Is Will Arnett Nailing This Interview?

From BoJack to Batman, Will Arnett has made a name for himself with his signature baritone voice. This week the beloved ‘SmartLess’ co-host joins us to talk easy. Watch this conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFutLfkNY08 on YouTube. We begin with his latest role in Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? (6:35), the real-life story that inspired the personal project (10:53), and how making it reconnected Arnett to his early years as a young, jobbing actor in New York City (13:24). Then, we discuss Arnett’s first voiceover gigs (18:16), finding his way in his early 30s (22:50), and the thrill of collaborating with creator Mitch Hurwitz on Arrested Development (27:08). On the back-half, he shares some lessons in failure (38:19), coming to terms with criticism (41:00), his family’s heartfelt reaction to the new film (50:00), the joys of co-hosting SmartLess alongside Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes (53:00), and the kind of work he plans to make next (55:54). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:15Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgo, so welcome to the show.

• 0:32Sam Fragoso?

  Today, actor, writer, podcaster, Will Arnett. Arnett is the co-host of the popular program Smartless alongside Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman. Of course, Bateman and Arnett first began working together on Arrested Development, playing two brothers who've been put in charge of running the Bluth family business after their father, George Bluth, played by Jeffrey Tambor, is sent to prison for embezzlement and what he calls, quote, "light treason." Arrested Development ran for five seasons across 16 years and is now, despite initially receiving pretty low ratings, widely considered one of the best American sitcoms. Arnett's latest project is the new film Is This Thing On?,

• 1:15Sam Fragoso?

  directed by longtime friend and co-star Bradley Cooper. Adapted from the true story of British comic John Bishop, Arnett plays a middle-aged father and a potentially soon-to-be divorced husband in search of a renewed purpose. And one night, after dropping his children off with their mother Tess, played by Laura Dern, Alex finds himself at an open-mic night at the Comedy Cellar in the West Village when suddenly, his name is called. Here's a clip from the trailer of Is This Thing On?

• 1:46Speaker 01

  I'm gonna shake it up tonight, so let's put your hands together for Alex Novak.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  I think I'm getting a divorce. What tipped me off was that I'm living in an apartment on my own. And my wife and kids don't live there. That was probably the biggest clue.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  What is the problem? No, no, it's complicated. You don't have to tell me that.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  I guess we just slowly grew away from each other.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  You two have always been very different. And you and Dad are twins? Your father is an immigrant to this country. I know that. And I've always been a woman who wants the taste of the exotic. Jesus, Mom.

• 2:36Speaker 04

  Why are you doing stand-up?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Getting a divorce.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  You cheated.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  You didn't cheat and you're getting a divorce? Oh, that's some white guy shit.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  I've been doing stand-up. Is it like a hobby? Well, I'm not about to quit my job and go into work. It's just that something I look forward to. Hey, listen, do you mind if I drop them off here for a couple of hours?

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Don't ambush me like this in front of the boys. You suck.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  You suck.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  Give it up for me, I'm doing great. I'm paying rent on a shitty apartment and mortgage for a house that I don't even live in anymore.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  So I'm the only one who doesn't know about this?

• 3:13Sam Fragoso?

  That was from the new film, Is This Thing On?, now playing in theaters around the country. Arnett first heard of Bishop's story years ago and was immediately drawn in by it. The story of this rudderless guy on the precipice of divorce who finds his way back to himself and who he used to be through stand-up comedy. It's a really vulnerable and dynamic performance, the kind Arnett has really only delivered in personal projects like Flaked and BoJack Horseman. And so today, we talk with Arnett about how he arrived at Alex Novak, the ways he sees himself in the character, and how he hopes the film itself is a turning point in his career. We also discuss all things Smartless,

• 3:57Sam Fragoso?

  some of his early years working as a voiceover actor in New York City, and how, on a couple of occasions, his life has dovetailed with the work itself. But before we get Get into it. I wanted to offer some transparency on the programming here on the show because I'd be remiss to not acknowledge what's been happening in Minnesota. I suspect most of you listening have spent the past few weeks, as I have, doom scrolling on the phone horrified, watching just one horrid violent act after another, being carried out by what I can generously describe as federal agents masked and unidentified, marauding around the streets of Minneapolis, wreaking havoc and instilling fear in just about any

• 4:41Sam Fragoso?

  American that still believes in the First Amendment. And despite the efforts of some members of the mainstream media and some elected officials, it's not something we can just brush past. It's not something we should accept as normal or just par for the course under the Trump administration because it's not normal. And there's ultimately no way to unsee the killings of Renee Good or Alex Jeffrey Preddy or many others. And so in the interest of being on the same page, we have been working on a couple of different episodes tackling all that's happening inside of ICE, what's happening in Minnesota, and then ultimately, things that we can actually do to resist ICE's efforts. Those episodes

• 5:24Sam Fragoso?

  will be coming later in February. In the meantime, we made this episode with Will Arnett in the hopes that it would offer just the smallest bit of light and laughter to your weekend. And so I hope it does that for you. And I just want to thank you again for listening to the show. And most importantly, I just want to thank you for being here. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Will Arnett. And I'll see you back here next Sunday.

• 6:08Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, we, we, we send a lot of emails to each other beforehand.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  We did a lot of advance. Well, I like to do-

• 6:12Sam Fragoso?

  Weirdly litigious.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, just because I had all of my lawyers.

• 6:16Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, including your father.

• 6:17Speaker 05

  And your whole thing was, including my father, who's a corporate lawyer, he's retired many years.

• 6:20Sam Fragoso?

  We came out of retirement for this.

• 6:22Speaker 05

  He gave, one of the things, and your, your question was, why are my lawyers based in the Caymans? And I said, it's not your fucking business.

• 6:31Sam Fragoso?

  All right, you ready?

• 6:32Speaker 05

  I'm ready.

• 6:33Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. Will Arnett, welcome to the show.

• 6:35Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 6:36Sam Fragoso?

  How you doing?

• 6:37Speaker 05

  I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. And by that, I just mean life in general.

• 6:42Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:42Speaker 05

  I really want to give your question its due.

• 6:45Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  I want to spend most of our time on this and not get to any of your other questions. I guess, it's called filibustering, I suppose.

• 6:51Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  Uh, in general, I'm pretty good.

• 6:54Sam Fragoso?

  You're a little frazzled.

• 6:55Speaker 05

  A little bit for me.

• 6:56Sam Fragoso?

  Is it because you lost the Golden Globes last night?

• 6:59Speaker 05

  Well, no, but I'm tired from that experience.

• 7:04Sam Fragoso?

  Did you have an acceptance speech prepared?

• 7:06Speaker 05

  No. I was gonna give this speech that I thought that Jason and Sean, who they would have thanked, was my idea. I was gonna have, I don't know, it was gonna be, it was so sweaty. Sean was gonna thank everybody at the Chef Boyardee Corporation. I imagine they're owned by some huge food conglomerate, like Mondelez or some one of those companies. You ever heard of those companies?

• 7:26Sam Fragoso?

  That's the one that kind of owns all of it, right?

• 7:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, Mondelez got a Z on the end, and they picked up bits and pieces, I think, from Nabisco, et cetera. And they created that word so that it sounded like a, so it sounded kind of yummy.

• 7:38Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  Like a global yummy name. It's true. I went on a Wikipedia run about this once.

• 7:43Sam Fragoso?

  So this is kind of a hobby of yours, I've heard.

• 7:45Speaker 05

  Uh, so like, I've gone down rabbit holes on 7-Eleven, 7-Up.

• 7:50Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Which is really, that's a crazy one when you look at all-

• 7:53Sam Fragoso?

  What was the word you used earlier, filibuster?

• 7:55Speaker 05

  Did I? It's funny when you think about that word.

• 8:00Speaker 05

  Sam, get to the questions, I'm sorry. 7-Up is, is brand in different countries, it's owned by different people, uh, anyway. Seven Eleven's a Japanese company.

• 8:10Sam Fragoso?

  Um, I, I had a joke prepared in, in the style of Sean Hayes, cause sometimes he likes to prepare patter. And I had one, it's kind of a dad joke.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:19Sam Fragoso?

  I was just gonna come in here and go, is this thing on?

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Really good.

• 8:23Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, thank you. I want to start with this new film, Is This Thing On?, which has multiple meanings in the movie itself. But before you decided to make the new movie, you said that quote, other than the podcast, I wasn't doing stuff that I wanted to do. Basically, after making Flaked and BoJack Horseman, which were both meaningful to you. You said, quote, "A certain feeling of dissatisfaction set in." So tell me, where were you at before taking this story on?

