"Edgar Wright"

Get the motion-sensors on in here: it’s Edgar Wright. Free ice cream, the dregs of humanity, and a fistful of fingers. Turn on your joke-delivery machine… it’s time for an all-new SmartLess.

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

• 0:00Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. So this may not surprise you, I have a lot of thoughts in my head. And my dream is to just blurt them out and somehow get them down on paper, because my brain works way faster than my hands. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop. No more typing, you just talk, and the Rambler feature cleans up your ums and uhs and all the times you change your mind. Basically, it turns messy thoughts into tidy text. Visit googlebook.com for details. Available in select countries and languages to 18-plus users. Check the responses for accuracy.

• 0:43Jason Bateman?

  Did you ever notice the best deals are just obvious? Like hotels.com. What do they do, you may ask? Hotels on the internet. And a lot of them, like hundreds of thousands. I don't know why I just turned into Sean Hayes. Plus, if you join for free, you can save up to 20% instantly with member prices. And you earn rewards every time you book. So, your next trip basically starts paying for itself. It's simple, and you get more out of every stay. Sign up for free and book today. Hotels.com, it's all in the name.

• 1:23Sean Hayes?

  The place you call home is important to you. So, it's important to Allstate. Because home is where you make all your memories. Things like inviting your friends over for game night and discovering that one of them takes charades way, way too seriously. It's these memories that make a house feel like home. If it's important to you, it's important to Allstate. Switch to Allstate, and you could save hundreds on home insurance today. Not available in every state. Potential savings vary, subject to terms and qualifications. Allstate North American Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

• 1:59Sean Hayes?

  Sitting in traffic, huh? Watching an old lady with a walker make it further up the road than you have in the last 15 minutes? And of course, your gas tank is in the perfect spot between not a problem to stranded on the highway. Hit your booking point? Book with Southwest and enter airplane mode. Experience award-winning reliability, fly with the best crew in the sky, and never worry about change or cancellation fees. Now tell that old lady to slow down. Kids live around here. Southwest Airlines, enter airplane mode.

• 2:44Sean Hayes?

  This is a podcast, and we're talking with people about talking. We're talking about stuff. We're talking about life. We're talking about stuff that people like. Like life. Like, like, like, like, like life. It's Smartless!

• 3:21Sean Hayes?

  I watched episode 5 last night of Black Rabbit.

• 3:25Jason Bateman?

  Oh, Sean, you know what? You're such a good friend.

• 3:28Sean Hayes?

  678.

• 3:28Jason Bateman?

  Sorry, hang on one second, Will. When you-

• 3:33Will Arnett?

  I finished it last night.

• 3:35Jason Bateman?

  Support-

• 3:35Sean Hayes?

  Okay. You did?

• 3:36Will Arnett?

  I watched them all.

• 3:37Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 3:37Sean Hayes?

  You did?

• 3:38Jason Bateman?

  Start with Ozark.

• 3:39Will Arnett?

  No, sorry, I did it. I did it.

• 3:40Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:41Will Arnett?

  Ozark, I am so close to watching Ozark.

• 3:43Sean Hayes?

  I know, I know.

• 3:44Will Arnett?

  Dude, I'm so excited. I, first of all, I've watched-

• 3:47Jason Bateman?

  You know what I'm close to? I'm close to seeing your movie for the third time. But, listen.

• 3:52Will Arnett?

  Why?

• 3:53Sean Hayes?

  By the way, I haven't seen it.

• 3:55Jason Bateman?

  No, I know. But, but you're an incredibly supportive friend, so no doubt you will.

• 4:00Sean Hayes?

  Oh, yeah. I'll see it.

• 4:01Will Arnett?

  Of course I will. You know what I actually did? I actually-

• 4:03Jason Bateman?

  No, no, sorry, I was talking to Sean.

• 4:06Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Jason Bateman?

  If that wasn't already clear.

• 4:09Will Arnett?

  I, I.

• 4:10Jason Bateman?

  Listener, listener, just give us a second. Go ahead, Chewie.

• 4:15Will Arnett?

  What were you gonna say?

• 4:16Sean Hayes?

  Chewie.

• 4:16Will Arnett?

  Chewie, oh, fuck.

• 4:19Jason Bateman?

  I got a lot of issues with Will Arnett this morning.

• 4:22Will Arnett?

  Uh oh.

• 4:23Jason Bateman?

  No, not really. I love Will Arnett. Will Arnett's my favorite.

• 4:27Will Arnett?

  I was just saying, I'm flying to New York next week and I'm, and I'm downloading all the episodes and I was gonna watch it last night, but Black Rabbit is very intense. From everybody that I've heard, is very intense and I don't like watching, I don't watch intense stuff before bed.

• 4:41Sean Hayes?

  Is that true?

• 4:41Jason Bateman?

  Well, you're gonna have to watch.

• 4:42Will Arnett?

  Quite literally don't.

• 4:43Jason Bateman?

  You're gonna have to watch it at night because I like low lighting on set.

• 4:48Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's really cool.

• 4:49Jason Bateman?

  But, but, sorry, your plan was to watch it on a, on a laptop there, on a computer there on a plane?

• 4:54Will Arnett?

  No, on, on my, on my iPad.

• 4:56Jason Bateman?

  So the third time I see your film, I'll see it in another movie theater, like I did the first two times and really focus.

• 5:03Will Arnett?

  Is it, is it a feature film or is it, is it a limited series?

• 5:06Jason Bateman?

  It's a limited series.

• 5:07Will Arnett?

  Okay, thank you so much caller.

• 5:09Jason Bateman?

  So I thought maybe the least you could do is watch it on the television at your house.

• 5:13Will Arnett?

  We got a Sig Alert, we got a Sig Alert over on the 405.

• 5:16Sean Hayes?

  It's really good.

• 5:17Will Arnett?

  Can I come and watch it in your theater?

• 5:19Jason Bateman?

  You sure can.

• 5:20Will Arnett?

  That would be fun.

• 5:21Sean Hayes?

  I'm gonna watch the last, I'm gonna watch the last two.

• 5:23Will Arnett?

  Wait, Sean, you watched it in his theater?

• 5:25Jason Bateman?

  He watched the first two in the theater, he's gonna watch the last two in the theater.

• 5:28Sean Hayes?

  The last two, yeah.

• 5:29Jason Bateman?

  But you watch it there on your, what, do you got a 13 inch laptop with a couple of AirPods?

• 5:34Will Arnett?

  Let me just see, you might not have my number, let me just see.

• 5:36Jason Bateman?

  It was while you were out of town.

• 5:38Will Arnett?

  Wednesday Lakeside. Wednesday Lakeside.

• 5:42Sean Hayes?

  Open invite.

• 5:43Jason Bateman?

  If you could, if you could somehow get through the first six episodes on your 13 inch laptop, you're welcome to come over for seven and eight with Sean.

• 5:50Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, let's do that.

• 5:52Will Arnett?

  You think I'm on a 13 inch laptop? That's the worst thing you've ever said to me.

• 5:57Sean Hayes?

  What is it, like a 50 inch laptop?

• 5:59Will Arnett?

  That's the thing I got offended by.

• 6:02Sean Hayes?

  How is everybody doing?

• 6:04Jason Bateman?

  I'm doing really well.

• 6:05Will Arnett?

  Sean, you're adjusting back to being in Southern California?

• 6:08Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, finally, just like the last two days.

• 6:10Jason Bateman?

  Are you off your jet lag yet?

• 6:12Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, just like literally the last two days. Finally, finally waking back up at like four in the morning like my regular schedule.

• 6:18Will Arnett?

  It's been a week, over a week, eight days.

• 6:20Sean Hayes?

  I know.

• 6:21Jason Bateman?

  How many pounds have come back onto your body?

• 6:24Sean Hayes?

  I'm, this is a good question. Just yesterday, I was like, wow, I gained four pounds already in a week.

• 6:29Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 6:30Sean Hayes?

  Well, I mean, I don't know if it's just I'm full of whatever, but yeah.

• 6:33Jason Bateman?

  Spaghetti.

• 6:34Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. I mean, I just had another.

• 6:37Jason Bateman?

  He's got some colon back up.

• 6:39Will Arnett?

  Wait, you just had a what?

• 6:40Sean Hayes?

  I just had a piece of cake, pumpkin cake with, well, because I lost so much weight, I could just eat kind of a couple of things.

• 6:48Jason Bateman?

  Well, but you, what was happening as you were losing weight was you were approaching your proper weight. But you said, no, no, don't get too close, let's get it back up.

• 6:57Will Arnett?

  Sorry, Sean, are you drinking cake right now?

• 7:02Sean Hayes?

  Remember the cake shake from Portillo's, remember?

• 7:05Will Arnett?

  Oh, yes.

• 7:05Sean Hayes?

  Isn't that a great idea? He grinded up a cake and put it in a milkshake, so it's a cake shake. It was so good.

• 7:11Will Arnett?

  I heard they got that from an anonymous tip from Glen Ellyn, Illinois. You know what you ought to do.

• 7:17Sean Hayes?

  Put the cake in the shake, yeah.

• 7:19Jason Bateman?

  Sean, did you say you had a piece of pumpkin cake already this morning?

• 7:22Sean Hayes?

  It's not yet, no, it's just past nine thirty. Yeah, pumpkin cake, huge piece of pumpkin cake with my tea. My tea with milk and sugar.

• 7:30Jason Bateman?

  Pumpkin cake, I want some pumpkin cake.

• 7:31Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, it's so good, it tastes like fall.

• 7:35Jason Bateman?

  How'd you get that? Did you make that?

• 7:37Sean Hayes?

  No, I bought it from Trader Joe's.

• 7:39Jason Bateman?

  Remember when you were making yummy stuff for a little while last year?

• 7:42Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I'll do it, you want me to do it again?

• 7:43Will Arnett?

  Remember you made a cheesecake?

• 7:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I'll do that.

