took that idea, and then I latched myself onto Carrie, so that those around us would think the same thing.

• 16:26Will Arnett?

  By the way, that's smart, that's smart living.

• 16:28Jason Bateman?

  How long did you guys do that show together, was it five, six?

• 16:31Speaker 03

  It was six, it was six years, it was, it was meant to be five, and I think the, the poor showrunners had kind of arced it for five, and then FX went, you know what, let's do one more, and they went, what, oh, what, we don't ask?

• 16:44Jason Bateman?

  That's nice, we had the opposite on Ozark.

• 16:46Will Arnett?

  That's a good sign on a show, we're talking, of course, about The Americans.

• 16:49Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, and Margot Martindale's a friend.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  And dear, dear Margot Martindale.

• 16:54Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  That, that, they were both reunited on Cocaine Bear recently.

• 16:58Will Arnett?

  Yes, so Margot, and you did, you were in Cocaine Bear as well, come on.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  I, I muscled my way in, just what, looking out to the kids in Ireland, and reading the script, and, and that first opening scene, I said, I was like, who, who, who's playing that guy, the guy who bangs his head and falls out of the plane, she's like, what, who, I don't know, and then I said, ask, ask Elizabeth Banks, I said, ask Banks, who's playing that part, so she texts Banks, oh, we haven't cast it yet, and I said, tell her I'll do it, tell, no, ask, no, just ask her if I can do it, and she very kindly said, yes, you can come in and fall out of an airplane.

• 17:29Will Arnett?

  By the way, what a, what a, what a absolute treat, so you're directing a movie, and then you got a guy who's got like one scene, basically, and then you're like, Matthew Rees calls, and he's like, hey, can I just do this one scene, you're like, uh, are you kidding?

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, she smelled the desperation on me, I was like, can I please get out of the house, I can't do another zoo or aquarium, please.

• 17:49Jason Bateman?

  Sean, is it true the rumor, sorry, that's how you and Scott met, right? Didn't, didn't, didn't you put in the search for Cocaine Bear?

• 17:58Sean Hayes?

  No, did I not hear that correct?

• 18:00Will Arnett?

  No, I think it was technically, it was Cocaine, Cocaine Cub, wasn't it?

• 18:04Sean Hayes?

  It was Cocaine Cub, yeah, it was the prequel that they haven't.

• 18:07Jason Bateman?

  Oh, Scotty.

• 18:08Will Arnett?

  Oh, Scotty, if he only knew, so, so you do Cocaine, but, and, and of course, I wanna get, I, I don't wanna just gloss over the delightful Margot Martindale, whom we all adore.

• 18:19Sean Hayes?

  Oh, yeah, she's the greatest.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  No one can swear like Margot Martindale.

• 18:22Will Arnett?

  Oh.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  I mean, she should, she should have a kind of course at NYU, like swearing for film and television, because no one can, no one can swear like her.

• 18:33Will Arnett?

  And, and no one can get their ire up quicker, and then get to swearing over, like, something that seems trivial, we, we did that show together, The Millers, and she'd be like, can you believe they just did this rerun, I gotta fucking remember this fucking thing, and they wanna shoot this afternoon, you're like, Jesus, what?

• 18:49Speaker 03

  She said of one very famous actor who's in our show, she went, can you fucking hear the way he breathes? I went, well, before then, I had, no, I haven't actually, but I can hear it now.

• 19:00Sean Hayes?

  Oh, I want to work with her. So, Jason, you love her so bad.

• 19:04Will Arnett?

  Jason, you will so fall in love with Margot Martindale, you won't be able to contain yourself. Guys, am I right?

• 19:10Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Gold, gold.

• 19:11Will Arnett?

  She's absolute gold.

• 19:12Jason Bateman?

  Now, tell me, Welsh is a language? Is that what I heard you say, Will?

• 19:18Will Arnett?

  Oh, my God. First of all.

• 19:21Jason Bateman?

  Wait, so it's not English?

• 19:22Will Arnett?

  Get ready for the letters.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not English. It's much older than English. It's one of the oldest in Europe.

• 19:27Will Arnett?

  So let's start there. So I just want to say, so Matthew, you are, it says that your first language was Welsh. Is that true?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  It is, it is. I grew up speaking Welsh. The whole family speak Welsh.

• 19:36Sean Hayes?

  But isn't Welsh just English with an accent? I don't understand.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Yes, basically. We just, what we do is try and adopt such a harsh accent. No one really understands the English we're speaking.

• 19:44Will Arnett?

  No, no, no, no, no. That's, he's, he's, he's putting you on. So I've been, I've spent some time in Cardiff, which is where you're from, yeah, Matthew?

• 19:51Speaker 03

  It is. What were you doing there?

• 19:53Will Arnett?

  I was filming there a few years ago, and I remember we had this.

• 19:56Jason Bateman?

  What were you driving?

• 19:57Will Arnett?

  Uh, I had, I was gonna say, the driver I had when I was working on that show, you know the guy, um.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Jerry Lockett?

• 20:04Will Arnett?

  Yes, Jerry Lockett.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Oh, the Locket Rocket, yeah.

• 20:08Will Arnett?

  The famous Jerry Lockett.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:09Sean Hayes?

  What do you mean driver? What are you talking about?

• 20:11Jason Bateman?

  You had a Rolls Royce. That's what I was trying to bait you to. Didn't, didn't somebody loan you?

• 20:15Will Arnett?

  No, they loaned me a Bentley when I was in, when I was in London. I drove around for a few weeks.

• 20:20Jason Bateman?

  You're disgusting. You're fucking disgusting.

• 20:21Will Arnett?

  I know. It's a long story.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Wait, did you drive yourself in this Bentley?

• 20:23Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I did. I did. I drove myself.

• 20:25Jason Bateman?

  Right side drive?

• 20:25Will Arnett?

  Sure did. And then I drove up to Ricky's, to Jervis's house in, in London, because I was going to have, going to his house to have just a visit.

• 20:34Sean Hayes?

  Who are you? Who's life do you have?

• 20:36Will Arnett?

  And I said, I'm outside, and he came out, and he saw me in this Bentley, and I go, where can I park this thing around here? And he was like, Jesus fucking Christ, look, it wasn't mine. It was literally, I don't drive a Bentley. That was why I made a point. Anyway, so you're from Cardiff. We know Jerry Lockett. We've got Jerry out there, and we know that he's listening. We love you, Jerry. So we know.

• 20:56Sean Hayes?

  Rocket Lockett.

• 20:57Will Arnett?

  How are you? And I knew that you guys knew each other, because he was always like, do you know Matthew Rees? And I was like, I do. I do a little bit, because I know Kerry. And he says, yeah, Matthew, Matthew's from here. And he's so proud of you. And all the Welsh are so proud of Matthew for what you've done.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  I think there's only, because it's only three million, it was three and a half million.

• 21:15Sean Hayes?

  That's all, but that's all of Canada, isn't it?

• 21:19Will Arnett?

  What? First of all.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  What is the population of Canada now?

• 21:21Will Arnett?

  Thirty, thirty, thirty million.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 21:23Sean Hayes?

  You missed it by a zero.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Ten percent, yeah. So anyone who's Welsh and has done anything, even if they haven't done anything, we're just inherently proud.

• 21:31Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  For a country the size of Connecticut, which I'm talking about.

• 21:34Will Arnett?

  Two of them are named Bale, and one of them is named Rees.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  Yes, that's it. That's basically it.

• 21:38Will Arnett?

  So Christian Gareth Bale and Matthew Rees.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Well, there's also Hopkins. You also got Hopkins in there.

• 21:43Will Arnett?

  Oh, you do, you do.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then Burton, obviously.

• 21:47Will Arnett?

  There are a bunch.

• 21:47Sean Hayes?

  So wait, I don't know, I don't know anything about you, and I know you, I'm a fan of you, but I don't know anybody. Did you, so were you one of those people that grew up and did theater and stuff as a kid, and you're like, oh my God, if I can go to America, wow?