• 8:49Speaker 05

  I just ended up in a place where I'd sort of, kind of lost steam a little bit with where I was going in a lot of ways. And, you know, I did Arrested Development in the early 2000s. And then after that, I had a few opportunities and I did various things. You know, made a couple of movies, made a couple of movies that didn't end up going the way I wanted them to, and et cetera, et cetera. And I worked in there, I did stuff. You mentioned BoJack, of course, and, and Flaked was something that I really wanted to do.

• 9:20Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, you did it.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  And I did it. Shout out Flaked. I was wearing my hat today.

• 9:24Sam Fragoso?

  I like it.

• 9:25Speaker 05

  It just means it's real. And I think that there, there was just less opportunity available to me. I think that people were like, okay, we kind of know what you do and we're good.

• 9:34Sam Fragoso?

  And how, how did you feel about that?

• 9:35Speaker 05

  I probably felt like, oh, I'm not, maybe I'm not doing enough with what I think is my potential. Uh, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are like, no, no, no, we've, we've had enough.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  And, uh, there just wasn't anything coming my way, frankly. Nobody was going, hey, let's get that guy. They're like, no, no, we've, we had him and he kind of, he, he was okay. But I was just kind of treading water, probably.

• 10:02Sam Fragoso?

  So, once you're on that ferry, meeting the character behind Is This Thing On?

• 10:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:08Sam Fragoso?

  You, you were in that spot when you met him?

• 10:10Speaker 05

  I was offered a show for Sky. Called Riviera that I went to do and it was a great gig. It was a perfect gig at this time in my life. Cause it was three months in Europe in the south of France. It was pretty light lift.

• 10:26Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  I was starting to kind of go through this thing of like my late forties and feeling pretty good.

• 10:31Sam Fragoso?

  Was there a reason for that?

• 10:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just kind of had my shit together in a lot of ways. So I went over there. It was a really great experience and because I was in this great place and one thing leads to another. And I end up meeting John Bishop. I go to Amsterdam for a weekend thing, sort of boondoggle. And I meet this guy, John Bishop, on a canal boat. A mutual friend says, John, tell Will how you became a stand up. He's there with his wife. He says, I'm, my wife and I were separated. We'd been together since high school and our marriage just kind of fizzled out. We didn't really know why. We didn't really talk about it. There was no big event. And we just broke up. And he moved out. And he was quite down, as you can imagine, someone is in that position. You've got a few kids and

• 11:14Speaker 05

  and Mondays were really hard on him because that was the day that he dropped his kids at school and he wouldn't see them for the rest of the week. They'd be with his wife. And so on a Monday night when he was quite not feeling, I'm.

• 11:26Sam Fragoso?

  Great.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  Well, no, I'm, I'm loathe to say depressed because there is, you know, I don't want to take away from people who have serious depression, um, which is a serious thing, but, but he was feeling depressed. And he goes into this pub and they ask him to pay a cover charge because they're doing open mics and he doesn't want to pay it. And so he puts his name down. And he goes in and they call his name up. And he goes up and he does a couple of minutes of stand up with zero experience and zero connection to it. But what, what I loved about it was that he did that and then he went back again the next week and he started going every Monday. And he was going because he had no aspirations to be a stand up comedian. He just liked the way it made him feel.

• 12:09Speaker 05

  Going there and talking about what he was going, the truly, the first thing he said was, other than the lights are bright. He said, uh, I think I'm getting a divorce. It just stuck with me and I called Mark Chappell, my, my writing partner, who's an Englishman who lives in London. I said, do you know the story of John Bishop? And he said, coincidentally, yes, and I really wanted to write his story. I knew somebody worked for John and I've always been obsessed with this story. I said, he just told it to me himself. And I think we got a shot. We should take a shot. We should ask him if he'll let us write his story as a movie. And that's how it started.

• 12:40Sam Fragoso?

  The last time that you were working outside of your comfort zone, I think, was on Flicked, which you and Chapel wrote together. And the two of you received a lot of criticism and negative feedback from that experience. Given the last time you tried to be vulnerable, you had that. Were you anxious about doing this, about doing this new film?

• 13:04Speaker 05

  No, not in that way.

• 13:06Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, tell me the way that's accurate.

• 13:08Speaker 05

  The reception to the show was not great from critics. I can't imagine it was that great from audiences either. It's not like the show that everybody was clamoring for, but we felt like we liked it. We liked what we were doing.

• 13:21Sam Fragoso?

  You had made what you two wanted.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, we made this show. We made it for very little budgetary wise. And we got to do this thing that we thought really captured a vibe. And for us, it kind of, there were elements of it that were dramatic, but it was also kind of a comedy, but in a very droll way that really spoke to us.

• 13:40Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, it was set in Venice.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  Set in Venice.

• 13:42Sam Fragoso?

  Guy runs a furniture store, recovering alcoholic.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  He only makes his specialty is three-legged stools, which we thought was really stupid.

• 13:51Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, great.

• 13:52Speaker 05

  And there were a lot of things about it that made us laugh, that were just dumb, just kind of like little things. And we got to do this show that felt really fun. We made it. We got, Steve Malkmus scored it for us, you know, who is an idol. And we got great people to do it with us. And yeah, we liked it. And I think that the criticism, first of all, was there was a lot of like, stay in your lane. And also, there wasn't a lot of mainstream appeal to it, I don't think. And maybe it's because a lot of people just didn't think it was good. That's okay. Flicked is very specific, you know, if you've lived west of Lincoln, you might kind of like it more, you know?

• 14:33Speaker 05

  But I know that with John's story, I felt like that there were a lot of themes in here that people in general could relate to. I think that if I'd been in a different place in my life, I may have sat next to John and he would told me a story and I would have thought, oh, cute story. You know, I'm dumb enough that that's possible.

• 14:51Speaker 05

  I've gone through times in my life where I've been closed off enough that I wouldn't have, it wouldn't have affected me. And I think because I was at a place at that point where I was forty eight when I met John, that I was available enough to go like, wow, like really appreciate the idea of being transformed by something and really connecting with that idea.

• 15:10Sam Fragoso?

  And thinking about like this idea of reconnecting to a past self, which is what Bishop was doing by performing stand up. Did filming this movie bring you back to you in New York, August of nineteen ninety, twenty years old, studying dramatic acting at Lee Strasberg Institute? Like, did that come rushing back to you?

• 15:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:31Sam Fragoso?

  Like the earnest kid from Toronto who wanted to be a serious actor.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  You know, when I moved when I was twenty, I didn't know anything about how to do it.

• 15:39Sam Fragoso?

  And you didn't know anyone in New York?

• 15:40Speaker 05

  I didn't know anybody in New York. And I was going to Lee Strasberg, but I didn't know how to perform. I was thinking about this the other day. I didn't know, I didn't go to film school. I didn't know enough about movies.

• 15:51Sam Fragoso?

  You dropped out of Concordia?

• 15:52Speaker 05

  I dropped out of Concordia. I wasn't like a cinephile. I didn't understand the medium in the way. I didn't know anything about it.

• 16:02Sam Fragoso?

  Right. You had Whitneal and I, basically.

• 16:04Speaker 05

  That was it. Honestly, Whitneal and I was it for me. And I had, weirdly enough, I'm going to the UK this weekend and I'm doing a Q and A. They're doing a screening of Whitneal and I'm doing a Q and A with Richard E. Grant. He's asked me to do it with him. It's bananas to me. You know, he came to a screening of our film in the fall. After the screening, he came back and he was in the green room, Richard E. Grant. It blew my mind. But yeah, I was very inspired by that.

• 16:29Sam Fragoso?

  And you didn't know much else.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  I didn't know much else. And so now I find myself fifty five and I've been doing it for a long time. And I know a little bit more of how it, and I was like, oh, I wish I'd been smarter. I wish I had sort of figured out. I look at a lot of these young actors. They know much more of the sort of the language of film and all that sort of stuff.

• 16:47Sam Fragoso?

  What do you wish you knew?

• 16:48Speaker 05

  Stuff. Anything.

• 16:51Speaker 05

  I thought that I could just kind of, you know, just kind of fake my way through it and just be like, you know, somebody will be patient with me as an actor and get me to the place where I need to go. I was like, no, I didn't realize how much work it took and all that stuff. But I did find myself, as I was doing this film, and really loving the process of it. And it never felt like a job. There have been a few times in my life where I've done it where I felt so connected and it doesn't feel like a job.