• 7:45Jason Bateman?

  I was sending you recipes from the New York Times.

• 7:47Sean Hayes?

  And I made them.

• 7:48Jason Bateman?

  Oh, God, okay, I'm gonna start sending them.

• 7:50Sean Hayes?

  All right, well, you know, it's a, the fact that I'm drinking.

• 7:53Jason Bateman?

  Speaking of sweet treats, go ahead.

• 7:55Sean Hayes?

  Good, nice, nice. And tea, and tea.

• 7:58Jason Bateman?

  It's a British guest?

• 7:59Sean Hayes?

  Yes.

• 8:00Jason Bateman?

  Is it a British guest?

• 8:01Sean Hayes?

  Yes. He's a very good friend and I love him and you guys love him.

• 8:04Will Arnett?

  Daniel Day Lewis.

• 8:05Sean Hayes?

  And you guys are friends with him too. My guest today has been obsessed with movies since he was a kid. His parents dropped him at the cinema. At the cinema because it was cheaper than a babysitter. At 14, he was charging classmates for his homemade action films, working supermarket jobs to buy reels, staying up till 3 a.m. for late night horror. When he finally got his first.

• 8:26Will Arnett?

  Danny Boyle.

• 8:26Sean Hayes?

  When he finally got his first VCR, he was watching six movies a day. Since then, he's made zombies lovable, turned small-town cops into action heroes, turned a pub crawl into the end of the world. Please welcome my brilliant, honored to call a friend Edgar Wright.

• 8:39Will Arnett?

  I knew it.

• 8:40Jason Bateman?

  Will got it very early.

• 8:41Will Arnett?

  Very early.

• 8:43Sean Hayes?

  Will got it after one sentence.

• 8:45Jason Bateman?

  Straight away.

• 8:46Will Arnett?

  I knew it. Edgar, I knew it. God, it's so funny. I was talking about you yesterday with my, with my son. We were talking about Shaun of the Dead and then they were like, have you ever seen Hot Fuzz? I was like, guys, I am decades ahead of you. Have I seen Hot Fuzz?

• 9:00Sean Hayes?

  Before they were born.

• 9:01Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know whether I should be flattered or it's just predictable that like Shaun Bassey said, he likes movies and Will said Edgar Wright.

• 9:14Sean Hayes?

  I know. I know. How did you get that so fast?

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Easy to pinpoint.

• 9:18Jason Bateman?

  It was either you, Quentin, or James Gray.

• 9:20Will Arnett?

  No, you know what Edgar? You know, it's funny. One of the, the reason I was talking about you with, with my son, my 15-year-old, is we were talking about films and stuff that he liked. And, and we showed them Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Well, not Hot Fuzz, but Shaun of the Dead when they were quite young. Cause I was like, this is my idea of a perfect movie. Cause as you know, and I love you, and I love that film. And it's so, it, it's still so. Oh, you know what we were talking about? How brilliantly you had people panicking in the background. And, and Shaun and those guys had no idea. And I would use, I was like, it's such brilliant filmmaking. So that's, that's where, how it came up.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you. I think it's, it's important to have. I mean, I'm not a parent, not yet, but like to have horror films that you can share to kids.

• 10:05Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  I think my parents would allow me and my brother to watch things that were like sci fi related. But something like Halloween or Friday the thirteenth would be off the table. But Alien and The Thing were okay because they had a sort of fantasy sci fi element.

• 10:21Sean Hayes?

  What about The Exorcist? I can't believe I was allowed to see that.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  No.

• 10:24Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Jason Bateman?

  What about, what about, have you seen Weapons? Weapons is about kids that disappear. I love that movie.

• 10:30Sean Hayes?

  We know.

• 10:31Jason Bateman?

  Would you, would you let kids go see that?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I, I would. I mean, you have different, um, in the UK, as you probably know, the ratings are different. So you can't do the thing that you do in the States where a parent or guardian could take you into a PG thirteen or an R.

• 10:46Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Like a fifteen is a fifteen and an eighty is an eighteen. So when I was, um, there used to be a cinema around the corner from my house where I grew up. And probably from the age of like twelve to like fifteen, uh, the twelve to thirteen, I was trying to get into fifteen rated films. And doing that thing where you would be so dumb, like, I mean, I mean, I remember the films I got into and I remember the films I didn't get into. Like I couldn't get into Aliens. I couldn't get into The Fly.

• 11:14Sean Hayes?

  And then you, I read that you, you changed your voice to act.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Yes. You know, the two things I would do to pretend to be older than I was. Was affect a deeper voice.

• 11:25Sean Hayes?

  Uh huh.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  And also wear hair gel, wear product in my hair. I thought that was something adults did.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  But it didn't, sometimes it didn't work. One time though, I tell you the first fifteen I ever got into was Gremlins was rated fifteen in the UK.

• 11:42Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Cause in the U S it was one of the first PG thirteens, right? And, um, me and my brother, I was ten and my brother was twelve. We went up to the cinema manager with a copy of the novelization of Gremlins. And said to the manager, hey, um, we've already read the book, so we know what happens, so we're not going to be scared, so you should let us in. And it was a matinee and it was pretty quiet and the manager looked around and said, get in there. And it was honestly the most exciting screening of my life. Because you, at any moment, you thought somebody's going to come in and say, you shouldn't be in here. You're not fifteen.

• 12:17Sean Hayes?

  Oh my god. That's good. I love that.

• 12:20Jason Bateman?

  You know, hey, uh, it's, uh, before I forget, cause it's such a great question and my brain doesn't work good. Um, do, do you guys celebrate Halloween over there?

• 12:30Speaker 03

  It's not as big as it is in LA. But then if I have one bugbear about Halloween is that in Los Angeles, it seems to go on for three fucking months.

• 12:40Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I know.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  I mean, Halloween starts at the end of August. It's ridiculous.

• 12:44Jason Bateman?

  But it struck me that you would probably be a great costume maker, thinker. What was your best Halloween costume you've ever put together?

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 12:55Jason Bateman?

  And did you go to the prosthetics department there?

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:59Jason Bateman?

  To get some appliances put on?

• 13:02Will Arnett?

  Appliance.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  You know, I've done, you know what? When I've been living in LA, sometimes I used to resent the fact that you'd need to get more than one costume. Halloween would be like a four day weekend and it's like, I'm gonna do one costume. Yeah. I think my favorite one I ever did, and this will appeal to you guys because this is also, this was in the way that you showed Shaun of the Dead to your kids. This was a film that was dear to me when I was too young to see it. Is I went to a Halloween party in LA as David Norton from America World in London.

• 13:35Sean Hayes?

  Oh, God, really?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  What like? This is a real deep cut costume.

• 13:39Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, it is.

• 13:40Will Arnett?

  What that, JB, what was your best costume ever?

• 13:43Jason Bateman?

  No, we've done.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Teen Wolf 2, right?

• 13:46Will Arnett?

  Teen Wolf 2.

• 13:47Jason Bateman?

  Close.

• 13:48Will Arnett?

  Teen Wolf also.

• 13:49Jason Bateman?

  Close. I went as Jason Bateman, which.

• 13:53Will Arnett?

  No, you didn't.

• 13:54Jason Bateman?

  I did, which meant that I wore the, a hockey goalie mask for Jason and a net over my body with a bunch of hooks and lures on it for Bateman. And I thought I was a genius. I was so disgustingly proud of it.

• 14:08Will Arnett?

  Oh, my God, wait a second.

• 14:10Jason Bateman?

  I was so drunk and I was just like, yeah, I was like 19. I just like tapped everyone on the shoulder saying, hey, man, guess who I am? I was just, it was a total embarrassment.

• 14:19Will Arnett?

  Shaunie, Shaunie, I mean, that is embarrassing.

• 14:21Sean Hayes?

  I told you one that I, I think I already told you one. I went as Static Kling one year, but then I went as, and then when I was a kid, yeah, when I was a kid, my mom let me go as a hooker. I went as a, I dressed up as a hooker.

• 14:34Will Arnett?

  Wow.

• 14:35Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Jason Bateman?

  And what'd that look like?

• 14:36Speaker 03

  And did you work?

• 14:36Sean Hayes?

  No, I mean, she got me like.

• 14:39Will Arnett?

  How much did you make?

• 14:42Jason Bateman?

  Was it successful?

• 14:43Sean Hayes?

  She got me like a boa and like a jacket, like no questions asked. I'm like, lady, you're not gonna ask any questions?

• 14:50Will Arnett?

  My, my, my first year in New York, 1990, and I didn't really celebrate it that much before, and I agree with you Edgar, it's too, I'm a bit of a Bahambug when it comes, when it's not kids for Halloween, a little bit.

• 15:01Sean Hayes?

  I love it.

• 15:02Will Arnett?

  But, but I went as Bobby Peru from Wild at Heart.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Did you tell Willem Dafoe that when he was on?

• 15:08Will Arnett?

  I did, I don't think I, did I tell him?

• 15:11Jason Bateman?

  Bobby Peru, what a name.

• 15:13Will Arnett?

  I took, I took, I took Dracula teeth that you just buy at like at the, at a Halloween store, and then I melted them down so they were straight across. I wore a bolo tie and.

• 15:24Sean Hayes?

  Wait, who's Bobby Peru? What was that from?

• 15:26Will Arnett?

  Willem Dafoe's.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, Willem Dafoe's character from Wild at Heart.

• 15:29Sean Hayes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Terrifying, terrifying teeth. Did you, the teeth are horrific.

• 15:33Will Arnett?

  Teeth are terrifying, yeah. The problem was I had to explain it to everybody.

• 15:38Jason Bateman?

  It's just such a boozy holiday, isn't it?

• 15:40Will Arnett?

  It is a holiday.

• 15:41Jason Bateman?

  I mean, my, you really gotta drink into it.

• 15:44Sean Hayes?