• 21:59Will Arnett?

  We're gonna get to that, Sean. That's exactly right.

• 22:01Jason Bateman?

  He's right in the middle of a story.

• 22:03Will Arnett?

  He's telling the story. So he grew up in Cardiff.

• 22:05Sean Hayes?

  What story about a Rolls Royce and a Bentley?

• 22:07Will Arnett?

  Speaking Welsh is his first language.

• 22:09Jason Bateman?

  Me, say something Welsh. Landing the plane on that.

• 22:11Sean Hayes?

  Okay, sorry, go ahead.

• 22:12Jason Bateman?

  Go ahead, Matthew, and, Sean, check your chat, please.

• 22:15Will Arnett?

  So talk about, no, but growing up, speaking Welsh, you guys spoke Welsh at home, yeah?

• 22:20Speaker 03

  We did, we did. And, and in Wales, there's, there's a great, you know, there's a great reverence for, you know, performing arts, and there's a very, there's a kind of an ancient tradition, kind of dates, it's pre-Christian, whereby everyone congregates, in the old days, everyone would congregate, and then you would sing competitively, or cite poetry, or anything of that ilk, basically. And it's very modern these days, but twice a year, all the children of Wales will gather, and they, it's a compet, you know, it's a competition now, but you're very much encouraged to get on stage and in some form, art form or another, and compete for your school or your county or, or whatever.

• 22:57Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wow.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so from a very early age, you're kind of kicked onto a stage, whether you want to or not.

• 23:03Sean Hayes?

  Really?

• 23:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:06Will Arnett?

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• 25:16Will Arnett?

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• 26:23Sean Hayes?

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• 27:07Jason Bateman?

  All right, back to the show.

• 27:10Will Arnett?

  So you, you grew up, you're speaking Welsh, obviously you speak English as well. They speak both there. The signage and stuff in Wales is delightful. It's, you know, one in English and one in Welsh, and it's a, it's tough to read.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  It's a hotbed of contention, yeah.

• 27:23Jason Bateman?

  What's the distance between English and Welsh? I mean, I have absolutely no idea what it sounds like, what it looks like.

• 27:29Sean Hayes?

  Talk a little bit in Welsh, just so we can hear it.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  I'll just get, one of the oldest poems in Welsh is about 600 B.C., and it just says, "Gwyraeth gatraeth o fraitheillig lasfely hankwyn agwennin vi, trichant rhyberiant yn ca tai agwedi elwch tawelwch vi."

• 27:44Sean Hayes?

  It's Lord of the Rings, the elves. It's how the elves speak in Lord of the Rings.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Yes, well, Tolkien based elfish on Welsh.

• 27:49Sean Hayes?

  Oh, I just made that up. Is that true?

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, it is, yeah.

• 27:52Sean Hayes?

  Wow, are you kidding me?

• 27:53Jason Bateman?

  I mean, I'm a, I'm a 54-year-old man that is not living in a cave. Why have I never, ever heard Welsh spoken?

• 28:00Will Arnett?

  It's a golden cave, let me, let's be honest.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Yes, a beautiful cave. I've heard tell, I've heard tell. Yes, one cave to bind us all.

• 28:08Jason Bateman?

  Why, what, what, I don't understand how that's gone by me.

• 28:12Will Arnett?

  Oh, I do.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Well, I think, I think, listen, I don't want to get into on the English-bashing soapbox, but the English, you know, if we're gonna, we'll do the quick history. The English did their best to kind of eradicate all the Celtic languages, for the Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, the Cornish, you know, they, they, they weren't too Celtic-friendly. So there was a lot of stamping out of the language and the culture.

• 28:34Jason Bateman?

  Wow. And, and was it influenced by folks more northern? Like, was there a Viking influence to all of those Celtic languages?

• 28:45Speaker 03

  I mean, I mean, there's the great evolutionist Germanic-based, and then, you know, I think the Keltoi were a Spanish tribe initially, and they, you know, then the Gauls got involved and amalgamated, and then, and then they, you know, set up camp in Britain, and then the Romans came.

• 29:01Jason Bateman?

  We're all such babies here in America. We're so young.

• 29:03Will Arnett?

  Well, you don't learn any, even if you did pay atten, you know, even if you did in, in America, go to school not on a massage bus, you, you, you learned, you learned, you learned history.

• 29:15Jason Bateman?

  How dare you?

• 29:16Will Arnett?

  You learned history. But at least in Canada, we did, we had to take British history. So we knew, we, we were always studying the fucking Battle of Culloden and all that shit, like.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Was the, is the, is the empire still stamped down your throat in Canada?

• 29:30Will Arnett?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I don't, I haven't lived there in 30 years, so I, I'm not sure.

• 29:34Sean Hayes?

  This is a guy who reads World War II books on the can, going to bed. He's not as bad as Justin Theroux, who will watch World War II documentaries through the face hole of a massage table on his iPhone.

• 29:47Jason Bateman?

  Okay. That's, he takes it to a new level. This lust for World War II.

• 29:52Will Arnett?

  And he lines it, just for comfort and stuff, he lines it with his discarded sleeves, just to protect his face.

• 29:58Jason Bateman?

  Just to pad the ring.

• 29:59Will Arnett?

  So, so Matthew, so you're, you're in, you're what? You're sort of seventeen and you go to RADA.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, went to the, yeah.

• 30:08Will Arnett?

  Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in, in London, which is the preeminent classical acting school in the world.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  That's what I tell everyone.

• 30:17Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  I was told my parents, they allow me to go.

• 30:20Will Arnett?

  It's like everybody who goes to RADA, they'll tell you, and it's the same way with everybody who's ever gone to Oxford, make sure to let that be known.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Yes, we'll drop it in. You know, they're all called, you walk in and they've left, the honor boards are still up in, in the, in the foyer. So like, you know, has Peter O'Toole and Anthony Hopkins and...

• 30:37Will Arnett?

  It's incre- I did a summer, I did a summer course there years ago.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 30:41Will Arnett?

  Nineteen eighty-seven. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  The Shakespeare?

• 30:43Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I did the whole thing for a few years there. Yeah, at RADA. At RADA, I sure did.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  How was that?

• 30:49Will Arnett?

  It was amazing, man.

• 30:50Jason Bateman?

  What did you do? You seem so dumb.

• 30:52Will Arnett?

  It was amazing.

• 30:53Jason Bateman?

  Is there a lot of pressure when you go to a school like that to, to, to, to make it? I mean, obviously you did, but I mean, is there, just sort of culturally, do you feel they're like, oh my God, okay, so I'm in RADA now. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta maintain our batting average of, or is there a lot of people that go there and, and, and then go into other fields? Is that, was that more common?

• 31:15Speaker 03

  It is, it is. It's, it's a very small intake. There's only thirty to each year. Fifteen, fifteen men, fifteen women.

• 31:21Jason Bateman?

  Every year?

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so it's, it's very small. So you, you feel the pressure immediately.

• 31:28Jason Bateman?

  That's small, did they do it on a bus?

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Yes, like a massage bus. Yeah, it just, it just kind of goes around, around to Piccadilly Circus.

• 31:35Jason Bateman?

  We have thirty on the massage bus comfortably.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  That's what I heard.

• 31:39Will Arnett?

  And then you guys stop, you guys stop for lunch at Jinky's on Ventura, right?

• 31:42Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, and some reading at the Bodhi Tree.

• 31:46Will Arnett?

  But it's very exclusive, but you, here you are, you're, you're a kid from Cardiff. Were you, you the only Welsh person in your year?

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Yes, I was, I was. I had a friend who was a year older. And then Michael Sheen had just come through and kind of blazed a trail and was kind of, you know, setting the West End on, on fire. So, so there was this, you know, there was a, the, the flag of Wales is, is the dragon. So there was a kind of a dragon firmly stamped as to, you know, the Welsh are resurging again. But, you know, like I said, Hopkins, Anthony Hopkins was the, the chairman of the board at the time. So he'd be in and out and he'd, he'd just done Shadowlands. So, you know, there was this, there was this great air that, you know, anything was, anything was possible, really. I think, I think one of the things that the Welsh and Wales suffer from enormously is small person syndrome. And at that time, there was just this little bubble

• 32:40Speaker 03

  of, of a few, you know, Welsh people doing incredibly well. Catherine Zeta was bursting through the ranks. So I was there at this Renaissance when anything felt possible.