• 17:16Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm. Arrested Development.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  Arrested Development was really the first time I had that experience, where I did it where it felt like every day I felt so inspired. Every day that I went to set was inspired. There wasn't a day on Arrested Development where I drove to set and thought like, oh, I gotta do this. What time do I, when are we wrapping? Never.

• 17:37Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe the time you did the ad for Boston Market?

• 17:43Speaker 05

  I love commerce, so no.

• 17:45Sam Fragoso?

  Evian?

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Evian, that's a deep cut.

• 17:47Sam Fragoso?

  Harvard Medical Plan?

• 17:49Speaker 05

  Harvard Community Health Plan. We're what healthcare should be. I remember a lot of the taglines. By the way, that was 1993.

• 17:56Sam Fragoso?

  I know. First job.

• 17:57Speaker 05

  First.

• 17:58Sam Fragoso?

  Boston.

• 17:59Speaker 05

  Up in Boston.

• 18:00Sam Fragoso?

  You know what it's called now?

• 18:02Speaker 05

  What?

• 18:02Sam Fragoso?

  Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  Is that true?

• 18:04Sam Fragoso?

  A hundred percent.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare.

• 18:08Sam Fragoso?

  That voiceover work was pretty lucrative right in the beginning.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  Well, that's true.

• 18:13Sam Fragoso?

  So you're 23.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:14Sam Fragoso?

  You get this. Now, I'm trying to imagine you're a kid from Toronto. Your father went to Harvard on scholarship and became a corporate lawyer.

• 18:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:22Sam Fragoso?

  My mother also came from nothing and became a lawyer. And now I host a podcast. So I want to know, did he express his disappointment gradually or all at once?

• 18:33Speaker 05

  With which part? He had so much disappointment that I don't think he knew how to attack it. You know, my dad was, he never expressed disappointment really in that way. I think that he was disappointed when I. When I was gonna leave, I think he was nervous when I was, when I decided, I remember calling him and saying I'm dropping out of college after one semester. I, I just said that, I called him from a payphone in Montreal, I said, I think I'm done.

• 18:59Sam Fragoso?

  You remember that call?

• 19:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 19:01Sam Fragoso?

  Were you nervous to do it?

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Yes and no. You know, my dad, my dad is a really fair guy and I just said, you know, I think that I'm just going through the motions. And by the way, you have to be, you have to understand that college in Canada, especially at that point, it's not as financially debilitating as it is in America. So it wasn't like, hey, we've committed this huge thing. And I just, I just called him and I said, you know, I look at it around at the people that I'm growing up with and I felt like everybody was just going through the motions. And I was like, this is not, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna get a degree and then do, and then what? It just wasn't for me. And so I remember calling him and him just saying, okay. And as long as I kinda had a plan, and I said, I wanna go to New York. And he was like, okay, well then you better come to Toronto and earn the money to do that, which I did.

• 19:46Speaker 05

  And then I moved to New York and decided I was gonna go study at least Rosberg and, but he was never really, he was never disappointed in that way. I gotta give him credit. Neither of my parents were. They were, they were very supportive in the way, in their own way. I can imagine they were nervous. They had to have been.

• 20:02Sam Fragoso?

  Were you nervous?

• 20:03Speaker 05

  No, that's the truth. No. I should have been. I mean, I had a lot of undeserved confidence, I suppose, for no reason.

• 20:13Sam Fragoso?

  The voice?

• 20:14Speaker 05

  I could have been, but my voice, I sounded not dissimilar to this. That's lower now because I'm older, but it was certainly raspy and stuff, but I looked like a little kid. It was weird.

• 20:24Sam Fragoso?

  But, and yet, when you get this job at 23, they don't know that.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  And so when I show up, they hire you based on your voice.

• 20:30Sam Fragoso?

  You're the new, uh, what, Hal Reinie?

• 20:31Speaker 05

  I wish. He was my idol. Hal Reinie, there are a couple voiceover guys.

• 20:37Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 05

  Hal Reinie, you'll remember, he'd, he'd do like, there's a town. In France, where the water comes out of the ground.

• 20:45Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  Hal Rainey had a signature voice.

• 20:47Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Doug Jeffers had a signature voice. You know, a lot of the guys that I would see in New York, they did things and they did it really well.

• 20:54Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  I could kind of be more of a chameleon VO wise in a lot of ways. I could do, you know, the, the Boston market was actually the Boston Carver. Come in blah, blah, blah, and then like lays potato chips, you know, for the wow. That was the one that gave people, um, rectal.

• 21:11Sam Fragoso?

  What?

• 21:11Speaker 05

  Leakage or whatever. Yeah. Anal leakage.

• 21:15Sam Fragoso?

  Rectal or anal?

• 21:16Speaker 05

  I can't remember.

• 21:17Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 05

  And then, and then it could be both. So you do that and then you know, you do like Evian from the, the, and or I do like, um, Giro Price, invest with confidence. And then you do like GM, you know, so it was just, I, I just figured out a way to try to read the room. When I was going in there to put myself down, I didn't have like a particularly great signature voice like these guys. I was just kind of like a utility player.

• 21:46Sam Fragoso?

  So you're in your twenties in New York, you're making pretty good money doing this.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:50Sam Fragoso?

  Did you think this was a viable career?

• 21:53Speaker 05

  Which one?

• 21:53Sam Fragoso?

  But being a voiceover actor, like had your acting dreams at that point had been, were they kind of put on pause or on the back burner a little bit?

• 22:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, at the same time I was auditioning a lot for stuff. I made a couple of independent films.

• 22:06Sam Fragoso?

  During one pilot season, I read that you stayed at the Oakwood apartment complex in Toluca Hills, where you said, quote, I'm so lucky I didn't own a pistol.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:16Sam Fragoso?

  You know, and now in print that reads a little severe.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 22:19Sam Fragoso?

  So.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  No, no, when it's, when it's read back in court, it's terrible.

• 22:22Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, it's terrible.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  Let's be fair.

• 22:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:24Sam Fragoso?

  I'm, I'm very fair.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  I'm finding you to be very fair.

• 22:27Sam Fragoso?

  And I'm generous.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you know, no, I'm just gonna say, you know, who doesn't say they're generous? Generous people.

• 22:33Sam Fragoso?

  Yes, myself.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  That's fair, right?

• 22:35Sam Fragoso?

  Totally fair.

• 22:36Speaker 05

  Um, I, I think that, you know, at the time, uh, yeah, you're out there, I'm staying at Oakwood and you're there for pilot season and you're going up and you're reading for, three, four pilots a day, if you're lucky.

• 22:45Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:46Speaker 05

  Um, for weeks on end and then sometimes. Sometimes you're testing and you're going to network and you're doing all that stuff. And all you're doing is hearing no. Or you're getting excited and then sorry, it's not going to work out. So it does test your, your metal, if you will.

• 23:01Sam Fragoso?

  And yet you still wanted to keep going.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, because you have these flashes where you feel like, I'm okay, I, I think I can get this.

• 23:09Sam Fragoso?

  Right. And you get, you get a few of them. I think you fired off one of them.

• 23:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:13Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me like, what was a day in Will Arnett's life in their twenties in New York doing voiceover, playing Golden Tee at McManus?

• 23:21Speaker 05

  There were some dark days. There were a lot of days where it was like, my agents would call me with all my voiceover auditions for the next day. And I had an old school daily calendar and I would write all my appointments for the next day. By the end of the day, I'd be like, okay, so I've got this, this and this. I'll go up to just voices on 40th street and then I gotta go.

• 23:42Sam Fragoso?

  It seems pretty organized and not that dark.

• 23:44Speaker 05

  No, that part was good because I knew that, look, I have to pay the bills. So I'd go and I'd do that all day. I'd go from this place to that place, read for stuff, you know, just on the subway, seeing the same guys. And then by about four or five PM, I'd find myself at McManus at 19th and 7th still there, great place. And then a Golden Tee at the front door and one at the back door. And, you know, you just start killing beers and my buddy Pete Giles and I owned every record, three pages on both machines. And we'd smoke a thousand darts and people knew where we were. And my girlfriend at the time knew where I was and we'd just go in there and I just did that on repeat for a few years.

• 24:25Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Did they all just kind of blur together at that?

• 24:27Speaker 05

  A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. That just kind of seemed to go on for a few years. And hilariously, I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting ahead. And it wasn't until I was 30 that a friend said, why do you think, dude? So that was it.

• 24:43Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember that conversation?

• 24:45Speaker 05

  Of course, yeah.

• 24:46Sam Fragoso?