  Wait, I wanna know, Edgar, I was, had the pleasure of meeting Oscar, your older brother, on the set of The Running Man, which we'll get to later.

• 15:52Will Arnett?

  Oh, yes, The Running Man.

• 15:53Jason Bateman?

  This is, this is, this is a preemptive.

• 15:55Will Arnett?

  This is a film I want to see.

• 15:57Jason Bateman?

  In the blind applause, yeah.

• 15:59Sean Hayes?

  No, I mean, it's, I just watched it the other day. It's, I, we'll, we'll get to it later, but it's fucking incredible. It's incredible.

• 16:06Will Arnett?

  I'm sure.

• 16:07Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's, it's, I was blown away. But wait, I wanna talk about Oscar. Was, did that, how, were you guys close when you were young? And did he have the same love that, that you had for movies and stuff?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, very much. I mean, my brother, he's two years older. I think we went through that difficult period as teenagers where I think from the ages of like 14 to 17, we hated each other's guts.

• 16:28Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  And then we, and then we got Thick as Thieves again immediately afterwards. And, and he's worked on all of my movies as well, so he's amazing. So it's really great to have that relationship. But there was a period where we hated each other.

• 16:40Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  As teenagers do.

• 16:41Sean Hayes?

  Of course, of course.

• 16:43Jason Bateman?

  Edgar, where did, where did your, your, your, your love of, and then I assume shortly thereafter, the, the, the skill at? Creating such exciting visuals in films.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:55Jason Bateman?

  Along with your ability to tell story and have performances and all that other stuff.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  And music, and the music.

• 17:05Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, but yeah, so you're, do you, can you attribute it to one particular film that you saw and you're like, that's the kind of style I want to learn about because you're just so incredible at using every department. You know, often directors specialize in one, but on all of them, you're just, you seem to have so much fun making movies.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  I think it was, my parents were both artists and art teachers. And I think they, they got me and my brother interested in cinema early on. And they were very supportive parents because I'm not from like a, you know, a rich background or anything. And I had no connections with the, within the industry. But my mom and dad, like my, you know, would just kind of like encourage us to sort of go for it, even though there was no clear path to being in film.

• 17:49Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  So I think that the thing was of starting with like a super eight camera. And just making like amateur films and sort of just fucking around like, but I think the, and, and so it was that thing of knowing I wanted to be in film, but not knowing exactly how to do it. And the only way you could really like force yourself into doing it was just making films with your friends and try, and watching things and trying to figure out how they did it and doing the zero budget version of it.

• 18:16Jason Bateman?

  So then was that mostly it, the fact that you had a little camera when you were a little kid? And you're really too young to kind of grind about performance and crap like that. You're really like looking to like make whip, whip pans and, and, and strong pushes and all that stuff. Like, because you had a little camera and you didn't have Dolly track or anything, you just like on your shoulder. And it just be, it's a much more visual effort, right? As a little kid, I bet.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I, I remember making, I, I won, I won a video camera on the BBC when I was 16. I'd entered this competition that was part of Comet Relief and I won, and I won a video camera, which I previously wouldn't have been able to afford. But as soon as I had that, it was kind of like my, you know, kind of. You know, like, school, school sort of went out the window a little bit and I was just this, like, amateur filmmaker, like, making, sort of, films in free periods.

• 19:04Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  But I would make things like, I would make cam, I would make like a, I couldn't, didn't have a Steadicam.

• 19:09Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  So I would make like a fake, sort of, cradle with like a ceiling tile and string and like run around with it during. To answer your question though, Jason, I tell you, a lot of filmmakers that were really big to me beyond like, you know, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, but there was a particular time of like when I was sort of growing up in the eighties of people that meant a lot to me were like John Carpenter, Joe Dante, John Landis. And then when I was like in my, maybe you were at fifteen, I think there was the year that I saw Raising Arizona by the Coen Brothers and Evil Dead Two by Sam Raimi in quick succession. And those were real like mind blowers to me in terms of like, oh my God, look how much fun these guys are having in film.

• 19:55Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  It was so infectious, both of those movies, one of which is a comedy, one of which is a comedy horror. But they have a lot in common and those guys were friends as well and colleagues. But like just what they did with the camera and how they got like just magic and infectious enthusiasm out of every frame. Those were like.

• 20:13Jason Bateman?

  I gotta see Evil Dead Two. Is it significantly better than Evil Dead One?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Oh, it's just, have you not, you, have you, you haven't seen the second one?

• 20:23Jason Bateman?

  Don't know it, yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Oh, it's fun. It's a blast. It's kind of like they just decided, let's remake the first film and put more Three Stooges in it.

• 20:35Sean Hayes?

  We'll be right back.

• 20:39Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Duluth Trading Company. Guys, Duluth makes gear for people who work their butts off. Duluth exists for doers and was founded on the philosophy that there's gotta be a better way, which explains why their flannels are both comfortable and practical. Armpit gussets and a bi swing back give you freedom of movement no matter the activity. So you spend less time fighting with your shirt and more time getting the. Job done. They even make fire hose pants and workwear that is tough yet soft, made with 100% cotton fabric that once wrapped actual fire hoses. Isn't that crazy? Super cool. Duluth gear holds up year after year, so there's no need to replace your wardrobe every season.

• 21:22Sean Hayes?

  I got a flannel shirt from them and I love it. It's super soft and cozy. And I can wear it outside of the store and then kind of maybe even sleep in it. I don't care. Duluth Trading Company for folks who work their butts off. Shop online or in store.

• 21:39Sean Hayes?

  It's finally the time of year. Maybe the weather is getting a little more crisp, or you're just clocking it from all the pumpkins at the grocery store, which means the holidays are just around the corner. Amazon delivers joy with low prices on the gifts you want, even this early in the season. Get ahead of the season, shop early gifts, top picks, holiday decor, and advent calendars at low prices. Get a head start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 22:15Sean Hayes?

  Did you ever notice the best deals are just obvious? Like hotels.com. What do they do, you may ask? Hotels on the internet, and a lot of them, like hundreds of thousands. I don't know why I just turned into Sean Hayes. Plus, if you join for free, you can save up to 20% instantly with member prices, and you earn rewards every time you book. So, your next trip basically starts paying for itself. It's simple and you get more out of every stay. Sign up for free and book today. Hotels.com. It's all in the name.

• 22:55Sean Hayes?

  Hey, everybody has that person on their holiday list that you need to get a gift for. You just don't know what to get them? Check this out. Looking for an easy stocking stuffer for the dude in your life? One he'll actually use? Grab an Old Spice Holiday Gift Pack. It's perfect. It's an incredible deal since each ready to gift pack includes four... Full-size products, deodorant, body wash, body spray and shampoo. Choose from scents like Swagger's cedarwood scent and Fiji's palm tree and coconut scent. Old Spice makes holiday shopping easy, which means more time for things like untangling yourself from the holiday lights. Oh, what? Get down from there. Buy Old Spice holiday packs for a limited time to give the gift of scent this holiday

• 23:40Sean Hayes?

  season.

• 23:45Jason Bateman?

  And now, back to the show.

• 23:48Sean Hayes?

  Edgar, I love that in my notes it says you made a clay animation when you got that camera about wheelchair.

• 23:56Will Arnett?

  Claymation, sorry. They usually just put it together.

• 23:58Sean Hayes?

  Combine the two, yeah. They bundle it.

• 24:00Will Arnett?

  They bundle it.

• 24:03Will Arnett?

  Amy Poehler taught us to bundle, right?

• 24:06Sean Hayes?

  Bundle, yeah. I gotta take that into consideration. You made a claymation about wheelchair access. Is that what it was?

• 24:11Speaker 03

  That was the thing for Comet Relief.

• 24:13Sean Hayes?

  That's so funny. I mean, what was that? What about wheelchair access? I mean, why that?

• 24:18Speaker 03

  It was, I think I had seen something, it was a film program in the UK. I guess it was pretty film, 91 at the time, but they had a thing about the lack of wheelchair ramps in the cinema. So I did like, I did an animation about it for Comet Relief.

• 24:31Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's great.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  So that was when I was on TV when I was like 16 years old. And one of the things, it's a funny thing about that, and actually you can find the clip on YouTube. One of the weird things, imagine being on live TV for the first time and they accidentally told me the night before that I'd won. And then somebody, a researcher, said, "Oh, he's not supposed to know that." So then imagine, imagine having this pressure of being on TV as a 16-year-old. Then they say, "Tomorrow, when you're on the show, pretend like you haven't won. So when they say that you've won, you have to act like you're really surprised." That's, that's a lot of pressure on that, that's on TV. So if you watch that, if you see that clip.

• 25:08Sean Hayes?

  Oh, I wanna see it.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  I'm gonna see my amazing acting of like, "Who, me?"

• 25:12Sean Hayes?

  Oh, I love that. That's great.

• 25:14Will Arnett?

  If anybody wants tips on how to act like you never won, just ask me. Hey, listen. Edgar.

• 25:20Sean Hayes?

  Well, that's gonna change. That's gonna change after this.

• 25:23Will Arnett?

  You know, we, Edgar, we got to know each other back kind of around Shaun of the Dead days. And then, and you introduced us to our dear friend, who are also friends with Pete Seraphinowicz, was through you and through, and Simon, everybody, I know, all these great dudes.

• 25:40Will Arnett?

  And it was in that time that you, you recommended that I, I really wanted to watch the, a show that I've told so many people about that to me is just such an example of a really great show, great writing, great directing, great acting, which is Spaced, and is not as heralded as it should be. And I urge anybody who wants to watch a show that's really original and really funny to go and watch Spaced with, that you directed with the great Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Jessica Hines.

• 26:09Will Arnett?

  And Jessica Hines. I mean, incredible. How did that come about?

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Well, I was, yeah, I had, I had, basically, I'd gotten my break into the industry. I had made a film when I was 20. I went to art college for two years, and then I made a really low budget film called A Fistful of Fingers that was shot on 16mm, which cost like 30, 30 grand total.