• 32:49Jason Bateman?

  You know what my question is gonna be? I can ask it now or later. Did you ever forget a line on stage?

• 32:55Will Arnett?

  What's your favorite theater story, Matthew?

• 32:57Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, because you gotta have one or two.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Yes, I have, I have, well, I have quite a few, in fact. No, but possibly when I was, because I was doing theater for, for the first, well, five years solidly. And then at twenty-five, I thought I, I got the role that was gonna change my life and my career. It didn't, but I got to play Benjamin Braddock in a stage adaptation of The Graduate with Kathleen Turner as my Mrs. Robinson.

• 33:24Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  And to me, it was the first real introduction to Hollywood because I'd never experienced anything like it in every sense. Like PAs, and I was like, what's a PA? Who has a PA? It was just incredible. Anyway, fast forward, halfway through the run, it, it got a little, you know, there were a few bedroom antics in, in, in the production. And there's one moment where I jump in bed and with simulating sex, and I have to kind of plunge my face between her legs as if I'm, I'm pleasuring her. Or she had, she did have the, you know, the obligatory kind of, you know, flesh toned underwear on. But anyway, I had a, I had a streaming head cold.

• 34:05Jason Bateman?

  Sure.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  And being the malicious vindictive type that I am, I, I wouldn't let the understudy go on. So I went, I went on and I had, my nose was just streaming. My cold, my nose is streaming and I couldn't, I didn't want to kind of sniff heavily during, you know, during dialogue.

• 34:22Jason Bateman?

  Never, never a great idea.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I go, oh, I know what, I know what, I know what I'll do. I'll just clear my nose in that quiet moment when I'm between. I know, and I did, well, I didn't think. So I jumped in and I'm between Miss Turner's legs and I just went and inhaled deeply and the cover's kind of shot up. And she's looking down at me like, what the fuck? What the fuck are you doing? And I was like, oh, oh no, I'm not, no, I'm not, I'm not sniffing. I'm not sniffing, I have a cold, I have a cold, I'm not sniffing you.

• 34:51Jason Bateman?

  You're not trying wine out.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 34:54Jason Bateman?

  My God, no way.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Yes, I, I always live with this deep regret of that moment. That and when someone, there was a paparazzi photo, when the moment she, she took off her, her robe and this paparazzi photographer stood up and photographed her and a big flash went off, I know. And I looked at her on stage in this moment and I was like, oh, we should, we should stop. And she came in with the next line. And I always remember thinking, regardless that she was a consummate professional, I'm gonna come in with the next line, I'm gonna carry on. I bitterly regret in that moment not stopping the production because the next day, in a tabloid newspaper, there was a... Yeah, a, a huge photograph of... Yeah, yeah, I was ashamed, I was ashamed.

• 35:39Jason Bateman?

  Oh my God.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Well, you know. But it was.

• 35:43Will Arnett?

  The tabloid and the, and the headline just, just said, Welshman, you know, just fucking cowers under pressure.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yes. Spineless Welshman does nothing.

• 35:54Will Arnett?

  Leave it to the English tabloids to say that.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:58Jason Bateman?

  I love that. Oh my God.

• 35:59Will Arnett?

  So, so Matthew, so you, you did, as you said, you did, did, did you play another great Welshman? You played Dylan Thomas, didn't you?

• 36:06Speaker 03

  I did.

• 36:07Will Arnett?

  At one point?

• 36:07Speaker 03

  I did. That, yes. Oh my God, it feels so long ago, about twelve years ago now. Yeah, he, he had this, he had this incredible moment, the poet Dylan Thomas had this incredible moment in, in his life where he was having an affair.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  That part was played by Keira Knightley and Celine Miller's playing my wife. And Killian Murphy is the husband of Keira Knightley. And this is all true, that, that he burst in on Dylan Thomas with a machine gun, because it was during the Second War. He came in with a machine gun, he opened fire, he like, and then missed everyone and took out a grenade, pulled the pin and the grenade didn't go off. And it was that story that we, we told in...

• 36:49Will Arnett?

  No way.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  The Age of Love. Yeah, it was kind of, it was an unbelievable story that he survived and then tragically drank himself to death.

• 36:57Jason Bateman?

  Wow, talk about this, about the worst assassin you could ever imagine.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yes, and I was like, I was like, I was talking to Killian about it, I was like, but you're playing, you're a commando. You're a trained commando. What, do you want to play this part?

• 37:11Jason Bateman?

  So you are, you are not, you do not live in Wales, correct?

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I do not, no. I now live in leafy Brooklyn.

• 37:18Jason Bateman?

  Leafy Brooklyn?

• 37:18Will Arnett?

  So you live in, you live in Brooklyn, but you, you come over, you do theater, as you say, for basically five years. And then you move over to America to do what? What was the first thing that brought you over?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  The first thing I did, I was doing, I was doing a play, I was actually doing a two-hander at the Royal Court with Paul, Paul Bettany called One More Wasted Year. And everyone called it One More Wasted Evening because it wasn't, it wasn't good. My own family said as much, it was terrible.

• 37:43Will Arnett?

  Did they really?

• 37:44Jason Bateman?

  So they come, they come backstage, what, what were they saying to you backstage?

• 37:48Speaker 03

  My uncle was the first person of the entire group and they came in and is an old sea captain, very salty. And he went, well, that was shit.

• 37:59Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  And I couldn't argue, I went, you're absolutely right. And then, yeah. Stephen Daldry, who was the, Stephen Daldry was the artistic director at the time and press night, came in, went, darlings, was it the play we need to see right now? Probably not, should we go to the party?

• 38:16Jason Bateman?

  That's hysterical. Oh God.

• 38:18Will Arnett?

  That's so hardcore. So you come over with Paul Bettany, you do that?

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Sorry, yes. Yeah, and an American agent came to see the play and he said, do you want to come over for pilot season? And I had no idea what it was. And, and I said, yes, and then came, came to LA. And then the first audition he set me up with, it was, it was Julie Tamer's first movie, Titus, with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. And I just thought, oh my God, Los Angeles is truly the promised land, where you just turn up and get these huge movies and everything's great.

• 38:46Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, you just sign up.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  And then I did that, yeah. And I shot that in Rome for six months and then I went back to LA and didn't get a job for a decade.

• 38:53Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, so here's another, another time I'm gonna, my career's gonna be made. And it was just like, meh, meh.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:58Jason Bateman?

  Just paid a few bills.

• 38:59Will Arnett?

  Isn't that amazing? Isn't it, I love that feeling of like, yeah, it's gonna be like this forever.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it, it's like the Klond- I arrived, it was like the Klondike, where they throw you these scripts and go, this is being made for MGM, where this is the lead. And you're like, oh my, and you're allowing me to audition for this? This is madness. All I have to do is get the part and I'm set for life.

• 39:19Jason Bateman?

  You never know anything, you really don't. I mean, look, look at us three morons. Like, we've, we've, each of us have had great success, as I knock on wood, we're super grateful for in our careers. But then, you know, this thing comes along, it's more successful than anything we've ever done and it was just us three idiots chatting during COVID.

• 39:38Will Arnett?

  And the world, the world basically was saying, we don't want you guys to do the thing that you think that you're gonna just...

• 39:43Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, the things you're professional at.

• 39:45Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you can keep doing that a little bit if you want, but we just want you to be the... We want to hear your idiotic thoughts on stupid shit.

• 39:52Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, just like, you know, wonder at the moment where Sean learns that whales was, you know why? You know where whales got its name, Sean? You know, that's where they made the first harpoon.

• 40:02Sean Hayes?

  That's not true. That's not true.

• 40:04Jason Bateman?