  You were you were thirty years old.

• 24:47Speaker 05

  I was thirty years old, which is kind of late, but to be.

• 24:51Sam Fragoso?

  No, it's not.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  But I do remember I I will tell you this. I was the beneficiary of really good friends and good people. Being really honest with me and being really helpful. And that's I'm not unique in this way. A lot of people are. I've had great people in my life all the way along who have helped me in every aspect of my life, and I'm super, super lucky that way. I've got really great friends. I am rich beyond my wildest dreams when it comes to friends. I really, really, really am. It's that's the truth.

• 25:22Sam Fragoso?

  And you've been that for other people.

• 25:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't try to. I just, you know, it is something that I've learned from other people. I think that's also the truth.

• 25:30Sam Fragoso?

  Before we go to a break, I do know, you know, you're very busy. You have some travel coming up.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  A lot.

• 25:35Sam Fragoso?

  And I know I I heard that you're a little behind on a couple of ad reads. So I thought maybe we could knock some of these out here. I think you just kind of do what you like. This is kind of a standard one. I mean, we wrote some other stuff for you and you just kind of knock it out.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  Right off the top. I mean, this is.

• 25:52Sam Fragoso?

  Go ahead.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  Like every American achievement, GMC trucks are a result of dedication. That's what this country has done for the last two hundred and fifty years. The GMC Sierra fifteen hundred. From the moment you see it, it commands your respect. You can feel its immense power. The only way to master it is to venture inside. Go ahead, dive in. The GMC Sierra, we are professional grade.

• 26:21Sam Fragoso?

  Really great stuff.

• 26:22Speaker 05

  Thank you. I've been associated with lucky enough with the with the gang over at GMC since nineteen ninety eight.

• 26:28Sam Fragoso?

  We have some other ones. They're not quite official.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 26:31Sam Fragoso?

  But without.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  Well, let me read this. Let me see. Bank of America, due to the recent political climate, we're changing our name to Bank. It's cleaner. Yeah, now I don't know if the lawyers have looked at it yet.

• 26:43Sam Fragoso?

  No, a hundred percent they haven't, but they they, to be fair, they're on the. Means we can reach him.

• 26:46Speaker 05

  Dix.com. We got the domain name early. By the way, can I just make a punch up on it?

• 26:52Sam Fragoso?

  Please.

• 26:53Speaker 05

  Dix.com. Because we got the domain name early.

• 26:58Speaker 05

  By the way, I've worked with the folks at Dix.com. They're great, great people.

• 27:01Sam Fragoso?

  Beautiful.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  AMC Theaters. Please come back. It feels a little thirsty. Danny and Coop's Cheese Stakes now open in the East Village. Come to try and see Bradley, stay for the cheese steaks.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  You know what? Bradley shouldn't make me the voice of Danny.

• 27:19Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know how he hasn't.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  It's funny that he hasn't.

• 27:22Sam Fragoso?

  These are a couple of alts for him. You can see how you feel about it.

• 27:25Speaker 05

  Now, this one, this one reads Danny and Coop's Cheese Stakes. Fill your mouth with Bradley's meat. Here, here's where I take issue with all of it.

• 27:34Speaker 05

  Danny and Coop's Cheese Stakes. We're the only Oscar is Meyer. Wow. That's a real thinker. Can I say not to do a blatant ad for Danny and Cheese?

• 27:46Sam Fragoso?

  I've been wanting to go. I've heard the line is across the.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  It's ridiculously good. For real. And he legit does it. Smartless Mobile. I'm just saying how much you paying for your mobile right now? You're probably overpaying.

• 27:59Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. No, go ahead. I get the smartless thing because people have been wondering.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  Is it real?

• 28:03Sam Fragoso?

  If you're using it.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  Of course I'm using it.

• 28:06Sam Fragoso?

  It's no big deal.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's really good. It's really cheap. Not cheap as in the quality, cheap as in the price. Who you, who you is using right now?

• 28:16Sam Fragoso?

  Smartless Mobile?

• 28:16Speaker 05

  That's a lie.

• 28:18Sam Fragoso?

  All right, when we come back.

• 28:20Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 28:20Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, we're gonna talk a little bit more about what happens on the other side of Arrested Development. That's coming up next with Will Arnett.

• 28:43Sam Fragoso?

  There's something about the start of a new year that always makes me crave a clean slate. Oftentimes, that fresh start begins at home. That's why I've been resetting my space with Cozy Earth. I started with their Baja bedding set. It's a full set with matching sheets and duvet cover. Inspired by the serene colors and dramatic textures of the Baja California landscape, the collection brings a lively yet elegant blend of texture and pattern to your bed. The reversible design, premium fabric, and tireless colorways make it the perfect set to create your own resort-inspired haven at home. I've also tried Cozy Earth's Luxe Bath Towels, and they don't disappoint. They're incredibly soft and plush, made with a blend of cotton and viscose from bamboo

• 29:27Sam Fragoso?

  using innovative zero-twist technology. The result: towels that feel gentle and dry you off quickly and efficiently. What I've realized is that when home feels taken care of, everything outside of it feels more manageable: better sleep, smoother mornings, a little more ease in the day. Cozy Earth isn't just about comfort, it's about creating a place that helps you recharge. And it's a risk-free decision to try Cozy Earth because they offer a 100-night sleep trial. Try them out, and if you don't love them, return them hassle-free. They also give you a 10-year warranty because once you feel this level of comfort, you'll want it to last a decade. Start the new year off right and give your home the luxury it deserves. Make home the best part of life.

• 30:12Sam Fragoso?

  Head to cozylearth.com and use my code TALEASY for up to 20% off. And if you get a post-purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Refresh your routines with comfort that makes every day feel like a new year. Hey, everyone, this is Sam. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about MUBI, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. With MUBI, each and every film is hand-selected, so you can explore the best of cinema. One film that I've been thinking about recently is "Father, Mother, Sister, Brother," the eagerly awaited new film from Jim Jarmusch, now in US theaters.

• 30:54Sam Fragoso?

  It recently won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and it's easy to see why. It's a funny, tender, and gently-moving exploration of the universal intricacy

• 31:06Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:53Sam Fragoso?

  By the time Arrested Development came around in 2003, I think it was. You had been in New York in this period that we were talking about for 13 years.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:03Sam Fragoso?

  Not not good at math, but I think that's right.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:05Sam Fragoso?

  You had a friend of yours after you didn't get some pilots, I think Brian Callen. He said, why are you still upset about not being on sitcoms? Oh, do you want to be the guy that comes in every week and says, hey, what the hell happened to my couch?

• 32:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:19Sam Fragoso?

  When Arrested Development comes your way, had you sworn off sitcoms at that point?

• 32:24Speaker 05

  I'd given up. I had legitimately given up. I was, I'd been fired the year before off a podcast, off a podcast. That's where we are in the world. Isn't everything a podcast?

• 32:34Sam Fragoso?

  Seemingly. What do you think of the podcast about the Golden Globes?

• 32:37Speaker 05

  I thought it was really good. Did you like it?

• 32:38Sam Fragoso?

  Nikki Glaser doing, uh,

• 32:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:40Sam Fragoso?

  I'm making fun of your cookie stuff or something?

• 32:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like she's like, you know, talking about like, we go to these things that are really important. And then it's just us talking about cookies. By the way, I agree. Like this podcast of yours is much more substantive than than ours is. You've actually done research and stuff. I mean, we just fuck around.

• 32:59Sam Fragoso?

  We try to do a healthy mix of of both.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  It's nice, though. Let's get back to the thing. So Arrested Development, yeah, I had been fired off this podcast. This fuck, I did it again. My brain is, here we go. We're going to cut it in five, four,

• 33:10Sam Fragoso?

  Three, two, we're not cutting what?

• 33:12Speaker 05

  So I've been fired off a podcast.

• 33:16Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 05

  Now we're having fun.

• 33:19Sam Fragoso?

  Police by Will Forte.

• 33:21Speaker 05

  Hey, yeah, who doesn't live far from here? So I, I, I get, I get fired off a sitcom after doing a pilot called Still Standing that ended up running for about four years.

• 33:31Sam Fragoso?

  And can I tell you, for them to fire you cowardly.

• 33:37Speaker 05

  I like to look at the other way. Brave.

• 33:39Sam Fragoso?

  Brave of them or?

• 33:40Speaker 05

  Brave of them to fire me.

• 33:42Sam Fragoso?

  You to be fired.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  To fire me? That takes a lot of guts. No. I, I would have fired me at that point, to be real.

