The one role Ron Howard was forced into playing: “Now you have to do it”
Hollywood has been awash with actors who dabble in filmmaking for decades, but very few have taken the Ron Howard route of almost completely abandoning their on-camera exploits because what they really wanted to be was a filmmaker all along.
It was a strategy that paid off handsomely for the second-generation performer, who was already a veteran by the time he’d left his 20s. Getting his start as a child star, Howard quickly became one of the most in-demand youngsters in the business, racking up dozens upon dozens of credits.
By the time he departed Happy Days as a series regular after the conclusion of its seventh season in May 1980, Howard had already made his feature-length directorial debut on the Roger Corman-backed Grand Theft Auto and gotten a taste of the cinematic big-time thanks to his roles in John Wayne’s The Shootist and George Lucas’ American Graffiti.
Several years later, he was effectively a semi-retired actor, instead focusing his energies on working behind the camera. Howard has popped up sporadically in various films and TV shows in the decades since, but it’s been a long time since he’s considered himself a thespian.
He did end up with a pivotal role in one of the most popular sitcoms of the 21st century, and it wasn’t through choice. Sure, Howard was instrumental in the creation of Arrested Development, and his participation as a cast member was restricted largely to the recording booth, but creator Mitchell Hurwitz didn’t even bother asking for his approval before selling the series – with Howard involved – to Fox.
When the pilot episode was shot, Howard’s narration was only supposed to be a temporary measure. He was working on a movie at the time and popped into the sound truck to record his lines during his lunch break before sending it off to Hurwitz so he could shop it around town in the hopes of attracting a potential buyer.
“A couple of days later, Mitch called back and said, ‘Well, I have really good news, and news that maybe is good or maybe not, I don’t know,'” Howard explained to Conan O’Brien. “He said, ‘The pilot tested really well’. I said, ‘What’s the mixed news?’ He said, ‘Well, I just don’t know how you’re going to feel about it because the narrator tested highest, and now you have to do it. We sold the show, but I said you’re doing it. You’re the narrator.'”
Hurwitz wasn’t even entirely convinced Arrested Development needed a narrator, but after Howard did him a favour by temping in his voiceover when he was supposed to be having lunch, he became a key part of the package that the networks were swooning over.
Seizing the opportunity before it evaporated, the creator and showrunner struck a deal for the show with the proviso that Howard would remain on board as the narrator and opted to cross that bridge with the Academy Award-winning filmmaker when he reached it. If he’d said no, then there’s a chance things could have fallen apart, leaving Howard with no other option but to commit to Arrested Development.
