Will Arnett names the greatest role of his career: “If feels right”
Do you think it would be a positive or a negative to be an actor who has worked for 30 years and finally received a Golden Globe nomination, only to have that nomination be for a podcast you do with your ex-wife? The only conceivable way to know this would be to ask Will Arnett.
Given his apparent disposition and the fact that he is very proud of the podcast, called SmartLess, which he appears on with his former partner, SNL’s Amy Poehler and Jason Bateman, you would imagine he’s probably fine with it. Plus, he can console himself with the fact that he is getting ‘career best’ plaudits for his performance in his latest movie.
He is the lead in Is This Thing On? – the Bradley Cooper-directed film about a down-on-his-luck father going through a divorce who decides to turn to stand-up comedy as a coping mechanism. Arnett and Cooper go way back, having been introduced by Poehler as young actors in 2003, and the film was praised for both Arnett’s dramatic performance and Cooper’s directing.
Arnett has enjoyed a successful 20 years in mainstream comedy, both in movies and on TV shows, and has also carved out a useful niche in making films that are meant to really be for kids but end up watched and enjoyed just as much by adults. There are several instances of this dotted through his career, not least 2007’s animated triumph Ratatouille, which is the best Pixar film ever, yes, better than Wall-E and don’t ‘at’ me.
He also lent his voice to another ‘supposed to be for children but is actually genuinely funny’ film in the form of 2022’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, which heavily involved the team behind Lonely Island, including Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, and that’s aside from three of the most prominent examples in 2014’s The Lego Movie, its sequel five years later and 2017 spin-off The Lego Batman Movie.
And it’s the superhero character he voiced that franchise that Arnett highlights as his favourite role from his career, which is impressive when you consider that he was a leading character in not just the geeky animated hit Bojack Horseman, but the much-loved comedy Arrested Development too.
He told The Guardian: “I have never ranked my own roles before, but it feels right to place these three films at No 1. I did not realise what an impact Batman was going to have on my life. The character comes loaded with a bunch of preconceived notions, because he is Batman. He is a superhero with no super powers, so he has got to be quite confident. He’s an orphan and an only child, with incredible financial resources to do whatever he wants, and that has got to make him quite selfish. I liked the idea that he does not know how to be part of a team.”
The first Lego Movie, which also starred Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks, was an enormous hit on release, surprising even those involved, bringing in almost half a billion dollars at the box office and even picking up an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Song’ thanks to ‘Everything is Awesome’. It resulted in the Batman-focused spin-off headed by Arnett that featured Zach Galifianakis and Michael Cera, which was also a sizable success, earning $312m against a budget of $80m.
Arnett said, “It was fun taking things further in The Lego Batman Movie, to really get into what drove him. You know, witnessing his parents’ murder, being raised in this incredible mansion, and becoming this night-stalking vigilante who saves the world from terrible criminals, but then comes home and eats a heated-up dinner on his own. What does that do to you?”