• 33:48Sam Fragoso?

  Why? Why were you so fireable?

• 33:50Speaker 05

  I didn't feel, I wasn't connected to what I was doing. It didn't feel, I never felt great about like even doing the pilot. Like I didn't feel like I scored. It didn't feel good. Like I was just kind of, there was nothing to kind of hang my hat on.

• 34:03Sam Fragoso?

  You're saying it was beneath you?

• 34:04Speaker 05

  I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there was, I'm, yes, I am saying that. For the first time. Of course it was beneath me, Sam. So anyway, I get fired, which was, the tough part about that was like, I didn't even feel great about it and I'm being fired like, F off. And my, my self-esteem is pretty low about that. And I was like, you know what? I was in New York.

• 34:29Sam Fragoso?

  You're recently married, is that right?

• 34:31Speaker 05

  Not married yet.

• 34:31Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 34:32Speaker 05

  It wasn't going great for me. And I get this call from my manager at the time, the great Peter Principato, who I was with for many years. And Peter says, Deb Berelski, who had been the casting director on the show the year before, and it sent me a beautiful letter when I was fired, saying, I think they've made a mistake and I feel badly for you and I think that you're a great guy and you're good. And please don't let this get

• 34:53Sam Fragoso?

  There will be other opportunities for you.

• 34:55Speaker 05

  Nobody's ever done that. It meant so much to me, getting that letter from her. I've spoken about it a lot over the years, but you want to talk about, you think you're generous. You got nothing on Deb Berelski. She happened to be the one casting and called Peter and said, you've got to get Will to come and read for this. And he said, he's doing a play in New York. He doesn't want to read for any pilots. And she said, I think this part's really great for him. And she kept calling. And he finally was like, after a few days, he said, I'm going to fax you the sides. Just put yourself on tape in New York. They'll send the tape. That's it. It's the only thing I read for that year. And I did it. And I, he faxed and, you know, the old fax just kind of rolls off the thing. You probably don't remember that, but.

• 35:35Sam Fragoso?

  I've seen the old movies.

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I go uptown and I read, and I hadn't read the script. I just had the sides. And the thing that connected me to it.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  I was talking about this recently. They were saying like, what is it about a character or a part or something that you feel connected to? And there's a line in the pilot that was in that audition scene where Job approaches Michael and the ship captain and Michael says, Job, how are you doing? And his first line is incredible. I'm having an incredible year. And that line got me in. For whatever reason, I connected with that.

• 36:10Sam Fragoso?

  Job is like this failed delusionist who, you know, admittedly doesn't exactly know how to live in the world that we live in. And it's funny because anytime you do an interview, people spend a lot of time connecting dots between you and your life and Flaked and Bojack Horseman. But this character of Job, there's clearly so much there that you could feel. I mean, we just talked about 13 years in New York of you going like, I don't know what the I'm doing. Did you feel some part of you like him in that moment?

• 36:43Speaker 05

  Probably, I probably understood the, well, we talked about it now that I think about it, saying that I moved to New York, was I nervous and no, sort of that undeserved confidence. Job had that. There was something about the idea of him feeling like he was passed over, all that kind of stuff, and I probably connected with that. Feeling like you're not getting what you deserve. I probably had that a lot.

• 37:09Sam Fragoso?

  No one's thinking of Will Arnett for this role.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Nobody.

• 37:12Sam Fragoso?

  I think we've had enough of Will Arnett.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. It's not a position that I'm unfamiliar with, and it's not a position that I necessarily dislike.

• 37:20Sam Fragoso?

  Why do you say that?

• 37:21Speaker 05

  Because there's no expectation. I think that there, I haven't really.

• 37:26Sam Fragoso?

  When did you figure that out?

• 37:27Speaker 05

  Just now. I think, I think that there's some truth to that. I think about all the time, you know, I tell that story about Arrested Development, and I think, I'm not a religious person. I don't, I don't even know if I'd call myself particularly spiritual.

• 37:42Sam Fragoso?

  Even despite living in Venice as long as.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  I know, you would think. But I do believe that there is something greater at play, whatever that means to you. And I, and I do believe that there are things at play in the universe. And I actually, what was I thinking about on my way out here? This is, it's kind of coming back to me, even though it was not that long ago. I took Overland down to the 10 exit, made that left and looped around, taking the 10 west, moved all the way over the left lane, just trying to remember it. And I was thinking, why would I start doubting the universe now? I actually had that thought today. I don't know why I'm telling you this. It's way too revealing, but it's true. And it had to do with whatever sort of like disappointments or things that I think

• 38:29Speaker 05

  that aren't working my way. I always have a sort of a belief in the universe that there's something bigger at play. And if I continue to kind of just do the right thing, that things will work out. And I, I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe you could say that the criticism on that is kind of say, well, you, aren't you lucky that you're afforded that?

• 38:49Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. When you thought that on the drive over here?

• 38:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:52Sam Fragoso?

  Did you think, well, that's an awfully earnest thought to have?

• 38:55Speaker 05

  I didn't. And, and normally I would, but, but because I don't filter myself in that way when, when the conversations you have with yourself, that you can have an honest conversation and I don't have to like feel, I, I do a little bit, but now when I'm revealing it, because I'm, I'm now sort of couching it in like.

• 39:11Sam Fragoso?

  You're hedging your bets a little bit.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  I'm hedging like, who the fuck am I to say, blah, blah, blah. And I, I think that there is a sort of healthy dose of self criticism in there, which I realize is probably the result of, we get so much feedback all the time.

• 39:23Sam Fragoso?

  Can I tell you, you are not short on the supply of self criticism.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  Maybe, maybe. Well, I, I feel like if I can take that ammunition away from you, then I'm, then I'm safe.

• 39:36Sam Fragoso?

  So when Mitch Hurwitz comes into your life?

• 39:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, incredible.

• 39:40Sam Fragoso?

  You have this great quote about him. You said, from the moment I met him, my life changed. I learned so much about the world from him and I'm a better person because of my friendship with him.

• 39:50Speaker 05

  Mitch is one of the most brilliant people I've ever known.

• 39:53Sam Fragoso?

  And people of course know that from the show. I mean, it's brilliantly constructed, but you're talking about it on a human level, not just creative.

• 40:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:01Sam Fragoso?

  And that's what I want to understand.

• 40:02Speaker 05

  So Mitch created Rest Development for Tracy. Wait, are we on my podcast or on yours? We're on yours.

• 40:08Sam Fragoso?

  It's a collaboration.

• 40:09Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, it is true. From the moment I met him, he's like this incredibly bright light of a guy. And he asks a lot of questions. He's very inquisitive. He's, he wants to know what's going on with your life. He's very thoughtful, not just with the people in his life, just with people that he encounters. He really wants to know about your experience. He really wants to know if you're okay. He just has this sort of like this very sort of comforting energy about him and he's profoundly funny. So here I meet a guy, I'm thirty three and I've been kind of not doing necessarily what I want creatively, not getting fulfilled. And I meet this guy who is just exploding with creativity and brilliance and smart.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  And we work on Arrested Development and then our friendship just kind of deepens through that process. And I love that he trusted me. There were moments making Arrested Development where we did things where he ended up trusting me, which felt like so gratifying.

• 41:12Sam Fragoso?

  Like what?

• 41:13Speaker 05

  Like there's a, this is maybe not the best example, but there were a couple of things. There were sort of like physical things. Job does a chicken dance. This is all just kind of like balls and strikes of doing bits in the show. And Jim Valli and he came to set and we're talking about Job doing this chicken dance. And Jim kind of sort of said, I think he just kind of dances around and then I end up doing it. And making him laugh based on him taking what he did and feeling like I could kind of bring my own thing and elevate it, felt really gratifying and having him and not knowing that anything about the outside world. As long as I made him laugh, I knew that I was okay, because I really trusted his sensibility. I remember one time we were shooting, we'd done this scene and then we were shooting another scene

• 41:56Speaker 05

  across from Fox Studios at the rec center at the park there on Pico. And I get a call, Chuck Martin, who's our on set writer, said Mitch is on the phone for you. And he hands me his phone, that it was a special phone direct to Mitch on set. He goes, I'm in edit on this scene where Buster comes back from the army and or Michael go whatever. And there's a banner this one. And, and he goes, in every take, you make a comment about the banner. And he was mad at me. He goes, is there one fucking take where you didn't comment on the banner? And I was so like, heartbroken that he was disappointed in me. And I said, I'm really sorry, Mitch. I was just having fun. I, I don't know if there is one. And he's like, okay, anyway, all right, fine. And he hung up. And the

• 42:40Speaker 05

  scene ends up being this line that people say to me all the time, which is where Job goes, look at banner, Michael. And it's an absurd, stupid line. And I remember Mitch coming up to me later after the show was cut. He goes, oh, that actually ended up being really great. I was like, ah, and, and I felt like a shift for me, like I had kind of the trial by fire, I'd kind of graduated. And he's like, okay, maybe we can trust your sensibility a little bit.