• 26:31Sean Hayes?

  Fistful of fingers, yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  It did get, it got released at the cinema in the UK in like, I say cinemas, it released in a cinema, one screen. But I, but through that, I got into TV. It was first through like Matt Lucas and David Walliams. They were doing a cable show and I, I was directing that when I was 21. And then a couple of years later, I worked with Simon Pegg and Jessica Hines for the first time. And then Spaced, I was 24 when I did Spaced, which seems crazy.

• 26:58Sean Hayes?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  I, I realize now, I knew it at the time that it was really special, but now I really just, I feel so thankful that like, I can't believe I was directing like, a show that was on network TV when I was 24. And actually, I remember, well, I gotta say, actually, I wanna say thanks to all of you. Will, I remember when I first came to LA, you and Amy, when you, you were both so generous to me and just would sort of take me. And the first time I met both of you, actually, was at a dinner that Will brought me to. I just, I want to reference Space because I remember something that you did because I came and visited the set of Arrested Development. It must have been a season three episode. I don't remember which one it was, but I remember Bob Einstein was in it and I went on set.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  But I remember Will, you did this prank that when I came to, so Space was this sitcom that I did on Channel Four, which is one of the the main channels in the UK and and it was out on DVD. But you couldn't get it in the States yet. So kind of like comedy nerds like yourself like would would get kind of copies of it and have to have a region free free player. And I came to the Arrested Development set and I went to Will's trailer. And Will, you had inside of your trailer, you had the DVD cover of Space photocopied and plastered absolutely everywhere. And then he turned around and he said, and he said, oh, I didn't know you were coming.

• 28:22Sean Hayes?

  That's great.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Which was a very, very, which says everything about you is extremely silly thing to do. And and I really appreciate it.

• 28:33Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I remember we all met at a restaurant in Venice or something. And and that's when Will said, you got to watch this movie, Shaun of the Dead. And I watched it right away. And yeah, that's when we first met. It was so long ago.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:45Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Twenty years ago.

• 28:45Will Arnett?

  It was, it was through all that and then and then look around you and you really opened my eyes. Actually, you you kind of, in addition to Space, so many of the other things, you were really my entree to stuff. Because we didn't, as you said, we didn't get a lot of those shows and you recommended so many things that really opened opened my eyes to a lot of the great stuff that they do in the UK and I've never looked back.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 29:06Will Arnett?

  I've been an Anglophile ever since.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  I want to, I want to say one thing that like this has never been mentioned on this podcast before. I don't think so. But Jason, in the UK, in the sort of mid eighties, they actually showed, and I was a fan of, It's Your Move.

• 29:21Sean Hayes?

  Oh.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's true. And I remember specifically, and I've mentioned this to you before, the episode that I remember, and this would be a real deep cut Halloween costume, there's an episode where you have to pretend like a rock band is coming to to school.

• 29:33Sean Hayes?

  And the dregs of humanity.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  The dregs of humanity.

• 29:38Will Arnett?

  He remembers that.

• 29:40Sean Hayes?

  That, he remembers that.

• 29:41Will Arnett?

  It's insane.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Well, I'd like to pitch that next Halloween, the four of us should go as the dregs of humanity to a party and have to explain it to every single person there. So we're doing a bit from It's Your Move.

• 29:54Sean Hayes?

  Come on, it's your move, don't you remember?

• 29:55Will Arnett?

  I loved, I loved It's Your Move too. I watched it.

• 29:57Sean Hayes?

  I watched it. I did too, I watched it.

• 29:59Will Arnett?

  Me too. I was like, this kitty's such a bad kitty, so sort of, you know, just doing shit. It was cool. It was a cool show.

• 30:05Sean Hayes?

  So then after, wait, I did wanna, I wanted to do something, this one thing about Fistful of.

• 30:09Will Arnett?

  Well, I wanna, I wanna ask about Space, or just while we're on Space. I remember you told me one time, Edgar, and tell me if I'm wrong, that, that you, when you and Simon were putting it together and Jessica, and you didn't know, and Nick had never acted before. Is that true, Nick Frost?

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right, yeah.

• 30:27Will Arnett?

  And how, and how that came about?

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Nick, Nick had never acted before, and there was a, what's the version of SAG in the UK is like the Spotlight, which is like the kind of actors' union. And there was another actor called Nick Frost in the union. So, because the Channel 4 weren't really gonna take a chance on somebody who had no credits. So we said, oh yeah, no, he's been in all these other shows.

• 30:57Will Arnett?

  No, really?

• 30:58Speaker 03

  We pretended he was the other Nick. So apologies to the other Nick Frost.

• 31:02Will Arnett?

  No fucking way.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 31:04Sean Hayes?

  No way. And, and he could keep his name?

• 31:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I'm not sure, maybe the other Nick Frost changed his name.

• 31:11Will Arnett?

  But, and Simon, maybe you or Andrew Simon told me, is it like, Simon worked with him at a restaurant, maybe? And he said he was his funny, he was his funny friend, and he was like, he was funnier than everybody else I knew.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  He worked at a Mexican restaurant, which is not really a thing in the UK, as you probably know, called Chiquito's. I remember he wasn't, he'd never acted before, and he would do this thing, and he kept doing this on Shaun of the Dead. I would sometimes give him a direction, and Nick Frost would walk up to me and whisper in my ear, say, "Please remember, I am not an actor."

• 31:42Sean Hayes?

  That's great.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  And that continues to this day.

• 31:45Sean Hayes?

  I love that.

• 31:47Will Arnett?

  So funny.

• 31:48Sean Hayes?

  So wait, so The Fistful of Fingers, you got it, you, somebody gave you $11,000 to make that?

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I mean, it was, um, I owe it all to a, a newspaper editor in my hometown, Mike Mathias, who had some, I think he had just come into inheritance, so he had some tax loss money. So we made the whole thing on 11 grand and then we raised another, um, another like, maybe it was the cost, the whole thing cost 20, 22 grand actually. But yeah, it was like, sort of shot it over like 20 days on 16 mil. It was all starring like my school friends and my college friends. It didn't actually occur to me that there might be actors around. In fact, the only actor that's in it, who's, um, and if you, from Ted Lasso, James Lance is in the movie and the only reason that he's in the movie is that he, um,

• 32:39Speaker 03

  his mom heard that in the local paper that some kids are making a movie. And he said, oh, I'm an actor. And I said, oh, sure, you could be in it. That was how the casting worked. So.

• 32:49Sean Hayes?

  That's great.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  It was, it was very, it was like, um, 78 minutes long with credits. I, here's a good story. I had to pad it out. The movie, as you all know, having made, directed and, um, you know, and, and written, is that you usually have the, the assemble edit, um, for Tracy, the assemble edit is when, when the, when the, the whole, the whole, all of the takes of the movie are put together. So like usually in an assemble edit, it might be hours and hours long. But the assemble edit of Fistful of Fingers, the whole thing with every single shot was like 75 minutes long. And it meant that I couldn't really cut it down, which was, there were some bits I wanted to cut out.

• 33:29Sean Hayes?

  All the shitty parts need to stay in.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yes. So here's what I did. I needed, there was at least one that I really wanted to cut out. I mean, now I would probably cut another 25 minutes out. But, um, at the time, to, to cut some bits out, I basically created a scene in the dark. In the middle of the movie, there's a scene where it's a western, so they're cowboys around a campfire and they blow out the fire. And so I thought, I could just put a whole like scene in black here to pad it out for two minutes. So I just put like, just black film and just like, they just talked for two minutes in the dark. And that was my way of padding it out.

• 34:02Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wow. That's a good idea.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Long end credits, long only credits.

• 34:06Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 34:07Jason Bateman?

  So smart.

• 34:08Sean Hayes?

  That's great. So, so from there, after Spaced, you did what's known as the Cornetto trilogy now, which is Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End, with your friends. I mean, it's a dream for everybody to just kind of work with their friends. And you did it three times in these, like, incredible movies, like, one after another.

• 34:26Jason Bateman?

  Was that working title on, on all three of them?

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Eric Foner.

• 34:30Jason Bateman?

  Tim Bevan.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Nira Park, who you well know, Jason, as well, like, did all of the movies. I mean...

• 34:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, and Liza Chason.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it was, it was straight after, I'd say after the second series of Spaced, we, we started writing Shaun. Um, I mean, it was funny, it was never meant to... It's funny it's called the Cornetto trilogy because Cornetto, for the, um, American listeners, is a brand of ice cream in the UK, and Europe, in fact, and most of the world, except the States.

• 34:56Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Sean Hayes?

  Is it three lover, three layers?

• 34:59Speaker 03

  It's just, uh, it, no, it's, no, it's not. It's like different flavors.

• 35:03Will Arnett?

  It's like a prepackaged ice cream cone, isn't it?

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:06Sean Hayes?

  It's like a drumstick.

• 35:07Will Arnett?

  Yes.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  The only reason it came up as a trilogy is when we did Shaun of the Dead, which mentions Cornetto once, we got free ice cream at the premiere. And I said to Simon, when we were writing Hot Fuzz, "Hey, we should write Cornetos into the second one, so we get free ice cream again."

• 35:22Sean Hayes?

  That's great. I love that.

• 35:23Will Arnett?

  How did, how did you and Simon meet? Because that was, when you guys, that was, it's been a sort of a lifelong collaboration, you guys.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  He says we met at the Battersea Arts Centre, and I know the truth is we met at the Riverside Studios. We met, uh, he was friends with, um, there was, in the, like, around that time, when I first moved to London, like, you know, 30 years ago, and there were a lot of people on the scene who have all now become huge, like, the mighty bouge guys, and, you know, Simon and, and Matt Luke's, and David Walliams, and the League of Gentlemen guys. They were all sort of coming up around the same time. And I met Simon backstage at a comedy gig. And I'd seen him doing stand-up on TV, and he's from the same area as me. We're only like, we grew up like 50 miles away from each other. So we're both from the West Country. And, um, I'd seen him on, on TV doing a, a stand-up set about regional TV.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  So I went up to him and said, "Hey, I'm from the West Country too." So I think he remembered me as, "Who's that weird kid?" "Who's that weird kid with the beard?"

