Since the cancellation of his critically acclaimed series Arrested Development, Will Arnett has carved out a nice place for himself in the animated world, with scene-stealing voice roles in Ratatouille, Horton Hears a Who and Monsters vs. Aliens.
In this month’s When in Rome, he gets his face in front of the camera again as one of four unlikely suitors bewitched into pursuing Kristen Bell.
Arnett sat down with Metro to talk about promoting a film, the state of the TV industry and those pesky Arrested Development movie updates.
Are you tired of people asking about the Arrested Development movie?
I’m not bothered by it, like, “Oh, God, leave me alone.” We’re happy that people liked it. We were never trying to be too cool for school at all. If anything, we wanted more people to get it. I just say, “Yeah, it’s happening, for sure.” I mean, it’s probably more annoying for people who have to read about it.
You’ve also got Jonah Hex coming up, which isn’t a comedy.
Jonah Hex is really a departure for me. I would not describe it as funny. For the first time in my career I will have failed if I make people laugh. Although I probably will. People will laugh at me trying to be serious.
Television comedy seems to be making a comeback. How do you see the industry now?
With all the problems that there are in TV, the only people that they have to blame are not the viewers, but the TV business itself. They’ve served us up so much reality TV, which was the crack of television.
There’s no lasting value to it. And from what I understand with crack, it’s the same thing. But if you were to give people something that they could sink their teeth into, whether it’s comedy or drama — they could resurrect TV again, and I hope that they do do it.
I hope that people’s attitudes in this country start to change a little bit and become a bit more liberal. We live in such a conservative place, where you have one-hour dramas that have incredible violence and gore, and yet you can’t say certain words. It’s absolutely absurd. It should be the other way around. You should be able to say “f—” and “s—” in a comedy and see nudity as opposed to letting kids see guys getting shot in the head. That’s awful to look at, and yet if you had the side of a buttock, people would be up in arms.