• 43:05Sam Fragoso?

  That's amazing.

• 43:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. And there was a lot of that stuff. And we ended up having a much, you know, we worked together a bunch. We made Sit Down, Shut Up, which is an AMaid series. Then Hinai and Jim Valley wrote Running Wild, the series, a short-lived series we did for Fox with the great Keri Russell. And Mitch also executive produced Flaked. All through those years, Mitch became sort of a mentor, a sounding board. When we were, the process for me, Running Wild, it ended up, you know, sort of failing, not even spectacularly, just, just kind of petered out.

• 43:37Sam Fragoso?

  Is it worse to peter out than a big spectacular fail?

• 43:41Speaker 05

  I'm just trying to think, because I feel like I've failed in every way. I, I've thought about this before. I have failed. I, I've done like, I was like, oh, every company I've done, not got the pilot, got the pilot, pilot doesn't get picked up, thing, I get fired, do a couple of, the show gets canceled. But I was like, and what I'm trying to do is just eliminate every way of fucking up. Do the movie, do a thing where I'm number one and I do the movie. Movie, nobody cares about the movie, blah, blah, blah, blah, like I've done. So I can just get rid of all the failure, all the different ways to fail. And then, once I do that, I can have the success that I deem actual success. You know, it, and it's such a funny thing. You know, I've been going through this process. I was watching this interview with, uh, with Ben Affleck. He was on Kimmel last week.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  And he was talking about not getting nominated for directing for Argo. He was saying, you know, it's really weird, like it becomes this thing that other people want for you. And it won Best Picture.

• 44:37Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 44:37Speaker 05

  He describes it, people going, um, are you upset that you didn't? And he's like, why do I have to like, what a unique position to be in. And he, you don't want to complain. You're also like, I'm not as disappointed as you are. I wasn't disappointed until you pointed it out.

• 44:50Sam Fragoso?

  And I do know that people have said that about you in this new movie.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  Yeah. And people say like, oh, you know, and, and the people really like it. And there are a lot of people who do what we do, who like it, who respond. And so you're in this strange position where I feel like, oh, did we not do something good? And I do feel really good about the movie. So I'm, I'm sort of pushing back against that notion for the first time. Like, you know what? We, we did do something good.

• 45:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  There were a lot of things that were wrong with Flaked. People can say what they want. I can say, I like it, but okay. This movie, I feel like there is a lot of value in it. And we did make the movie we want to, and I am really proud of what we made. So I'm like, yeah, it was disappointing on, on a certain level. But at the same time, I'm like, well, I feel good about it.

• 45:34Sam Fragoso?

  You know, making something that is honest and vulnerable and a little bit thorny is basically what we try to do every week on the show. And it's a pain in the ass and takes a ton of work. But I was thinking about public feedback to a thing that you cared about, especially with the Flaked of it all. I, I, I read a review sort of questioning its authority on sobriety.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:57Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember that review?

• 45:57Speaker 05

  I do. Do you want to read it to me? Oh, yeah. Hardy souls who survive until episode six.

• 46:06Sam Fragoso?

  I mean.

• 46:07Speaker 05

  This particular guy won't say his name. There's a show that David Cross and I did called.

• 46:12Sam Fragoso?

  Todd Margaret.

• 46:12Speaker 05

  Todd Margaret.

• 46:13Sam Fragoso?

  Where you met Chappie.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  And there is a, in season two, there's a pedophile.

• 46:20Sam Fragoso?

  Oh.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Who's in prison, who goes by this name. It's a coincidence.

• 46:24Sam Fragoso?

  Sure.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  Hardy souls who survive until episode six will encounter a few unexpected turns. As various secrets and lies are exposed, although they're not especially convincing. And the ending doesn't do much more than run out of time, which is presumably good news for those who can't wait for Chip to hop on his bike and continue to lead this guided tour of the neighborhood. As a small slice of LA centric life, Flate has a good deal in common with love. Netflix's other and somewhat more satisfying. By the way, they use that on their posters, somewhat more satisfying than Flate. Recently introduced half hour, yet one shouldn't confuse the cultural aspects of these series explore within the city as a substitute for compelling characters or fleshed out storytelling.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  And frankly, the AA underpinnings are mined more effectively for both comedy and drama on CBS's mom.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I remember because I remember thinking like, what the fuck do you know about it, dude?

• 47:17Sam Fragoso?

  Cause you're going through it in the moment.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:19Sam Fragoso?

  Reading this review.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:21Sam Fragoso?

  You were fifteen years or something.

• 47:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And then I wasn't, and I wanted to call.

• 47:26Sam Fragoso?

  The most painful fucking thing.

• 47:28Speaker 05

  The most painful, this guy's not really that convincing. And this is not really the way it is. I want to be like, oh, really, motherfucker? Like, walk a mile.

• 47:38Speaker 05

  Or as we say in Canada, walk a kilometer or 1.6 kilometers.

• 47:42Sam Fragoso?

  Is that an ad for Canada?

• 47:44Speaker 05

  Yes. And at the time, I wasn't really, I was really going through it.

• 47:50Sam Fragoso?

  And reading that between BoJack and that, I go, that's someone going through it and putting a lot of it on display.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  And then just sort of out of hand, just kind of swipe it aside and say, nah, that's not real. Or no, that's not the way it is. And you want to be like, yeah, I mean, it's such a funny thing, you know, that, that idea. And we live in a world now where, where everyone's a critic. I struggle with it, with, with the notion of it across the board.

• 48:18Sam Fragoso?

  Which part?

• 48:19Speaker 05

  Of hearing people's criticisms of all that. I think it's there's too much of it in this world. And everything comes at you at the same volume, you know? I think we should take more care before we fire stuff off.

• 48:32Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  And make comments. Says me, who makes a lot of comments, but. So that, yes, I remember that and I remember going through it and reading that. And yeah, of course. And Chappie and I had a big conversation about that. There was another review that was sort of equally. Sort of insulting, if you will, in that way. And I ended up writing a draft email, which I did not send.

• 48:56Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. Got to write the draft.

• 48:57Speaker 05

  But you got to write the draft and you sort of purge yourself. Here's what I think should happen for the going forward. People know who you are when they're listening to this because they know you. They know your name. I'm looking at you, Talk Easy, and it says Sam Fragoso right there, right? So they know where to contact you. They know where you are. If you want to say something online, name, address, phone number.

• 49:20Sam Fragoso?

  I may not address. I don't know if I want the address.

• 49:23Speaker 05

  Why not? People know where I live.

• 49:25Sam Fragoso?

  Do they?

• 49:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 49:26Sam Fragoso?

  Were you reading that now? I can feel tons going on.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, again, I don't think I'm unique in this way that that I can talk about something and I can connect with that idea, that emotion when you talk about it. And I can get fired up about stuff. I can talk about an incident that happened and then instantly I'm back in that place and feel engaged emotionally the way that I was at the moment.

• 49:45Sam Fragoso?

  Is this because you have a good memory?

• 49:47Speaker 05

  Potentially, but I also think that I'm probably, I sort of, I react emotionally to stuff. And I have had friends and partners and people go like, hey, hey, hey, comment. Like when I'm recounting what happened, they're like, okay.

• 49:59Sam Fragoso?

  But that's how you tell the story.

• 50:01Speaker 05

  I know.

• 50:02Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I suffer from the same affliction.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  You do, yeah.

• 50:04Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  You get into it and you're like, and then, and.

• 50:07Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think that has nothing to do with the fact that our parents were attorneys? I mean, I start to get very particular and I pride myself on my memory. I'm the worst person to fight.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:17Sam Fragoso?

  And by the way, I am the worst person in that moment.

• 50:20Speaker 05

  Same here. I'm the worst version of myself.

• 50:22Sam Fragoso?

  Nothing good's coming out of it.

• 50:23Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 50:23Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's like a few good men.