• 36:24Will Arnett?

  And then, and then you guys, and then what happened?

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Oh, the lights are turning off in my room. I have to, I have to get the motion sensors on in here.

• 36:30Sean Hayes?

  Uh-uh. Look at that. SOS.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  That's okay. I'm in the dark now.

• 36:35Jason Bateman?

  You're definitely not in the US.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Well, we're just.

• 36:37Will Arnett?

  Are you in the holding cell?

• 36:38Sean Hayes?

  No, we're shooting, we're shooting the campfire scene. We're shooting the.

• 36:43Will Arnett?

  Wait, so you guys.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  We could pad this out for two minutes.

• 36:46Will Arnett?

  So you guys meet and you say, hey, let's do a TV series?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  No, we, um, oh, somebody's coming in. There we go. Somebody's switching the lights on for me. Thank you. There's motion sensors. I'm in, I'm in the, I'm in a conference room. I'm actually mixing The Running Man right now. It is not, it is not finished. It's out on November 14th and it will be finished by then. But, um, uh, Simon, yeah, he was, I, I started doing TV and I did this TV show on, on like the, I guess, the British version of Comedy Central, the Paramount Comedy Channel at the time. And there was a, a show called Asylum and I, I got asked to direct it and Simon Pegg was in it. And he brought Jessica Hines, who co-wrote Space and co-created Space onto that. So I was working with them for the first time. So I'd already met him and I, I knew then, it's funny when you meet somebody

• 37:34Speaker 03

  that you think, I'm gonna, I thought even then, like, and this is eight years before we made the movie. I was thinking, I'm gonna make a movie and he's gonna be in it. I, I knew then that Simon was like a great comedy leading man and it was just about then finding the idea of what that was.

• 37:51Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's so great.

• 37:52Jason Bateman?

  I'm so, I'm so, I'm so, I can't believe you're at a mix right now. Have you already given your notes? They're implementing your notes and in that break, you're doing this podcast?

• 38:01Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  It's very fancy to say, guys, I'm gonna go and do Smiles right now.

• 38:06Jason Bateman?

  It's very fancy. You're doing a mix.

• 38:08Will Arnett?

  They're like, what? They're like, what? What are you talking about?

• 38:10Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, what the hell was that?

• 38:11Jason Bateman?

  That mix is enormous, right?

• 38:13Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, well, Sean has seen the movie.

• 38:16Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a, it's a complicated, it's a complicated beast.

• 38:19Sean Hayes?

  Massive.

• 38:20Will Arnett?

  I'm sure.

• 38:21Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's so incredible. Well, before we get to, and we're gonna get to, the last thing I wanted to say before we get to that is Baby Driver, because Baby Driver is one of my favorite movies of all time and seen it so many times. And yes, bravo, bravo, bravo. And I did not know this until.

• 38:36Will Arnett?

  They let the baby drive. This crazy movie, the baby driving. A bambino driving.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  I was hoping you were gonna say bambino. I was hoping that you did.

• 38:49Will Arnett?

  I didn't, he didn't. For sure, he didn't.

• 38:51Sean Hayes?

  I didn't know that you had or still have tinnitus, is that true?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  No, I had it when I was young.

• 38:57Sean Hayes?

  Which is when you hear high pitched things in your ears and yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:00Sean Hayes?

  Pitch noises and stuff.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  But that was something that actually, you know, tinnitus sufferers or tinnitus as we call it in the UK. It's one of those weird words like.

• 39:07Sean Hayes?

  Aluminum.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Aluminum. Aluminum, aluminium.

• 39:10Will Arnett?

  Aluminium.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Um, risotto, risotto. Um, no, I had it when I was young and, uh, and, but I didn't, you know, like the, the, the thing that the character does in the film to sort of like tune out the tinnitus with music was not something, obviously, that I, I, I could figure out when I was, it was happened when I was probably like eight or nine, but it was, it was, yeah, I did used to have that. So it was something when that kind of idea came back around. And knowing people, obviously a lot of people in the music industry have tinnitus.

• 39:41Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Um, so it was, it was, um, I had had experience of it, but not, not anymore. Not, I mean, hopefully not again.

• 39:48Sean Hayes?

  And when did you become, and I'll, I'll say the word, obsessed with music? Because you sent me, or you still send me your yearly kind of.

• 39:56Will Arnett?

  Yes.

• 39:57Sean Hayes?

  So good.

• 39:57Will Arnett?

  End of year playlist.

• 39:58Sean Hayes?

  Uh, yeah, and I listened to it and it's so, it covers all mediums, all kind of genres of music. When did you first listen to an album or a song and be like, you just, you love it?

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Uh, well, I think probably just, you know, my parents vinyl. Like in, in the days before, like we were all old enough to remember the days before like computers and, um, you know, when there's nothing on TV. I, I mean, I used to kind of like, and I'm sure like a lot of people, like put the White Album on and just watch it go around.

• 40:27Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  So sit and watch, and watch the vinyl go around. So I've always been a huge music fan. I think it's probably one, I don't play an instrument and I think it's one of, one of, if I have a regret, it's that I, I don't. I mean, I guess I could still start.

• 40:40Will Arnett?

  Number too late.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Too late.

• 40:41Will Arnett?

  Number too late.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  But, but. I'll never be, I'll never be a, a pianist like you, Sean. Although I, if I, I would like to play the piano. That would be the instrument I'd like to play.

• 40:49Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  You can do it like you.

• 40:49Sean Hayes?

  You can, you can, you can.

• 40:51Jason Bateman?

  But your, your films, you know, use, there's such a great expression for your, your, your sort of musical affinity in film, right? And it's such a great way to use music and you do it always so effectively in your films. Do you get really excited by that, by that process of using music in your films?

• 41:11Speaker 03

  I think I have the kind of movie music version of synesthesia where I kind of just imagine it. Like Baby Driver sort of existed in my head.

• 41:19Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  For maybe like 20 years before I made it where it was that song that opens the movie Bell Bottoms by the John Spencer Blues Explosion. I would like hear the song and I would see the scene. And then, I don't know if you guys have this, is, you know, when you're writing is, you can see the movie in your head and, and the, the difficult part is writing it down. So I think Baby Driver is one of those films I kind of saw in my head and at some point I had to figure out what it was and how I could make it into a film. So that would have been.

• 41:46Sean Hayes?

  I do that sometimes.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Fermenting in my brain for a long time.

• 41:50Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  And the music was always, music was always the thing that inspired the sequences. And it is, is something that like in a lot of the movies I've made is that like a song will sort of trigger the entire thing.

• 42:00Jason Bateman?

  What about directing videos? Have you done that? Cause I'd imagine that would be a super exciting thing to do in this area. Yeah?

• 42:06Sean Hayes?

  Great stuff.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have done, I've done music videos. I mean, the, the sad thing is, is that the kind of like the, the, you know, budgets for music videos started going down like 25 years ago and, and now, you know, like it, it, it isn't a, a thing in the same way it was, which is a real shame because obviously there are some like music videos like, well, Michelle Gondry, they're like works of art. They belong in a museum. They're incredible. Like, so I have done, I have done some, not as many as I'd like, but I've done ones for Beck and Pharrell Williams and I, I'd like to do more, but it, it, they're difficult things to make because they, you know, if you're doing it for.

• 42:44Sean Hayes?

  It's a budget, yeah?

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like a lot of pulling favors and you can only do that so many times in a row. I think I did two low budget for music videos in a row, right after Shaun of the Dead. And I realized after the second one is like, ah, you can't ask people to work for nothing twice in a row.

• 42:59Jason Bateman?

  Or the opposite of that would be a lot of fancy directors like you will, in between projects, will do commercials. Yes. Because the budgets are so high and you can get all the fun gear and, and work with the cinematographer, maybe you have, do you do a lot of that? At all?

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Not as much as I'd like to, but I mean, I think also the thing with that is also if you've got a crew that you really like is to keep them working.

• 43:20Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  You know, and so that's a nice thing is it it it may not even be working with new crew. Sometimes it's working with the crew that, you know, as you know, it like it can be like three years between movies or four years between movies. So if you have a team of people that you like working with, doing commercials and music videos is a great way to all keep working together. I mean, I that I think that's the thing because I write as well, it's it's it's I'm always envious of directors who can kind of do a film a year because it a minimum, it's like three years between movies for me. And usually when you finish a movie, you kind of think like, oh, we've got this great team, we should just keep going. But it never works out like that. You can't. I've never rolled straight into another movie.

• 43:59Jason Bateman?

  Because you're writing everything you direct, yeah?

• 44:02Speaker 03

  And I need a nap.

• 44:03Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 44:05Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you I remember you. I remember you saying that years ago, we were talking about something and you said, no, no, I only I only I can only direct the things that I write. It's the only way you can kind of get your brain around it, right? I mean, you you've always held to that.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so far. I mean, I I that's not to say that wouldn't change. And, you know, and I, you know, I don't write a lot. I mean, Baby Driver is actually the only thing I wrote on my own. Everything else I've written with co writers, which, you know, like, um, and I love that. And I I like doing that. But I wouldn't I wouldn't rule that out. I, um, you know, I think it's that thing where you you I mean, it's really difficult as well with like something like Shaun of the Dead was a film where to just read the script without knowing how I would direct it or how Simon and Nick would perform it. I think, you know, some actors passed on it because they were just sort of baffled by it, or or studios passed on it because they couldn't quite see it. And in a way.

• 44:59Will Arnett?