  It's not true. Correct. But you bought it for a second.

• 40:07Sean Hayes?

  I always buy that shit. Because he'll fuck with me and he'll say something that's completely not true. And then he'll say something that's completely true. I never know what to believe.

• 40:17Jason Bateman?

  It's hard.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Fine, no, ain't.

• 40:19Sean Hayes?

  But wait a minute.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  They did shoot Moby Dick in Wales with Gregory Peck. And my grandfather worked on it.

• 40:24Sean Hayes?

  Is that true?

• 40:25Jason Bateman?

  It is true.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, they built three large rubber whales. And one of them, I know, this is the great joke is like they came to Wales. And one of them sailed off into the Irish Sea, which I think is fantastic that there was.

• 40:38Sean Hayes?

  I have a whale that needs a rubber, but go ahead.

• 40:40Jason Bateman?

  Hell.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  My grandfather caught Moby Dick, but there's a queue for it now.

• 40:44Will Arnett?

  Wait, wait, wait. What did your grandfather do on that?

• 40:49Speaker 03

  His friend Edgar was at Coppington and he kind of, they kind of helped out. And I think in the framing of the whales.

• 40:55Will Arnett?

  I love that.

• 40:56Sean Hayes?

  That's cool. Wait, I want to ask about Carrie and I want to know, like, did you meet each other? Because I'm an idiot. I don't know. Did you meet before Americans or on the set? And how did that go? And when did you know the sparks flew?

• 41:09Jason Bateman?

  One question at a time.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  We did. Because I get easily confused.

• 41:13Sean Hayes?

  Because I love Carrie. I love Carrie.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  So do I. We met quite a few years before the Americans.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  In Rustic Canyon at a kickball party that Jennifer Grey hosted. And I had no idea what kickball was.

• 41:27Will Arnett?

  Boy, all of that adds up, by the way.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And how I just amble through life, bumping into the furniture and ending up going, how did I get here? How did this happen? And we were the last two to leave. We were in the parking lot and I was trying to open a bottle of beer for her with a key and failing. And I asked for her number then. And then, and that was, and that was all I can remember. She was moving, she was moving to New York. Two days after that, on the Tuesday, it was a Sunday. And that's all I still remember. And then the road to the Americans was a long, crazy one. And then on the first day of fight training, I said to Carrie, I said, oh, we've met, we've met before, actually. She was like, no, no, we definitely haven't.

• 42:08Sean Hayes?

  It's been years.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  It's been years at this point. And I said, yeah, yeah, we met before. We met at a kickball party in Rustic Canyon. She went, oh, I know who you are. And you left me a message on my answering machine, a very drunken message. And I went, oh. Did I? I'm so sorry. I had no memory of leaving a long, rambling, incoherent, drunken message, which is probably why she didn't call.

• 42:31Will Arnett?

  Wait, did you really?

• 42:32Jason Bateman?

  Wait, can I, can I be a super moron? Are you guys together?

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:37Jason Bateman?

  Okay. Wait, did you, so you got together, you started?

• 42:41Will Arnett?

  You thought they were just bringing up that they're just good friends?

• 42:44Jason Bateman?

  No, because they worked together on the Americans for six years.

• 42:47Sean Hayes?

  That's what I'm saying. That's what I was asking.

• 42:48Jason Bateman?

  But then, but during that, you guys fell in love, got married, had a kid?

• 42:53Speaker 03

  We did, yes.

• 42:54Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, but I want to know what happened. So she goes, okay, now I remember you. And then what?

• 42:59Speaker 03

  And then it was, it was just a very, it was a very slow burn. The first season, you know, I think we were both trying to be sworn off to that thing. We're going to go, I'm not going to do what everyone tells us never to do. I'm not going to do that. And then, but the beginning of the second season, it was.

• 43:16Will Arnett?

  It was off.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  It was.

• 43:18Sean Hayes?

  It was a trip of sales.

• 43:18Jason Bateman?

  Okay, so now were the producer, did the producers take each of you aside individually and say, hey, this is, you're dealing with an asset here, okay? Everyone has jobs. If you guys go south, we have to shut the show down. Was it, were there conversations?

• 43:34Speaker 03

  No, no, they were very gracious about it because I've had friends.

• 43:37Jason Bateman?

  They were all so nervous.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  I know, I've had friends who, you know, who've had that conversation to sit down from the producers going, look, we've all been down here before. You guys are in your mid 30s now, you know, you're not 22.

• 43:49Jason Bateman?

  Right off the company pier.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  And they were very, yeah, they were very kind and gracious about it. Do you know, do you know the TV director, Tommy Schlomi?

• 43:55Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Schlomi was directing the beginning of the second season.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  And he has that kind of beautiful voice. But Carrie and I were having a, we were doing a sex scene. And Schlomi just goes, these two have been naked together before. And then it was like called out.

• 44:13Jason Bateman?

  Oh, really? So at that point, no one knew, but he could tell?

• 44:17Speaker 03

  He could, he could tell. And then, and then there's a longer story as to how we got found out, which was just.

• 44:22Jason Bateman?

  We've got time.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  Well, Carrie got broken into. I was in the, I was in, I was in the house at the time. And the, and the robbers kind of grabbed my backpack, shoved it full of her stuff.

• 44:32Jason Bateman?

  You're in the house alone during a home invasion?

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:37Jason Bateman?

  Well, start there.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Well, so here's the other thing is it's early day. And this is, this is just a testament to my abject stupidity. But in the early days of our, of our relationship. And she wakes me up, she says, there's someone in the house. And I go, no, there's not. And then I just heard this voice. And I remember, and I remember thinking, in any logical moment, you'd go, let's lock ourselves in the bathroom, call 911. And for some stupid reason, because it was very early days, I thought, what I do next, she will judge me on for the rest of our lives. What's that film?

• 45:14Sean Hayes?

  Force Majeure.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Force Majeure.

• 45:15Sean Hayes?

  Yep. Where the avalanche comes and he just runs. He leaves his family behind.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Right, right? I swear to God, I was like, if I suggest to go into the bathroom, call 911, will she think me a coward?

• 45:27Sean Hayes?

  Your relationship's over.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Yes, I had all these weird things go through my head. So what did I do? She had a, she had a working fireplace in the, in the, in the bedroom. So I picked up the poker. And with not a stitch on me, I walked out to meet my fate.

• 45:43Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 45:44Sean Hayes?

  And we'll be right back after these messages.

• 45:48Jason Bateman?

  Okay, so now we're back.

• 45:49Will Arnett?

  So now we're back. So now you're, now.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  So after eight months of treatment, yes, I was fine. No, I'm kidding.

• 45:56Jason Bateman?

  So, so did you face to face with this fella?

• 45:59Speaker 03

  No, because what I did was the, I think, what most people do is you turn the light off, light on, and they run straight away. So I heard them kind of run and they ran, they ran out the front door.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 46:13Will Arnett?

  So you do this and now Carrie thinks that you're her hero?

• 46:18Speaker 03

  I wouldn't go that far.

• 46:20Will Arnett?

  Or did she think you were stupid for going for chasing after the guy?

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, basically, yeah.

• 46:23Jason Bateman?

  She was locked in the bathroom.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, calling 911. Yeah, then seven cops turn up and they start, they clock her and they're like looking, they'll have no idea who I am, but they're looking at her. And then, and then all of a sudden, the DA were like, they catch them. And the DA said, oh, I tell you what, we would love to return your belongings on set with a photographer to Carrie, if that's okay. And she's like, she wasn't wild about the idea, tried to put her on, no, no, no. Because the DA was retiring that year. He wanted kind of a, you know, hero ending. So NYPD come on set with a photographer. And then they're holding up my bag. And you need, one of the young PAs went, wait, that's not Carrie's bag, that's Matthew's bag. And as I'm running, trying to go, shut the fuck up. And that's how, that's how the crew kind of found out.

• 47:10Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 47:11Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 47:12Jason Bateman?

  So arbitrary. That's crazy.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  It was a lot to go through just for the big reveal.