• 50:26Speaker 05

  I had a moment, so Sam, then you'll appreciate this. I remember having a moment with my dad when I was a teenager and I forget. I wish I could remember what the particulars were, but I do remember having this thing and I made an airtight defense. Not only to make an airtight defense, but I then took the other position, which was my dad's move. My dad will say something, I talked about this recently, he'll go, "Well, blah, blah, blah." He'll make a point, he'll go, "Having said that," and then he takes the other position, "and you're left without a position."

• 50:58Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Speaker 05

  It's unreal, and he's a master at it. So I got good at it, and I'm with you on that. I'm a, I think that there is that, you get good at trying to defend and make sure that your position is airtight, and you need your memory to serve you in order to have that full arsenal, if you will, and you do become the worst version of yourself, I do.

• 51:21Sam Fragoso?

  Um, well, when we come back.

• 51:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 51:23Sam Fragoso?

  Let's talk about the version of you, good and bad, that made this new film and everything after, like.

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 51:48Sam Fragoso?

  MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Everything at MUBI is handpicked with an emphasis on visionary filmmakers and movies worth discovering. One new movie is called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, from writer-director Jane Seanbrin, who made the film I Saw the TV Glow. The film stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, that follows a young director tasked with resurrecting Camp Miasma, a once-beloved slasher franchise that after years of sequels has fallen out of favor. Looking for inspiration, she visits the reclusive actress who starred in the original film. What begins at attempt to revive the franchise soon pulls the two women into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

• 52:32Sam Fragoso?

  It's a world-expanding, genre-bending movie from one of the most distinctive filmmakers working today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 52:56Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of us are gonna spend the next few weeks looking for gifts online. And while I like finding something thoughtful for the people in my life, the process can get a little ridiculous. You've got a dozen tabs open, you're comparing prices, and you're trying to remember which store had that one thing you saw that has a deal, and you flagged it, and you saved it, and now you can't find it. Anyway, that's what I like about Shop. Shop brings all kinds of stores together in one place, so you can search for what you're looking for across different brands, while discovering new ones along the way, plus tracking all your orders without jumping in between websites. And just in time for the holidays, they're celebrating the all-new shop.com with a pretty extraordinary giveaway.

• 53:37Sam Fragoso?

  1,000 shoppers will win $1,000 in Shop Cash. That's $1 million in total, which you can put towards gifts for other people, or maybe something you've had an eye on for yourself. But you don't have to buy anything to enter the giveaway. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win, and that's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 54:23Sam Fragoso?

  I have an ad here for our show. Do you want to give it a read?

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Sure. Am I doing it?

• 54:28Sam Fragoso?

  I think you can do it.

• 54:30Speaker 05

  Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. Have you been avoiding having difficult conversations with the people closest to you? Well, come to Talk Easy, where you can do it for free in front of thousands of potentially unfeeling strangers. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's gonna bring people to the tent, but...

• 54:48Sam Fragoso?

  I just thought you'd, I thought you would enjoy it.

• 54:50Speaker 05

  Do you remember that thing you talked about once 15 years ago? How do you like it to be tied into the portrait of the artist you are today?

• 54:59Speaker 05

  Wait, these are just for me. Worried about the scrutiny of your... Friends and loved ones, no big deal. On Talk Easy, you can do it in full view of every Reddit commenter who believes they know more about you than you know about yourself. It's fucking true. It's all true. That's brilliant.

• 55:16Sam Fragoso?

  I thought that was pretty accurate.

• 55:17Speaker 05

  That's really good.

• 55:18Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  Really, really good.

• 55:20Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, let's finish this thing.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  Let's land this steel bird.

• 55:22Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's been great. Towards the end of a Smartless episode, what's kind of going through your head as you're landing the plane?

• 55:29Speaker 05

  I'm thinking about, we're all looking at the time because we don't want to be longer than an hour.

• 55:33Sam Fragoso?

  Well, you know, I don't know if you know, but there are 90 minutes, a lot for us to talk, you know? Great, grateful for your time.

• 55:39Speaker 05

  An hour is, well, so anyway, so we don't, we're trying to make sure that we're not an hour.

• 55:44Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, well, we edit down to about an hour. Can you see the kind of work we're doing?

• 55:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a lot of work.

• 55:48Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, and I'm trying to.

• 55:49Speaker 05

  Well, we don't have work to do.

• 55:50Sam Fragoso?

  Down, yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  We don't, we just can't afford to.

• 55:52Sam Fragoso?

  Isn't it, you can afford, definitely.

• 55:59Speaker 05

  It's actually more, so, which is another one of those things that everybody, everybody thinks they know.

• 56:05Sam Fragoso?

  So towards the end of an episode, as you're landing the plane, you're thinking, okay, we gotta get out of here. Are you figuring out your bye word or whatever the hell it is?

• 56:12Speaker 05

  Think about your bye.

• 56:13Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  Sean, you can always see Sean's wheels turning.

• 56:17Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Wherever Sean is, he's trying to leave.

• 56:21Speaker 05

  So Sean's always trying to think of a bye, and we generally are too. But he's always the, because he wants to leave, he's like, he puts it upon himself that he's just gonna come up with it. And he often comes up with a lot of like really lazy buys because he just wants out.

• 56:35Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 56:36Speaker 05

  And I think it's hilarious. It really makes me laugh because I can see him when he, we all know each other, like, they know when I'm setting up for a long bit, when I start going, you know, I was singing there.

• 56:45Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, yeah. As a listener, I know.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 56:48Sam Fragoso?

  I'm hearing, I'm going, this, there's no way, this beginning, I know it sounds reasonable. I know it's going absolutely nowhere, but to punch someone.

• 56:57Speaker 05

  I know.

• 56:58Sam Fragoso?

  I can see it a mile away. By the sea, I can hear, because you're an audio only show.

• 57:02Speaker 05

  Yes, right.

• 57:03Sam Fragoso?

  So, so as a podcaster,

• 57:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:05Sam Fragoso?

  to bring us back to the beginning of this episode, are you getting better?

• 57:08Speaker 05

  No.

• 57:09Sam Fragoso?

  Worse?

• 57:10Speaker 05

  I think I'm getting worse.

• 57:11Sam Fragoso?

  How is that possible?

• 57:12Speaker 05

  Well.

• 57:13Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, like, your golf game gets better, I assume.

• 57:15Speaker 05

  My golf game is not that great. I think it's gotten worse. I, I think that's true. I don't think that's true. I know that's true.

• 57:23Sam Fragoso?

  How could you be a worse podcaster?

• 57:25Speaker 05

  A lot of people ask that, but the, the tone is a lot different. They're like, how could you be worse? I don't know. I I asked myself that, but the voices in it's my parents' voice that I hear it.

• 57:37Sam Fragoso?

  What does that sound like?

• 57:38Speaker 05

  William, how is it possible that you could be worse?

• 57:41Sam Fragoso?

  Did your father see the movie?

• 57:43Speaker 05

  He did.

• 57:44Sam Fragoso?

  And he thought what?

• 57:45Speaker 05

  He really liked it. My dad was really great about it. He was so sweet about it. He was sweet in the moment. We had a screening in Toronto. And he was really sweet about it. And then the next day he sent me a bright and early. He sent me an email and just said, again, I just want to say I'm really proud of you. What a great job you did. And it was so good. And I I hope it has a ton of success. And he was amazing about it.

• 58:08Sam Fragoso?

  Had he done that before?

• 58:09Speaker 05

  Not in that way, no.

• 58:11Sam Fragoso?

  You think it's because he can see how much you're putting into this?

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Probably. I think maybe I also just made a lot of shit before, so he didn't have reason to congratulate me. I remember my my mom once said to me. My mom once said to me, she goes, we're in the second season of Rest Development. She said, you know, I was watching an episode of your show. I watched an episode of your show the other day. She goes, it was an episode where you swallowed a key to get out of prison. And I gotta say, I think you've gotten much better since the first season. I said, well, this betrays that comment betrays the fact that you obviously haven't watched the show because that's like the fourth episode we ever made. This conversation's over. How good is that?

• 58:57Sam Fragoso?

  I'm sorry.

• 58:58Speaker 05

  No, I believe I told you because I think it's hilarious.

• 59:02Sam Fragoso?

  So so this email was pretty meaningful.

• 59:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, it felt good. There's no other way to put it. I could sort of try to talk my way around it.

• 59:09Sam Fragoso?

  I say your your wheels were turning to trida.

• 59:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it felt good.

• 59:13Sam Fragoso?

  You told Bradley Cooper recently, quote, I've learned more in the last nine months of 2025 than I have in the last 20 years. And I don't mean just about making movies. I mean about life. What what does that mean? Like, what does that look like?