  The way that you guys.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, you had to see Simon and Nick doing it. And you had to see their tone of their naturalistic comedy performance, because you could take exactly the same screenplay and make it really broad and silly, and it would be an entirely different movie. So it was a thing with that film in particular, and it helped that we had space and we could show people space and say, hey, this is what kind of what it's going to be like. But it wasn't an easy sell for everybody, you know?

• 45:26Will Arnett?

  I'm sure. I'm sure. It's a it's a narrow target, if you look at it that way. It's a comedy, it's a horror film, it's all of these things. And it's it's silly in parts in a way, but you also have to have those. I tell you, man, one of my favorite moments in film history, I swear to you, and I reference it all the time, is when everybody's surrounded and Nick gets a fucking, Frost gets a fucking phone call and he answers it.

• 45:51Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Will Arnett?

  And he's like.

• 45:52Sean Hayes?

  Surrounded by zombies, yeah.

• 45:53Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you all right? How you doing?

• 45:54Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Will Arnett?

  He's just super.

• 45:56Sean Hayes?

  Talking to his dealer.

• 45:58Will Arnett?

  Talking to his dealer. It's so fucking funny.

• 46:01Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:02Will Arnett?

  In this great heightened moment, then it's completely burst by he gets a phone call and he takes it.

• 46:11Jason Bateman?

  We'll be right back.

• 46:15Sean Hayes?

  Hey, guys, I know how hard it is to make like goals for yourself and like to commit to them and not back off from them. But look, committing to yourself starts with building habits that you can stick to. Make a better for you choice that you actually look forward to with Stars and Honey Protein Bars. Stars and Honey Bars have 15 grams of protein and only four grams of sugar, making them an easy, better-for-you option to work into your everyday routine. Throw one in your gym bag for a post-workout snack, keep one in your glove compartment, or take a couple to the office to share with coworkers. And here's the really cool part. With Stars and Honey, you don't have to compromise between better nutrition and taste. Choose from delicious dessert-inspired flavors like Iced Lemon Cookie,

• 46:58Sean Hayes?

  Mint Chocolate Chip, Red Velvet, and Peanut Butter Mousse. I wish I could have each one of those right now. After all, great nutrition only works if you actually want to keep eating it, right? Order Stars and Honey Protein Bars at starsandhoney.com or find them at Target stores nationwide. That's starsandhoney.com or pick up a box on your next Target shopping trip.

• 47:23Jason Bateman?

  This episode of Smartless is brought to you in part by SkinnyPop popcorn. So I think one of the great journeys in life is finding the snack that's right for you, you know? And it's constantly changing, but what is constant is the love of popcorn I think that we all have. So finding a snack that tastes great and feels like a solid choice should not be more complicated than solving a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. SkinnyPop popcorn, made with simple quality ingredients, always satisfies. No overthinking required. No jigsaw puzzle assembly required.

• 48:06Jason Bateman?

  It's a no-brainer. There's the classic original Skinny Pop, made with just three simple ingredients. But that's only the beginning. Are you feeling a little sassy? Sweet and salty kettle brings just the right flavor balance. Settling in for a movie night? The butter flavor understands the assignment. And white cheddar is the perfect level of cheesy, if that's what you're looking for. No matter which bag you're opening, enjoy popcorn that's light, airy, and endlessly delicious. No notes. Let me tell you what stands out to me most about Skinny Pop. It's tasty, it's popcorn, and it's ready to be eaten. Deliciously popped, perfectly seasoned. Skinny Pop, popular for a reason.

• 48:53Sean Hayes?

  Hey, everybody has that person on their holiday list that you need to get a gift for. You just don't know what to get them. Check this out. Looking for an easy stocking stuffer for the dude in your life one will actually use? Grab an Old Spice Holiday Gift Pack. It's perfect. It's an incredible deal, since each ready-to-gift pack includes four full-size products: deodorant, body wash, body spray, and shampoo. Choose from scents like Swagger's Cedarwood Scent and Fiji's Palm Tree and Coconut Scent. Old Spice makes holiday shopping easy, which means more time for things like untangling yourself from the holiday lights. Oh, what? Get down from there. Buy Old Spice Holiday Packs for a limited time to give the gift of scent this holiday season.

• 49:43Sean Hayes?

  And now, back to the show.

• 49:46Sean Hayes?

  Is there a comedic, tonal, like, North Star for you that I'll bet is British that sort of established what you thought was the funniest kind of comedy when you were growing up?

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, I mean, I think there were like, there were shows, some of them before my time and they get repeated. I mean, I felt the shows that were really like the groundbreakers. I mean, obviously Monty Python was before my time, but it was repeated a lot, so that would be something.

• 50:12Will Arnett?

  Like Fawlty Towers?

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, Fawlty Towers. I mean, the ones that were on TV when I was, you know, like things like Fawlty Towers and.

• 50:20Sean Hayes?

  Are You Being Served?

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Python was slightly before my, Are You Being Served was always on.

• 50:25Sean Hayes?

  I love that show.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  But I think the first one that made a really big impact on me, which is more of a culty show in the States, was The Young Ones.

• 50:33Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Sean Hayes?

  Yes.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Only like 12 episodes, which was so punk rock. It was.

• 50:39Will Arnett?

  Wait, it was only 12 episodes?

• 50:41Sean Hayes?

  I've never seen that.

• 50:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like one series in 1982, one series in 1984. Every episode ended with them dying. Like, it was such a sort of like.

• 50:49Sean Hayes?

  I love that show.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  It was like a, it was like a total hand grenade of a show. And I remember, I was too young to see it the first time at school, but all of the kind of the cool kids at school were talking about The Young Ones. So when the second series came around, I was all over it and.

• 51:03Sean Hayes?

  Remember, um, nature sows the seed, we plant the seed.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:07Sean Hayes?

  Nature sows the seed. I remember that show, that was so good.

• 51:10Will Arnett?

  I wanna see that.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  It was, it was a rea, it was, it was incredible, that show. And it, and it really, it really stands up. They, they used to have bands on every week. They, you know, they, they would, they figured out they could get a bigger budget as a variety show if they had a band on. So randomly in the middle of a sitcom, like Motorhead would be on all of a sudden.

• 51:27Will Arnett?

  It was such a weird, yeah, it was so sort of, the, the format of it was so, was so, uh, alien to what we were accustomed to. Well, certainly, you know, I don't know about the US, but, but Canada as well, so that when we, I remember seeing it, it was so jarring to watch the first time. Cause it was so unlike anything else.

• 51:43Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 03

  I think it was like that on British TV as well when it first came on. I mean, it was, it was the start of something. I mean, alternative comedy, as they called it in the eighties, was like huge. And there were like shows that, that haven't traveled over to the US that, uh, you know. I mean, I guess in that pre kind of like cable age where things started traveling over and like 20 years ago. But prior to that, there'd be things like, um, The Day to Day and Brass Eye and Alan Partridge and, um.

• 52:10Will Arnett?

  Brilliant.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  Uh, those, those shows were like huge for me.

• 52:13Will Arnett?

  When you, when you were, when you were writing, when you're writing, uh, comedy specifically, do you find it helpful? Cause you mentioned you wrote, you, you write with other people and you've written with, with, um. Simon a lot. Do you, writing comedy, do you find it helpful to write with somebody else?

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:31Will Arnett?

  In terms of sort of, for sort of pace and sort of for tone and all these things and for jokes, obviously.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  I think writing comedy on your own is a very lonely business.

• 52:40Will Arnett?

  Yes.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  I think writing with a co-writer and, and pinging things off each other or just reading it aloud. I think that's a big thing is just reading the script aloud to each other. And, you know, you get to the point where you could almost perform it like a play. I think, you know, Baby Driver, I wrote on my own, but that was more of an action film. And that was, it was, it was the most difficult script to write because you're constantly looking for, you know, affirmation from somebody, like, please, somebody read the pages at the end of the day. But, you know, obviously with writing with Simon Pegg or Michael Bacall or Joe Cornish, you know.

• 53:16Sean Hayes?

  You have immediate feedback.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  Pinging off each other.

• 53:18Will Arnett?

  Yeah, because if you write something and you're like, oh, this is kind of a funny bit. If you're writing with somebody else and you sort of go, yeah, and then the guy, blah, blah, blah. And then you're writing with, goes, yeah, it's pretty good. And you're like, okay, well, yeah, that's a terrible idea.

• 53:28Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  No, I, I mean, I'm, I'd like to write something else like that. And me and Simon keep talking about writing something else together.

• 53:37Will Arnett?

  I wish you would.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  And I think it really just comes down to just being in the room together, really. It's just like, we've got to do that and just hash it out and have fun with it, you know?

• 53:45Sean Hayes?

  Okay, speaking of writing with somebody, you had a writing partner on The Running Man. I want to talk about The Running Man. I'm so excited for everybody to see this. It's so good. I was blown away.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  And listener Sean, Sean P. Hayes is in this film.

• 53:57Will Arnett?

  Sean is in The Running Man.

• 53:58Sean Hayes?

  I did it to hang out with Edgar, but, and it was a blast. It was so fun.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  And you're in the ones, the only scene in the movie that Glenn Powell is not in.

• 54:05Sean Hayes?

  I know, right? I know.

• 54:07Will Arnett?

  That was in the contract. Now, was that, you requested that, Sean? That's an odd.

• 54:11Sean Hayes?

  No, Glenn requested that.

• 54:12Will Arnett?

  Oh, Glenn did. Glenn specified.

• 54:15Sean Hayes?

  By the way, I spoke to Glenn for a long time yesterday and went on and on about how incredible he is. He is so commanding and so, I said, the greatest gift, a compliment I could give you, and I gave it to Jason, too, on Black Rabbit, is there's nothing lazy about it at all. There's nothing at all. Fully committed. Fully into it. He's like a huge action star, Glenn Powell. I mean, hands down, like you buy every single thing he says, it's, it's, he's amazing.

• 54:44Jason Bateman?