• 47:17Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 47:18Sean Hayes?

  That's kind of cool.

• 47:18Jason Bateman?

  So then this guy managed to grab a few things before he went running?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  He did, he did, he did. And when I saw the pic, when I saw the picture of him when he was arrested, I said, oh, I said, look, there's a picture of the guy they caught him. I said, look, look, and he's been cuffed by two little tiny cops. She said, they're not tiny. And I saw this, oh my, I saw the size of him. He could have, he could have turned me into a kebab with that poker and done what he wanted. I wouldn't have had a.

• 47:46Jason Bateman?

  Now, did you have any sort of war cry as you turned on the light? Was there any sort of?

• 47:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 47:51Will Arnett?

  Or did you go, hey, bear, hey, bear?

• 47:56Will Arnett?

  You know?

• 47:57Jason Bateman?

  Was there any of that?

• 47:58Speaker 03

  No, no, as much as, as much as.

• 48:01Jason Bateman?

  I have a poker.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. As much as I love that moment in Gladiator when all the Celts kind of attacked the Romans. And I always think, you know, if it came to it, that's how I'd react. I was not, I couldn't move my legs.

• 48:12Will Arnett?

  Don't make me come down there.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes, I'm, I'm classically trained, you know, I've done fencing.

• 48:18Jason Bateman?

  Totally naked.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Yes, let's just, let's get this going.

• 48:25Jason Bateman?

  And we will be right back.

• 48:28Sean Hayes?

  We ask a lot of our homes these days, don't we? They're offices, they're where we gather with friends, where we unwind, basically where we live our whole lives. But here's a question, does your home actually feel like you? Most of what fills a home is functional, produced for the masses, or chosen for convenience, not connection. Very little of it was chosen because it felt like you. Original art is different. It transforms your room into a self-portrait. That's what Saatchi art is for, helping guide you to art that moves you so your rooms reflect who you are. Every work is made by a living artist in sizes and at prices that fit the rooms you live in.

• 49:08Sean Hayes?

  And when you buy a piece, you're not just decorating, you're joining a community of collectors and artists who believe a space should say something real about the people living in it. Visit saatchiart.com and get 10% off original art with code SMARTLESS. That's saatchiart.com, S A A T C H I A R T dot com.

• 49:34Sean Hayes?

  You know what stood the test of time? No, not bad haircuts and pretending to understand wine. For centuries, law has remained a remarkably consistent way of making our promises stick. A word becomes an agreement, and an agreement becomes a contract, and a contract becomes bound by law. Now, Harvey, the AI platform designed specifically for legal work, is helping write the next chapter of that legacy. 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.

• 50:17Sean Hayes?

  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.

• 50:40Sean Hayes?

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• 51:24Sean Hayes?

  but works whether you have insurance or not. And it could beat your insurance copay price. Save time and money on your prescriptions this season. Check out GoodRx at goodrx.com/smartless. That's goodrx.com/smartless.

• 51:44Sean Hayes?

  And now, back to the show.

• 51:48Sean Hayes?

  All right, so you and Carrie have a child. That's a boy or a girl?

• 51:51Speaker 03

  He's a boy. He's a boy. Carrie has two older ones, so there's three in the house who outnumber us.

• 51:56Sean Hayes?

  And what are the ages of all three?

• 51:58Speaker 03

  15, 11, and 6.

• 52:00Sean Hayes?

  15, 11, and 6. Then the 15 and 11 are boy, girl?

• 52:03Speaker 03

  A boy, girl. So it goes boy, girl, boy.

• 52:05Sean Hayes?

  Boy, girl, boy. And how are you liking being a dad?

• 52:08Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 52:09Sean Hayes?

  You love it?

• 52:09Speaker 03

  I do love it. It's the madness that I love. At its most catastrophic, the small stuff irks you, but when it's catastrophic, it's brilliant. When it was mornings when the wheels so royally come off, that's when I can sit back and go, oh, this is just brilliant.

• 52:23Sean Hayes?

  Who's the more patient one with the chaos? Is it you or her?

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Uh, her. Her.

• 52:30Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Chaos I'm fine with, but manners, rudeness, I don't tolerate.

• 52:35Sean Hayes?

  No, me neither.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  No, that's what I got. How old are yours now, Jason?

• 52:39Sean Hayes?

  I got 16 and 11, two girls.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 52:43Sean Hayes?

  And I'm totally permissive and the guy that plays around, and I don't have to really be the disciplinarian. But if it's the rudeness, if it's stuff like that, and I just like the switch gets thrown.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, same.

• 52:55Sean Hayes?

  I pick and choose my moments.

• 52:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, the chaos is great. Yeah, rudeness I have.

• 52:59Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we've got 14, 12, and then my partner, she has a five-year-old, and then we have an almost three-year-old.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 53:10Will Arnett?

  All boys.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  No way.

• 53:12Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  You've almost got the hockey team.

• 53:15Will Arnett?

  Almost got the team, and it's a fuck. And it is, sometimes it is absolute, just abject chaos.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  How do you like it?

• 53:23Will Arnett?

  I love it. It's great. Yeah, I love it. It's, I don't know, I just wouldn't have it any other way. I embrace it. It's fun. Same thing. They're all nice kids, and everybody has good manners and stuff. That's one of the things. But I love it, man. I love it when it just gets absolute. You know, sometimes when you get into the witching hour, sort of near bedtime, it gets fucking bonkers.

• 53:47Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. How about the complications, Matthew, of travel and stuff? Since you guys are both very active in your careers and your kids are now deeply entrenched in school and having that sort of social and academic continuity, like you can't really pick them up and take them places with you as much as you want, I'll bet, right? How do you guys manage that? Is it easy or tough?

• 54:08Speaker 03

  It is tough. I mean, we try and live by this ridiculous rule where one of us works, one of us doesn't, and the kids stay at school. But it's just...

• 54:16Sean Hayes?

  That never works out, right? Because what if somebody gets a great, great call, and you just can't say no, but this is your turn?

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is what happened last year. And grandma came in, and the kids ate sugar for six solid months. They loved it.

• 54:35Will Arnett?

  I think that my sort of view on it always is that, is that you have this idea of how you want it to go. So you say, like, one of us is gonna work, one of us not, whatever that thing is. And you try to set those parameters, and you try to get as close to it as you can. And you have to be flexible and allow yourself to, you know, that there are gonna be moments where it's just pure chaos.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:56Sean Hayes?

  And the truth is, kids are so incredibly resilient. Like, they don't know any different. I grew up in a house where my mom was a stewardess for Pan Am or flight attendant, so she was gone two weeks of every month. That was just normal to me, you know? I just had my mom half the time. And that was just normal. Yeah. I had my dad. Never mind. Oh, no. Matthew's gonna love this story.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  No, no, yeah, go.

• 55:20Sean Hayes?

  So it starts with a Chevy Pontiac, the engine turning on.

• 55:24Will Arnett?

  Yeah, and it ends with a peel-out. Yeah, just a peel-out. And a real...

• 55:29Sean Hayes?

  And a sort of a distant kind of, "Fuck you!"

• 55:31Will Arnett?

  Fuck all you! I'm out!

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Sean, this isn't true, is it?

• 55:38Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's true. My dad left when I was five.

• 55:40Will Arnett?

  And he left his mom to keep an eye on all of them.

• 55:46Will Arnett?

  And I stress, "N-I."

• 55:47Sean Hayes?

  His mother has one eye.

• 55:48Will Arnett?

  And I stress, "N-I."

• 55:50Sean Hayes?

  Matthew, it's brilliantly tragic. You have to laugh.

• 55:54Will Arnett?

  It's fun.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  It's the only thing we have to do.

• 55:56Will Arnett?

  We have to laugh at our misfortunes because...

• 55:59Sean Hayes?