• 59:28Speaker 05

  I felt working on this and going through it and what I've been going through in my life, really, there was like this convergence of things that happened that was that was kind of spurred on by this creative endeavor that sort of merged with my own personal life that that kind of cracked me open in a way that I haven't before. Where I feel much more connected with who I am in a in a real way. After all is said and done, I kind of

• 59:54Speaker 05

  have this joke with myself that's not particularly funny where I go, yeah, it only took 35 years.

• 1:00:01Speaker 05

  That's the good news. I've said that to myself a bunch in the last like six months. I was like, good for you, man. It only took 35 years. I had to go through all this shit. And on paper, I look back at it and I go like, again, like if they were to read the laundry list of shit that I feel like I went through in my life, and sort of emotionally anyway. I go, Jesus Christ, we could have spared yourself a lot, but this is the experience. That's the deal.

• 1:00:27Sam Fragoso?

  Could we have done it in 12?

• 1:00:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, could we? Could we have not done X, Y, and Z? But this is all the stuff that makes us who we are, right? These are their experiences. And I guess that's just, it's just been my life.

• 1:00:40Sam Fragoso?

  You know, you're talking about things you've connected with the character in the film. Of course, you have kids. I think you have two or three.

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  Three.

• 1:00:47Sam Fragoso?

  You've been married, you've been divorced. There's this scene, it's maybe my favorite. And I think it's after they sleep together and the two parents, you opposite Laura Dern, are talking about raising the kids in their respective homes. And there's something about like a competition.

• 1:01:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Did you try to get off your phone earlier?

• 1:01:10Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, can you say this? And just, this feels so specific and I've never seen anyone put this in a movie.

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, you know, we, certainly Bradley and I have, have had some similar experiences in terms of, but I think Mark is very sensitive to it as well and understands it. He and I spent a lot of time together and he and Bradley and I've, but that particular scene, actually that scene came out of Bradley. That was Bradley's baby, really, in that way.

• 1:01:38Sam Fragoso?

  So share it for people who haven't seen.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  So in the scene, they have this moment where our heroes, Alex and Tess, they're in bed and they're living in separate places and they're talking about their kids and being, and parenting and Alex says, do you find yourself getting off your phone earlier so that? They don't notice that you're on your phone as much as they are when they're at your house so that so the kids feel like they're paying, you know, paying more attention.

• 1:02:05Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, that they're in the presence of the better parent.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, and that's something that I think that everybody can relate to and, you know, and go, yeah, and she's like, because I want to win. Basically, like this idea that you want to win at parenting.

• 1:02:19Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, it's such an amazing contest that I'm sure anyone listening who has kids and whether they're separated or not goes, what are we competing for? Like, to be the most vulnerable, decent, open-hearted, receptive parents?

• 1:02:33Speaker 05

  But I think that there is something true to the idea that you're not parenting because it's that's not the whole ballgame is not to be a better parent than the but you have moments and I there is something funny about the idea that being that instinct can make you a better parent in a lot of ways. I think that there are a lot of parents who are separated who became better parents because they had to end up stepping up more.

• 1:02:59Sam Fragoso?

  And who's the better parent? You or Amy Poehler?

• 1:03:01Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, no comment. No comment, Nate.

• 1:03:05Sam Fragoso?

  Come on. You said you wanted clips.

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  I know, I did say I wanted clips.

• 1:03:09Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, usually the the host wants clips, but the guest seemed really interested in breakout clips today.

• 1:03:14Speaker 05

  Sam, this should be a clip. There it is.

• 1:03:17Sam Fragoso?

  It is now. All right. Last thing for you, Will.

• 1:03:19Speaker 05

  Can I ask you a question? Why'd you bring your diary?

• 1:03:22Sam Fragoso?

  Fuck. Ah, that was really good. That was really good.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  Thanks, man.

• 1:03:30Sam Fragoso?

  Bradley made you believe that you could do it.

• 1:03:32Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:33Sam Fragoso?

  Now that you have, it's been an incredible year, per job.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  Per job, yeah.

• 1:03:37Sam Fragoso?

  What do you want to do? I mean, it took you 35 years to figure all of this out.

• 1:03:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:03:43Sam Fragoso?

  Would have liked to have been a little bit less time.

• 1:03:45Speaker 05

  It would have been nice.

• 1:03:46Sam Fragoso?

  Would have been nice.

• 1:03:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Sam Fragoso?

  Unfortunately.

• 1:03:48Speaker 05

  It's just my luck.

• 1:03:49Sam Fragoso?

  Thirty-five.

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  Thirty-five years.

• 1:03:51Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Speaker 05

  I'm a slow learner.

• 1:03:53Sam Fragoso?

  Like, when you had that epiphany driving here, swerving over to the left lane, I think it was.

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I got all the way to the left.

• 1:03:57Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Tell me, tell me what you would like.

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  I ran into Walton Goggins the other night, who I adore, and he'd just seen the movie and he was really, he was really sweet and wonderful about it. He goes, I saw this interview you did. He goes, man, I just think that you could do whatever you want. And you just said, I just want to do stuff that I connect to. And I said, yeah, it's true. And what's funny is when I said it at that time. I thought it seems so obvious and it never really occurred to me. I think I knew I wanted to, but I also just wanted to work. And I don't think that I held myself in enough esteem to think that I deserved to do stuff that was to go like, no.

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  And I had a real seminal moment in my life was my agent Rick Kurtzman a couple of years ago saying to me. He called me up and he said, I don't want to take money out of your pocket. They they made you a big offer to do this really goofy movie that was not great. Great payday. And he said, um, I'm going to be honest with you and do what you want. But if I see the poster for you and that movie, I go, yeah, that's a Will Arnett movie. And it was such a gut punch in the best way. I love him for saying that to me. And I went, okay. And I passed on it and then I didn't do anything until we were to make. I was like, all I'm going to do is make this movie.

• 1:05:16Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  And it's from that moment, it was a couple of years. All I'm going to do is make this movie and I'm going to do something that's good, something that I feel connected to. And that's it. And so if it takes, if that means I don't do anything for a while, that's okay. And I don't even mean about, I'm going to be precious about it. It's not like I'm like, now I'm going to be precious.

• 1:05:34Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:34Speaker 05

  No, it could be the dumbest thing, but I need to feel connected to it.

• 1:05:38Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Speaker 05

  That's, that's it.

• 1:05:40Sam Fragoso?

  You can be connected as dumb.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  And that's why I'm doing the new Carl's Jr.

• 1:05:45Speaker 05

  campaign.

• 1:05:46Sam Fragoso?

  The tagline is.

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  Still juicy. I don't know.

• 1:05:50Sam Fragoso?

  You were their first choice.

• 1:05:51Speaker 05

  By the way, I would do it just taking a big chump out of a burger.

• 1:05:56Sam Fragoso?

  You know, you did make it. You did make the movie and um, for all the dumb bits we've done, I want to say congratulations on that.

• 1:06:04Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:06:04Sam Fragoso?

  I really appreciate the time. I hope you had some fun.

• 1:06:06Speaker 05

  I did have some fun.

• 1:06:08Sam Fragoso?

  And a little bit different, hopefully.

• 1:06:09Speaker 05

  Very much so.

• 1:06:10Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. Will Arnett.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  Sam.

• 1:06:12Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:06:13Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:06:41Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Will Arnett, be sure to share the program on social media, leave us five stars on Spotify, or if you want to go above and beyond, you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. I want to give a special thanks this week to Louis Kay and the team at Covert Creative. I also want to thank Harrison Cameron, Ian Chang, Josh Lindgren, Neil Mulaney, Kiki Giorgio, and of course, our guest, Will Arnett. His new film, Is This Thing On?, is now playing in theaters around the country. For more episodes like this one, I'd recommend Laura Dern, Seth Rogen, Seth Meyers, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. If you'd like to watch the video version of this episode

• 1:07:24Sam Fragoso?

  with Will Arnett, visit our YouTube at Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on YouTube. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at Talk Easy Pod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. There's a talkeasypod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Corey Attad and Finn Nallin. It was mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was engineered by Chris Hines out of Operation Podcast in Santa Monica. Our music, as always, is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Khrisha Shanoy. Photographs today come from Simi Malik, research assistants Ben Eisen.

• 1:08:08Sam Fragoso?

  This episode was made in partnership with Higher Ground Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. See you back here next Sunday with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 1:08:28Speaker 06

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:08:40Speaker 06

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:08:45Speaker 06

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:08:51Speaker 06

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed,

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash R-C for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.