  This movie looks huge.

• 54:45Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's huge. It's, it's so good. And I remember just to start off the first day, I was so embarrassed. I made some stupid joke, like, I'm gonna connect with the crew and make them like me, not thinking they'd already been there for 14 hours. And I came for rehearsal and I said some stupid joke and nobody laughed. I was like, oh God, this is gonna be fucking awful. And then I fell into the hole off the stage.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Nobody remembers that.

• 55:12Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 55:14Will Arnett?

  They do now.

• 55:14Sean Hayes?

  They do now. And, and I thank God I didn't hurt, but I was like, oh my God, I fell on, I fell on the.

• 55:20Will Arnett?

  What was the joke that you tried to connect with the crew?

• 55:23Sean Hayes?

  I said, the reason the movie got greenlit is here.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  I remember that now.

• 55:31Jason Bateman?

  The walking green light has arrived.

• 55:36Sean Hayes?

  So, but anyway.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  It was great. You were great. I have, I have to rectify something, Jason. We have to work together because I've now worked with two of the three people on this call because Will.

• 55:47Jason Bateman?

  Oh, yes.

• 55:47Speaker 03

  Did a voiceover in my, in my Grindhouse trailer, Don't.

• 55:51Will Arnett?

  Yes.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  And Sean is in The Running Man. So Jason, I have to, I have to, I have to complete the set.

• 55:56Jason Bateman?

  Nothing would make me happier.

• 55:58Will Arnett?

  Okay, can I, can I make a pitch?

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Dregs of humanity, the movie.

• 56:01Will Arnett?

  Dregs of humanity, or just, or it's your next move.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  It's your next move.

• 56:07Jason Bateman?

  What's that character doing now?

• 56:08Sean Hayes?

  Teen Wolf 3 in 3D. Let's do it.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  How are you spelling three?

• 56:12Will Arnett?

  Yeah, that's a great.

• 56:14Jason Bateman?

  There's a few E, there's a few too many Es on it.

• 56:18Sean Hayes?

  Okay, so talk about The Running Man because it was, it was, it was incredible. It was, you shot through November through, through March, right? Of last, last November through March.

• 56:27Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 56:27Sean Hayes?

  And what drew you to it? For people who don't know, for Tracy, there was a Running Man movie in the eighties with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it's, I did not-

• 56:35Will Arnett?

  Richard Dawson.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:37Sean Hayes?

  And Richard Dawson, right. And I did not know it at the time that it was a Stephen King book. I didn't know that. I thought it was an original idea.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, it was one of the books he wrote under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman. He wrote like five novels before he got rumbled. Maybe four novels before he got rumbled as Richard Bachman. It was a pseudonym that he wrote for like non-horror stuff. And so The Running Man was written in 1982. And the Schwarzenegger eighty-seven version is a very loose adaptation of the books, which is one of the things that attracted me because I'd read the book as a teenager. I think probably like a lot of people, Stephen King was a real gateway author for me in the sense of I was reading his books in my early teens. And it was probably some of the first grown-up books I ever read. And The Running Man made a particular impression on me. And I'd actually read the book before I'd seen the Schwarzenegger film.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  So I was aware that it was drastically different. And so I was always interested in, in doing a new adaptation of it because I thought, well, this is a book that hasn't really been adapted.

• 57:38Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  So, and also I had a dream to adapt a Stephen King book. And, and yeah, so it was, it was, I mean, I, it's difficult, it's difficult for me to talk about when I'm still making it. But I, I mean, you've seen the movie, Sean, but it's, it's been such a kind of adventure. It's also funny as well, like it, it has some, one of the things why I want to say Glenn's in every scene except the one that Sean's in. Sean's in a show that Glenn is watching right at the start of the movie. He's a host of a different game show that's not The Running Man.

• 58:08Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  And, but Glenn is in every scene because in the book, one of the things that was really intense about the book is that you see the entire thing through Ben Richard's point of view. And that was something that I thought, well, that's something that's not in other movies like this. Usually they cut away to the baddies or you go to kind of like another location or somebody else watching the show. But we stay with Glenn and his, you know, like subjective, intense experience.

• 58:35Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wow.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  His point of view. So- It was, it was, and you know, so Glenn was on set every day.

• 58:40Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  He really brought it. It was amazing.

• 58:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  But it was an amazing cast all around, like, in fact, I was just talking to a friend of the show, Josh Brolin, uh, who's in the movie and he said to say hi.

• 58:52Will Arnett?

  The other JB, the real JB, sorry.

• 58:55Sean Hayes?

  JB.

• 58:56Will Arnett?

  We love Josh.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  Josh, Coleman Domingo, Michael Sarah. Michael Sarah?

• 59:00Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 59:00Will Arnett?

  Michael Sarah.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Your other colleague.

• 59:03Will Arnett?

  Yup.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  First time we worked together since Scott Pilgrim. Um, Amelia Jones, Jamie Lawson, um, Sean Hayes is in the movie.

• 59:11Sean Hayes?

  Sure.

• 59:11Will Arnett?

  What?

• 59:12Sean Hayes?

  Sure. And Julia Cummings, your amazing girlfriend, who's this, she was in the scene with me.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  She was in the scene with you, yeah.

• 59:19Sean Hayes?

  And she, um, is an incredible singer and I love her music. That's all I wanted to say about that.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 59:25Will Arnett?

  Oh, that's all you wanted to say?

• 59:26Sean Hayes?

  She's great.

• 59:27Jason Bateman?

  When do we get to, when do we get to enjoy this film?

• 59:29Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  November fourteenth.

• 59:31Jason Bateman?

  Oh, just in time for Thanksgiving.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  It's coming, it's coming very soon. It's, um, it's, I've never made a movie, I don't know if you guys have ever done, I've never made a movie that's been finished so close to release.

• 59:43Will Arnett?

  Um, yeah.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  And it's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time, but like, it's, it's crazy that, um, you know, it, it, it's, it will, it probably will be finished in like a week, weeks time or something like that, which is wild.

• 59:56Sean Hayes?

  I can't wait to see it again. And, and you, I read that you, uh, can only get through directing Drinking Espresso. Are you still drinking espresso in post?

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  It's way too much, way too much.

• 1:00:05Sean Hayes?

  It's too much.

• 1:00:06Jason Bateman?

  No trouble sleeping.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Yes, lots of trouble sleeping.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  I have to knock myself out with melatonin and edibles.

• 1:00:14Sean Hayes?

  Oh God, I'm with you.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Welcome.

• 1:00:16Sean Hayes?

  I'm with you, yeah.

• 1:00:17Will Arnett?

  What, what, what do you think, you know, it's funny, you, you've done lots of so many things in different areas and, and, but comedy's always kind of at the heart of what you do. So whether it's horror or action, there's always the, you know, comedy's always there. Have you, do you want to get back into, and, and do you have any desire to just go pure comedy again and go into something?

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:41Will Arnett?

  Yeah?

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  No, I, I think, and also, you know, as, as we all know, as I'm, I'm, I'm still. Want to make movies for the big screen and for some reason at the moment comedy has kind of like sort of, you know, like not being made for like the sort of the cinema anymore, which is really strange, but I think things are cyclical. I think it will come back.

• 1:01:00Will Arnett?

  Well, because they always have to have the, and your films have a lot, a lot of your films have these big elements to it and they're very, as Jason pointed out early on, you have a, you have a great visual style and you have a great, and so that's all part of it. It kind of sort of complements the whole thing. But I, when I go back and I think about space, even now as I'm thinking about how simple it was and how much it was just on the, you know, the writing and the direction, the acting and just the pure comedy of all, that must be attractive to you on a certain level to kind of

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:28Will Arnett?

  Get back to something a little simpler in that way.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  I, I think so. It's, it's, it's finding what that is, that sort of like, I mean, there's, I mean, listen, you know, I'm gonna flatter you both, but like, you know, Arrested Development was one of the biggest joke delivery machines on TV. It had the kind of speed of a Marx Brothers film. And, and that was the thing that I think when me and Simon, you know, like, um, would talk about that show all the time, you know, because also American shows at that time, when they were network shows, 22 minutes long and like, you know, with like 22 minutes and like 500 jokes, incredible. And I, I love, I love those things. I mean, I'm, I'm still like a huge comedy fan and, you know, the, the best comedy films that just like,

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  you know, obviously when I was growing up, things like the Zucker Brothers films, Zucker, Abraham Zucker, I shouldn't leave Jim Abrams out. Um, but you know, that things like Airplane and Top Secret, those films are huge for me, you know, the Python movies, the Marx Brothers, like, just like, I just, I don't know how many times I've watched Monkey Business and Duck Soup.

• 1:02:36Sean Hayes?

  Duck Soup, I watched Duck Soup every New Year's Eve, yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  It's incredible.

• 1:02:39Will Arnett?

  It's so funny. For me on the extreme is I used to, Edgar, I suspect you've seen it and I don't, this is not a recommendation, uh, to, for anybody to watch it because it's very jarring and a lot of people have, but I'm a huge fan of it because it's I've never seen anything so densely packed, more densely packed with jokes. Pure just jokes. And again, a lot of it, people, I've had people react with tears in their eyes because they feel so jarred by it. Xavier Renegade Angel.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Oh, you know what? I have never seen this show, but Bill Hader talks about it all the time.

• 1:03:13Will Arnett?

  Bill Hader loves it too.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  I didn't like, a lot of the adult swim shows never made it over to the UK.

• 1:03:20Will Arnett?

  The guys who did Wonder Chosen.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, I have seen that.

• 1:03:24Will Arnett?

  Vernon Chapman and, and, and what's his name, John Lee, they, they did it. It is a absolute, you want to talk about wall to wall jokes. There's nothing else but jokes. And it's also very disturbing, so.

• 1:03:38Sean Hayes?

  This is an animated show?