  But wait, I'm gonna ask you a weird question, only because you're wearing a black t-shirt. And I've seen a lot of photos of you and stuff, like where you seem very, you seem very kind of fat, like you're into fashion when you have to be. Like, I know nothing. Like, I'm terrible. But you're probably like Will, where you're like, "I like to look good when I even go to the store. I like to look good when I go out in public." Like, is that, it seems like a lot of effort.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no. If you truly knew me, it's... Carrie said the other day, because I have these beaten-up car hearts, and I wear usually just the same black t-shirt every day. And even Carrie's like, "You've got to change for the school run. You've worn the same thing for, it's now months." And my car hearts are really beaten up, and there was this...

• 56:46Sean Hayes?

  What's "cards"?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Car hearts. Sorry, it's the way I'm saying it.

• 56:49Sean Hayes?

  It's a brand, clothing brand.

• 56:50Will Arnett?

  Oh, oh, oh.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  It's like the carpenters' car hearts. All the carpenters wear them, and they're real worker guys. And I wear them into the ground, because they look so terrible. I was standing in school pickup in line, and this mother kind of looked at my trousers, and she said, "What is it you do?" And I went, "Oh, I'm actually an actor." And she went, "Oh, oh." It's like, almost like, "Why are you masquerading as someone who works for a living?"

• 57:20Sean Hayes?

  Well, you have your uniform.

• 57:21Will Arnett?

  Well, it's like Jason always gets the question when they see him. They always say, "What time's your tea time?" Right? Isn't that the question?

• 57:26Speaker 03

  I ask them that today.

• 57:27Sean Hayes?

  Well, when I wear this little outfit, it's clear. You know what I do get a lot? You know what I do get a lot is, do you color your hair? And now, recently, because of this film where I play a guy in 1985, they think it's a wig, just a full-blown wig that I'm wearing.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  On air? I'm looking forward to that immensely.

• 57:46Sean Hayes?

  No one thinks that my hair is the right, is the real color. Because in your 70s, like you are, that's not true. It's not believable that a 70-year-old would not have any gray hair.

• 57:57Will Arnett?

  I have to admit that there have been, I've had a few people in the last year who have asked me, Jason, if I color my hair.

• 58:04Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, same.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  I tell everyone that you color your hair.

• 58:08Sean Hayes?

  It's you.

• 58:08Will Arnett?

  That's what it is.

• 58:10Sean Hayes?

  Son of a bitch.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  It was, yeah, it was during that moment. Do you remember, I don't know if you remember this, in the Golden Globes, this is sound perversely pretentious, but it still makes me laugh. That kind of green, the virtual green room, if you remember, is you, me, Bob Odenkirk, Josh O'Connor, and then we were all waiting for Al Pacino to kind of pop up. Do you remember, into the virtual green room? And we're all waiting, and then he pops up, because we're all at home during the pandemic, and he looks like a Bond villain, because he has like a small dog in his lap, and he's choking it. Yes. And we all sort of say, we all go, "Hi, hello, hello, hi, hi." And then this silence. And then we cut into a second round where we're going, "Hello, hi." No, nothing.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  And then I think you said, "I don't think he can hear us." And then Pacino just goes, "Oh, I can hear you."

• 59:00Sean Hayes?

  Oh, boy.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  We all went, "Oh."

• 59:04Sean Hayes?

  Just doesn't want to do the group hug.

• 59:05Will Arnett?

  And then he said, "I think he colors his hair."

• 59:10Speaker 03

  Oh, this guy? Oh, oh, hair color?

• 59:13Will Arnett?

  Charlie.

• 59:15Will Arnett?

  Hey, so, so Matthew.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. Quick question for Jason. Why is the emblem, why is the person holding an umbrella? What is that?

• 59:22Jason Bateman?

  Oh, this is some silly golf sweater.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  Mary Poppins.

• 59:25Will Arnett?

  Oh, yeah, what is that?

• 59:26Jason Bateman?

  It actually is a Mary Popp. This is a, I believe this is an ATT thing, Willie.

• 59:30Will Arnett?

  Yeah. From ATT?

• 59:31Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, this is one of the.

• 59:33Will Arnett?

  From that swag room we went into?

• 59:34Jason Bateman?

  Free sweater.

• 59:35Sean Hayes?

  We have Smartless golf stuff coming out soon.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 59:38Jason Bateman?

  Oh, let's, let's take the opportunity to do a merch tie-in show. Smart.

• 59:41Sean Hayes?

  I'm just saying.

• 59:42Will Arnett?

  Matthew, Matthew, can you commit right now to wearing Smartless golf merch on the school run?

• 59:47Speaker 03

  But I, my entire closet is mainly made up of clothes I've stolen from jobs. I don't buy a thing.

• 59:55Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, same.

• 59:55Jason Bateman?

  Well, we're gonna send you some, some Smartless golf swag. So like some, some plus fours, right? For the golf pants, you know, you can wear that, you know?

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. We were, we were, I do wanna say, your show gives us so much joy and we were listening. Yes, it does. We were listening to it recently. And Will, I think you went to dinner with Sean at JAR? And you, and Sean, you wore.

• 1:00:17Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I was not invited.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. Well, we, we brought that up in the car. We were like, why wasn't Jason there?

• 1:00:22Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I never am. These guys have been all over the world together. I've never asked. Ever. I mean, they've been to Turkey, they've been to, where else, guys?

• 1:00:29Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we have, uh.

• 1:00:30Jason Bateman?

  Where else have your passports been stamped?

• 1:00:32Will Arnett?

  Venice, Italy, right?

• 1:00:33Jason Bateman?

  Venice, Italy, yeah.

• 1:00:34Sean Hayes?

  You guys play golf every day. Okay, go ahead.

• 1:00:36Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, no, that's different.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So, so you did say that you were wearing Uggs, well, this kind of slipper Uggs for dinner. Is that right? Did I remember that right?

• 1:00:44Sean Hayes?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  And I said to Kayla, I went, see? It's fine. And she went, they live in LA.

• 1:00:49Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 1:00:51Will Arnett?

  She's right.

• 1:00:51Jason Bateman?

  Sean, that was you wearing the comfy shoes?

• 1:00:54Will Arnett?

  Yeah, he's been doing it for years. He's doing it for years.

• 1:00:56Sean Hayes?

  Who looks at your shoes? Nobody looks at your shoes in a dark restaurant.

• 1:00:58Jason Bateman?

  I would, and then I would choose to never come to dinner with you again.

• 1:01:00Will Arnett?

  Cobblers around the world.

• 1:01:02Sean Hayes?

  Cobblers.

• 1:01:04Will Arnett?

  Listen, uh, so Matthew, so now recently, in the last couple of years, you've partnered with our, with our, our good friend, Mr. Downey Jr.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Jason Bateman?

  Oh, yeah, Perry Mason. Now, that's a handsome looking show.

• 1:01:17Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:01:18Will Arnett?

  Talk to us a little bit about, first of all, how that came about and what a, an absolute terror he is as an executive producer.

• 1:01:26Jason Bateman?

  Oh, this Downey.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:01:28Will Arnett?

  He needs to be checked.

• 1:01:29Sean Hayes?

  Yells and screams.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  Oh, what a screamer.

• 1:01:32Jason Bateman?

  He strikes people.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, with a glove. Has a leather glove, a small gauntlet, that he sometimes put a metal thimble in it just for the little. Ah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Christ, he's here, he's here.

• 1:01:44Sean Hayes?

  He speaks so highly of you.

• 1:01:45Will Arnett?

  How did that come, how did, yeah, he loves you.

• 1:01:48Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, he does. He really does.

• 1:01:49Will Arnett?

  Robert loves you. And, and talk to us a little bit about, and Susan as well. She loves you too.

• 1:01:54Jason Bateman?

  Susan does not like, oh, she does.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  Well, yes.

• 1:01:56Will Arnett?

  The great Susan, the brains of that duo.

• 1:02:00Jason Bateman?

  The wind beneath the wings and the brain in the head.

• 1:02:03Will Arnett?

  Yeah. How did that come into, into your, sort of into your world, the Perry Mason project?

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  I mean, oh, I'm trying to think what year it was now, cause it was, it was, it was a while back.

• 1:02:15Will Arnett?

  Probably three, four years ago, maybe?

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I, I always, and this is what, this is how my brain works. When, when my manager calls and he goes, you know, Team Downey wanna talk to you about a reboot of Perry Mason. My first question was like, who, who's turned it down? Who's turned it down?

• 1:02:34Jason Bateman?

  Right. Why does Robert wanna do it?

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Yes, well, so that was, and I think he did. I think that was the whole point, that Robert was, was supposed to do it. And, and it took them almost 10 years of development and it went through many, very many guises of a TV film, a series. And I just think Robert never quite got there. So, yeah, they reached out for, for, for a meeting, which I was terrified about.

• 1:02:58Jason Bateman?

  And the brilliant Mr. Van Patten directed that, didn't he?

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There was just the, yeah, it was just, it was a dream.

• 1:03:04Will Arnett?

  Genius. And by the way, I love that their, their company's called Team Downey, which is always fun to me. I think that's a great company name. It's, I've always been jealous of that, but I don't want Robert to know.

• 1:03:15Jason Bateman?

  I would have called it Touch Downey.

• 1:03:16Will Arnett?

  Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's nice.

• 1:03:18Jason Bateman?

  That'd be good too, right?

• 1:03:19Will Arnett?

  That's fun. Yeah, it's fun.

• 1:03:20Jason Bateman?

  It's just like, I'm looking to rename mine Master Bateman, but it will not, it has not cleared.

• 1:03:27Will Arnett?

  So, Robert, so, so Team Downey, so Team Downey reaches out and you go and you meet with these guys and you're like, you're like, uh, did you know that it was gonna become this great? Like, what was your first thought of it? Were you like excited? Were you sort of skeptical? Were you?

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  I mean, I was, I was, I was slightly skeptical, cause I have.

• 1:03:48Sean Hayes?

  Like, did you develop it with them or was it a script?

• 1:03:50Jason Bateman?

  Well, you're also carrying a bunch of pedigree out of the Americans. Won the Emmy.

• 1:03:54Will Arnett?

  The Americans and, and Brothers and Sisters that you did for five years with our, with our old buddy Robbie Bates, my old friend.

• 1:04:01Jason Bateman?

  You did not want it to suck.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  No, no. But, but that was never in doubt, cause you know, I think when you saw Team Downey, you know, the writers on it, Tim Van Patten, HBO, it was, it kind of, it was shrieked of, I wasn't concerned that it wouldn't, wouldn't be of a certain caliber. If any, if anything, my, you know, it's all, usually it stems from my own insecurities, what, you know? What, how, how I can turn it into a catastrophe more than anything else. But I was very excited. I loved it. It was pitched as a one-off. Uh, and they were like, look, we just wanna do the origin story and that'll be it. And then, you know, halfway through, they were like, you know, this, it works pretty good. It looks good. We should, we should think about doing this, you know?

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  We should think about doing more of this. I do, I did have that small reservation where I've done, where I've kind of, you know, Perry Mason is so revered, well, it was in the UK, it was huge. And, and here also, there is a certain generation of an age group up that kind of go, no, no, no, you can't, you can't touch Mason, you know, you have to leave that alone.

• 1:05:00Jason Bateman?

  And then a ton of people have no recollection of the show whatsoever.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  And that's what Susan said. She said, look, there's, there's an entire, there are swathes of generations ready for a new Perry Mason.

• 1:05:09Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we can do, we can make it whatever we want. And where did you, where did you guys shoot that?

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  In, in LA. They went back to the origin story in the books, which was 1930s LA, which to me was, you know, with Chinatown and everything else was such, was so alluring. And, and, and as a kid growing up watching old movies, I was like, oh, my God, I get to wear a fedora in LA.

• 1:05:28Sean Hayes?

  And you do an American accent?

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:30Will Arnett?

  You get to wear a fedora in LA like everybody else in Venice, right?

• 1:05:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, or, yeah, or Los Feliz, yeah.

• 1:05:37Jason Bateman?

  As an actor, is the, is the American accent a tough thing to do? And do you have like a phrase that clicks you right into the typical American sound? That's sort of like a shortcut for you?

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  There, no, there's no real shortcut. It's still, it's still, it's still a huge, it's like a, I say block.

• 1:05:53Sean Hayes?

  Like hamburger.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Well, I tell you what, well, yeah, I tell you what, killer, I went, I went up to one of the writers early on in, in Perry Mason. I said, is there any chance we can change like murderer to killer? And he's like, you do you realize you've signed on for Perry Mason? Like, you're gonna be saying murderer a lot. And I was like, yeah, I hadn't quite thought that one through. That's a bit of an Achilles heel for me, that one. I always sound like I've run.

• 1:06:18Jason Bateman?

  That's a tough word to say.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, like your batteries run out halfway through, you just go murderer. Murderer, murderer. I was like, can you say killer? What about suspect? Suspect would be great.

• 1:06:27Jason Bateman?

  Right, because the British accent would put an AH on it, murderer.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Will Arnett?

  Murderer.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  Murderer, yeah.

• 1:06:33Will Arnett?

  Murderer. By the way, if you're gonna live in America, you gotta learn how to say murderer. I mean, sorry.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:06:40Sean Hayes?

  That's so true.

• 1:06:41Will Arnett?

  It's gonna be the thing you're gonna say the most. Jesus Christ. Well, yeah, I mean, now, so now you've got the second season of Perry Mason coming out, which is fantastic, which you never thought you'd do.

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:06:54Will Arnett?

  And, and.

• 1:06:55Jason Bateman?

  And that was, that was delayed a bit, yeah? With COVID, perhaps?

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  Hugely delayed, because it's too into a, you know, detriment. We're like, no, we're gonna wait. We're not gonna, we're not gonna shrink the show and make a smaller show of, of the first one. We'll wait until we can make the same big show with hundreds of supporting artists and do it right.

• 1:07:12Jason Bateman?

  Right, because there's a lot of background players in, in, in a lot of crowd scenes. Yeah.

• 1:07:17Will Arnett?

  It's a massive production.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  Oh, my, it's, it's a beast. It's, there are, there are those days I turn up on set and I go, I don't even know how this, how this works. My brother, my brother-in-law was a tank commander of the British Army.

• 1:07:28Will Arnett?

  Whoa.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  For most of his life. And he said, it's all, it's like, if you think about the logistics, they have to, it's insane. But he came on set one day and he went, how does this work?

• 1:07:37Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  And he was just so shocked. He goes, what amazes me, he said, what amazes me is that so many components have to come together in one tiny moment and be quiet. He said it was.

• 1:07:50Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  It's sort of stag, it staggered him. He was like, he was like amazed at the call sheets and everything. It is.

• 1:07:56Will Arnett?

  It's true. When you watch, when you go to a, when you go to a big film television set and you watch all these people who are at the top of their game and they're seeing, like you said, come together in that moment where everybody's gotta be silent and everything's gotta be great. And you see it pulled off. Sometimes it has the timing of something that has to happen in the shot, whatever it is. It is pretty amazing to watch how good these people are at what they do.

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And filming, filming in New York, which we obviously did the American zone.

• 1:08:23Will Arnett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  It's, it's staggering that they get away with what they do in the kind of, like, location department should be given flak jackets these days for the amount, the amount of abuse they just get from people who wanted to park, drive down the street or, you know, enter a show.

• 1:08:39Will Arnett?

  But how many times have you had that when you're shooting in New York on the street and then somebody, it's like pretty good. And then like somewhere in the take, you just hear somebody leaning out a window going, I wanna be in the fucking movie.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, all the time. Or, and almost, if it says exterior night in the Americans, you know you're looping it. You know you're ADRing it, cause you know there's someone shouting along the line. There was this one time in Harlem, I was doing a scene and it was like eight guys, cause I had to shout the scene, eight guys were shouting the exact same words along with me and the director.

• 1:09:09Sean Hayes?

  Cause they've heard it so many times?

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Will Arnett?

  Matthew, we have taken up so much of your time. My god, I just really, we could talk to you forever.