• 1:03:39Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I, I, I send this with a big warning. There's a big warning on it because people will, people, they'll, they'll end up responding to this episode with tears in their eyes. Like, man, you really fucked me up with that Xavier Renegade Angel.

• 1:03:50Sean Hayes?

  Oh, really?

• 1:03:51Will Arnett?

  Holy shit. Anyway, sorry, that's just.

• 1:03:54Sean Hayes?

  Edgar, what's the, what's the best, we'll, we'll leave on this. What's the best piece of advice you've gotten and the worst?

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Oh God, the worst advice?

• 1:04:03Sean Hayes?

  The best, the best and worst was from a guy who used to run a big studio. He said, be patient, just be patient. Which is the best and the worst.

• 1:04:11Will Arnett?

  Best advice?

• 1:04:11Sean Hayes?

  And the worst.

• 1:04:12Will Arnett?

  And the worst.

• 1:04:13Sean Hayes?

  It's both. It is.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  I wish I had a great pithy answer for this. I remember, I remember somebody said to me like the, I mean, I say to people all the time is that because sometimes I feel that people make movies and that they're making movies to kind of fulfill a brief. I, I think you, and I don't know if everybody ever says, but you have to be the cinema, you have to make the movie that you want to see as a, as a, as a customer. And so I'm always, and so, I mean, I, I, I can't believe I'm like telling you advice that I give myself, or give to other people. But it is that thing, as I think that's the thing I, I, I, I think about all the time is I want to be the audience member. And I think as a film director, you're always just chasing that thrill of the, of the film that you saw or the film that you want to see. That if you didn't make this film yourself,

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  you would want to be the biggest fan of it. And I think that's something is just, I haven't really answered your question, Sean, but I think that's, that's always the thing that I return to is just to sort of try and be sincere in the process of make, make the movie that. You know, that you would want to see.

• 1:05:17Jason Bateman?

  Instead of trying to guess what they want.

• 1:05:18Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I think I think that comes I think you can tell those movies where people are kind of

• 1:05:24Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  working in genres that they don't necessarily love. Um, I think you can tell. I think when people like really love what they're doing, it's it's it's palpable and it's infectious, you know?

• 1:05:34Will Arnett?

  I bet you have those moments. I'm kind of visualizing you having a moment like you. Can you remember moments on maybe on Running Man where you there was a big moment or a big shot or something happened and when you yell cut, you were like, fuck, yes.

• 1:05:48Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Well, you never people always say like, I mean, even in comedies, especially they say like, um, oh, you guys look like you're having such a blast. And you always say, well, you never have time, you know, on a schedule

• 1:05:59Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  to stand around and high five each other afterwards. It's like even after the most famous bit in the film, like when the film comes out, you know, on the day it's like, okay, so now we're going to put the camera over here and now we're going to get this shot.

• 1:06:11Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  And you know, Jason, you know, this is just you're always moving on to the next thing.

• 1:06:15Jason Bateman?

  But then you see it in the editing room, but it's just you and the editor and you're like, oh, God, I wish I had them all around to watch this right now. What they've all created.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think the times that you have that moment, actually, is when you're doing a scene in one take. If it's because then I think what happens is

• 1:06:33Jason Bateman?

  You're all watching the playback.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  crew crowds around the monitor because like, did we get it? Did it work?

• 1:06:38Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  And there are quite a few like winners in The Running Man. So those are usually the times when the crew really bond over something is like in Baby Driver, like the opening credits of the film is like a three minute take and with lots of choreography and you know, so everybody crowds around the monitor to see whether it works and whether we got it. Um, so I think those are the moments, I think, where usually everything else is you're just shooting, shooting, shooting. And then like, you know, it's the end of the day.

• 1:07:08Jason Bateman?

  Well, you can really tell how much you love what you do, watching your stuff. You're one of the most exciting filmmakers that we have, Edgar. It's truly a joy watching everything that you do.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  It's so great.

• 1:07:20Jason Bateman?

  I cannot wait to see Running Man.

• 1:07:21Will Arnett?

  It's been awesome, and you've been so supportive of us. You were one of the first people to text me when we started doing this podcast years ago, and you've always been so sweet about it.

• 1:07:30Speaker 03

  Well, it made me just hanging out with you guys.

• 1:07:32Jason Bateman?

  We'll get back to it.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Because I was in the middle of the pandemic, and then I start texting you, saying, "Oh, I miss you," but then I hear you every week. It feels like my life and stuff.

• 1:07:41Jason Bateman?

  Finish up your post and get back out.

• 1:07:43Will Arnett?

  I'm gonna be in London in 10 days, and I'm gonna text you.

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  I know. You know what? I have tickets to see Is This Thing On?

• 1:07:49Jason Bateman?

  Oh, you do? It's such a good movie. You'll love it.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  Unless I'm mixing, I'll be there.

• 1:07:54Will Arnett?

  Great, great. Please be there. Please, I want to see you.

• 1:07:57Speaker 03

  But no, I actually got tickets ahead of time. I was gonna tell you that. I'll see you in London.

• 1:07:59Will Arnett?

  Oh, man. I can't wait to see you. Oh, good. I hope you come. I hope you come.

• 1:08:02Sean Hayes?

  And we always say, like, you know, everybody check out whatever movie or whatever somebody's promoting. But I don't have to tell people to check out The Running Man, because just watch the trailer. People are going to come. It's incredible.

• 1:08:13Will Arnett?

  I'm so excited for The Running Man.

• 1:08:14Sean Hayes?

  It's incredible.

• 1:08:14Will Arnett?

  I am so excited to see this film.

• 1:08:16Speaker 03

  Let me put it this way: The guy who got the film greenlit is on the call. Heyo!

• 1:08:23Sean Hayes?

  Bravo, bravo. Wait, really quick.

• 1:08:25Speaker 03

  Paramount were like, "We're not sure about this at this budget level," and they said, "John Hayes is in?" Okay.

• 1:08:30Sean Hayes?

  Here we go. Check, check, check, check, check. But we did, really quick, we saw Giant a couple of years ago. You're like, "Let's go see Giant with Rock Hudson and James Dean."

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  At the Vista?

• 1:08:40Sean Hayes?

  At the Vista, right. And we go, and because I knew you had a sweet tooth too, because you had Junior Mint sent to the set of Baby Driver. And I go to the lobby, and I get a pack of Swedish Fish, finish them, and I come go get another one, another packet of Swedish Fish, and you turn to me and you go, "Wow, so it's really true."

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  Oh, the lights have gone out again. This must be the end.

• 1:09:01Sean Hayes?

  Anyway, we love you. Thank you for being here, Edgar.

• 1:09:04Will Arnett?

  Edgar Wright.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  It's so nice to see your faces.

• 1:09:07Will Arnett?

  It's so good to see you, man.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  I'll see you all soon in person. Thanks for doing this, Edgar.

• 1:09:10Sean Hayes?

  Love you, pal.

• 1:09:11Will Arnett?

  So good to see you.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Love you. Bye, bye, bye. I'm gonna do the traditional slamming of the laptop.

• 1:09:15Sean Hayes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:17Jason Bateman?

  There you go.

• 1:09:19Jason Bateman?

  That Edgar, I mean, he's just, you know, I called you a stuffed animal with blood on my recent press tour as an attempt to say the most flattering thing I could possibly say about you because you're so goddamn sweet. But he would be the stuffed animal with blood that's sitting right next to you on the daybed. He's such a good guy.

• 1:09:41Sean Hayes?

  Such a good person.

• 1:09:42Will Arnett?

  Such a good person, so sweet, always been, he's always so warm. And then it sort of betrays like this incredible talent.

• 1:09:49Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I know. And that.

• 1:09:51Will Arnett?

  One of our great filmmakers, you know.

• 1:09:53Sean Hayes?

  Right, I know.

• 1:09:54Jason Bateman?

  Love him to pieces. I'd love to watch him do his thing on set.

• 1:09:57Sean Hayes?

  It's so fun. He's so, he's so like calm.

• 1:10:02Will Arnett?

  And he brings people together too. I mean, he did, right? You know, he's introduced us to so many of our friends that we became friends with over the years, certainly to me and, you know, lifelong friends, Pete Serf, which obviously we mentioned before, and all those guys inside. He's just such a great people person and, you know, he's just such a great person.

• 1:10:20Sean Hayes?

  Yep.

• 1:10:21Will Arnett?

  Yeah. Good friend. Jason, you look like...

• 1:10:24Sean Hayes?

  You look like you have to go.

• 1:10:26Jason Bateman?

  I was grinding on a bye right then, but none of them seemed really good enough.

• 1:10:32Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:10:33Sean Hayes?

  You got it.

• 1:10:34Will Arnett?

  Is there anything that was sort of coming close?

• 1:10:38Jason Bateman?

  Well, he's a great person, brings a bunch of people together, makes it really hard to say goodbye to those people, but that's just too literal.

• 1:10:47Sean Hayes?

  It's a little... You gotta commit.

• 1:10:49Jason Bateman?

  I mean, it's like he lives in England and also in America.

• 1:10:52Sean Hayes?

  No, don't do that one.

• 1:10:54Jason Bateman?

  Bicontinental.

• 1:10:55Sean Hayes?

  Oh, we haven't used that one.

• 1:10:57Will Arnett?

  He's bi-continental. It's loose, it's loose, but it'll work.

• 1:11:04Sean Hayes?

  Talk about loose, Jason.

• 1:11:14Speaker 04

  Smart. Less.

• 1:11:19Will Arnett?

  Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbaco, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarf.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  Smart. Less.

• 1:11:36Jason Bateman?

  Learning to invest is kind of like learning to drive. Putting your teen's hands on the wheel is the best way for them to learn. With a Fidelity Youth account, your teen can make their own trades while you supervise as needed. It's the only brokerage account a teen can own independently, and investing 101 lessons are built into the app. Learn more at fidelity.com/youth. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 1:12:16Sean 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.

• 1:12:58Sean 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.