• 1:09:18Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:19Jason Bateman?

  You're a conversationalist.

• 1:09:21Sean Hayes?

  You're one of us, you're one of us.

• 1:09:21Will Arnett?

  God, you are one of us.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  This has been a real treat, Sean. I can't wait to see the show. We're all coming to see it. We're very excited about it.

• 1:09:27Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's so nice. Thank you.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  How, how are previews going?

• 1:09:30Sean Hayes?

  Really well, really exhausting, but thank you for asking. I walked down the street one day, today, walked down the street to go get my little sandwich, my egg sandwich.

• 1:09:38Will Arnett?

  Anakiza roll.

• 1:09:39Sean Hayes?

  Anakiza roll, and this woman, this woman stopped me. She was really sweet, but this is how much energy was in her voice. She grabbed my arm, she goes, "I saw your show last night." I go, "Yeah? Thank you for coming." She goes, "It was really good." And she just walked in.

• 1:09:55Will Arnett?

  I love New York. New York, undefeated.

• 1:09:58Sean Hayes?

  And that's it. I was like, she was very nice, though.

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Last time I did a play, I was, I was, I was walking from the theater, and this woman just shouted, "You're an asshole." And I just went, "I hope you saw the show." That's not personal.

• 1:10:14Will Arnett?

  Matthew, well, when we come to New York, I hope that we can grab a meal. You, me, and Carrie, and maybe one of these ding-dongs as well. It'd be great. Let's go.

• 1:10:22Jason Bateman?

  Yes, please.

• 1:10:23Will Arnett?

  Get Sean and Scotty and JB, we'll do it up. It'll be great to see you, man.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me. This has been such a treat.

• 1:10:29Sean Hayes?

  Thank you, Matthew.

• 1:10:30Will Arnett?

  And send all of our love to Carrie.

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  I will.

• 1:10:33Will Arnett?

  We adore her as well, and we adore you. You are, as Sean said, you're one of us. It's been such a pleasure, buddy. And a continued success. Perry Mason comes out, what's the release, it's...

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  It's out now, right?

• 1:10:44Will Arnett?

  It's out now.

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  Monday nights at nine, yeah.

• 1:10:47Will Arnett?

  Monday nights at nine. There we go.

• 1:10:48Sean Hayes?

  HBO Max, yeah.

• 1:10:49Will Arnett?

  HBO.

• 1:10:49Jason Bateman?

  Congratulations, Matthew.

• 1:10:50Will Arnett?

  Yeah, congratulations on all the success, buddy.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys. Thanks a million.

• 1:10:53Jason Bateman?

  Thanks for being here, buddy. Have a good day.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  See you soon.

• 1:10:56Jason Bateman?

  Bye, pal.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  Slam it shut.

• 1:11:02Jason Bateman?

  Now, there's a nice guy. Well, what's a nice guy like that being... How is he friends with you?

• 1:11:06Will Arnett?

  Because that's the kind of, that's the ilk of people that I attract. You know what I mean? It's just like-minded people, birds of a feather, cool dudes.

• 1:11:15Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, he's charming. He knows how to carry on a conversation.

• 1:11:17Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I know. I'm always impressed with guys like that who are just so, like, relaxed, like, lately, like...

• 1:11:22Will Arnett?

  Well, he's confident, you know?

• 1:11:23Jason Bateman?

  He's comfortable, you know? He's got his uniform, he's got his black t-shirt, and his...

• 1:11:26Will Arnett?

  He's not like you guys. He doesn't have an axe to grind, you know what I mean? He doesn't have something to prove all the time.

• 1:11:31Jason Bateman?

  He's not trying to prove anything with his fun tops that he wears, Sean.

• 1:11:35Sean Hayes?

  I'm a fun top. Now, listen.

• 1:11:36Jason Bateman?

  I know you are. Speaking of which, where's the cocaine bear? What's he fixing now? He's fixing some... Scotty, what are you making? What kind of sandwich?

• 1:11:47Sean Hayes?

  Oh, you had a Turks, you had a Turk sandwich.

• 1:11:49Jason Bateman?

  Oh, a Turk sandwich? Wait, wait, what else is on it?

• 1:11:51Will Arnett?

  What percentage of the day, what percentage of the day... Hang on, what percentage of the day when you yell out, "Hey, Scotty, what are you doing", is the answer, "I'm making a sandwich"?

• 1:12:00Sean Hayes?

  Well, usually it's for me.

• 1:12:01Will Arnett?

  No, that's what I mean.

• 1:12:02Sean Hayes?

  Making Sammies.

• 1:12:02Will Arnett?

  That's what I mean.

• 1:12:03Jason Bateman?

  Well, so, what do we got on the turkey? So, how do you like your turkey sandwich done, Sean?

• 1:12:06Sean Hayes?

  I ordered one, I had one yesterday for lunch. It was a turkey, avocado, lettuce, and extra, extra, extra mayo.

• 1:12:12Jason Bateman?

  Oh, and are we toasting the bread?

• 1:12:15Sean Hayes?

  No.

• 1:12:16Jason Bateman?

  Really? How about a light toast, a little snap on it?

• 1:12:18Sean Hayes?

  Just like a real soft thing there, yeah.

• 1:12:20Jason Bateman?

  Extra, do you literally say extra, extra, extra mayo?

• 1:12:22Sean Hayes?

  Yes, I always do, because they never put enough on.

• 1:12:24Will Arnett?

  You know what I like? I like it when you get one of those, like, sort of like an Italian, you know what I mean? With the different cuts of meat, some cold cuts, lettuce, tomato, and get some...

• 1:12:32Jason Bateman?

  Dropping into the Brooklyn accent.

• 1:12:33Will Arnett?

  Some oil and vinegar, get a little salt, peps.

• 1:12:36Sean Hayes?

  Stuff it in there, stuff it in there.

• 1:12:36Will Arnett?

  You know, by the way, it reminds me, I was saying about the, wearing the hats all around. I remember, um, remember Thoreau went through a long phase. He was always wearing, like, hats and little pork pie hats and fedoras and stuff. And I remember Boulder, Boulder said one day, "You look fedorable." And, uh...

• 1:12:54Will Arnett?

  It just really killed us, yeah.

• 1:12:57Sean Hayes?

  Hey, what kind of hat do I have on today?

• 1:12:59Will Arnett?

  You got one of those Smartless merch hats.

• 1:13:01Sean Hayes?

  That's right.

• 1:13:01Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, wait, where do we get one of those?

• 1:13:03Speaker 05

  Sorry to interrupt, guys. It looks like Carrie Russell's entering the waiting room. She might just want to say hi, you want to just pause.

• 1:13:07Will Arnett?

  Put her on, put her on, put Carrie on, then we're gonna air it. There she is!

• 1:13:12Speaker 05

  There she is.

• 1:13:13Jason Bateman?

  If you can hear us, hello.

• 1:13:14Sean Hayes?

  We'll have to have her on.

• 1:13:15Speaker 05

  They, I will tell the boys, they can't hear you right now because they're on the other system, but...

• 1:13:19Will Arnett?

  You were fantastic. Thank you. Bye.

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  Okay, thanks for everything. Really appreciate it. Well done.

• 1:13:25Will Arnett?

  I love that we just had a, we just had a quick visual, uh, visit from Carrie Russell. And, and we couldn't hear her, but we got to see her, and she was there. She's probably with the kids, right, Sean?

• 1:13:35Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, she was...

• 1:13:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, she probably would. It's about time for pickup.

• 1:13:38Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's probably, or for naptime for her kids, which she would then sing. What would she, what would she sing to them? If she was gonna put her kids to bed, she would probably sing, like, "Rocka, bye, baby."

• 1:13:55Will Arnett?

  Jason hates when we go up.

• 1:13:58Jason Bateman?

  He just, he just pinches that voice off.

• 1:14:00Will Arnett?

  Bye!

• 1:14:14Will Arnett?

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• 1:14:27Speaker 06

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• 1:14:46Speaker 07

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