Interview: "Up All Night"'s Will Arnett Knows All About Type-Casting

Will Arnett has been humanized!

The actor, who has excelled at playing self-deluded or entitled losers on Arrested Development, Running Wilde, and 30 Rock, turns it way down on the new domestic sitcom Up All Night, co-starring Christina Applegate, about an older married couple dealing with the arrival of their first child.

Arnett, 41, didn't get his big break in 2003's Arrested Development until he was in his early 30s. But he's definitely made up for lost time since then, on TV and in the movies, becoming Hollywood's go-to guy when the role calls for "smarmy." In 2007 alone, he appeared in eight films (although two were voice-work, including Ratatouille).

But Up All Night is a change of pace for the actor. Could this more "sober" role be the start of a whole new career?

Recently, we caught up with Arnett to talk about type-casting, working with Applegate, and how he approaches potentially "offensive" humor.

AfterElton: What’s it like working with Christina Applegate? I had no idea that she was such a wonderful comedian until Samantha Who?
Will Arnett: I didn’t really know her that well, but we have a lot of friends in common. Everyone says she’s so super funny and they were so right. She’s got great timing, she knows what she’s doing, and she’s so funny, so prepared.

What’s great is I feel like she’s one of those people who just keeps getting better. You never know how it’s going to go when you get in with something, how the chemistry is going to be, and it’s often just such a crapshoot, and I’m so lucky to get to work with someone like Christina ... someone so good at it she makes me look good.

AE: There is no way Kelly Bundy could ever end up…
WA: Could ever have a family? [laughs] Christina has had a Broadway career, Tony-nominated actress, this is somebody who is super talented, legitimate dancer. It’s a great point, Kelly Bundy. I mean, who would have known?

AE: Actors often get stereotyped fairly early in their careers.
WA: I know what that’s like. I’ve played the character to date so far and I’ve only done the pilot on this show, so I can’t say. But playing G.O.B. on Arrested Development for me was such a great opportunity, it was a great character. I loved every minute of it.

[But] then what ends up happening is people say, "Oh he’s just that guy." I understand how difficult that is, so I can identify with her, but she has broken that mold, man.

AE: But now you've got this new show. Clearly Hollywood likes you.
WA: Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got a Hollywood guardian angel. [laughs]

I feel very fortunate to be back here this year working on this show. Running Wilde, it’s too bad it didn’t really connect the way that we hoped it would. We couldn’t really connect with the network on what they wanted, they couldn’t connect with us, the two of us together couldn’t connect with what the audience wanted, especially in that time slot. It just wasn’t meant to be.

We tried to do a show that was kind of bigger than life at a time when I think the news was pretty bleak, the economy, everything. We wanted to do something that was real escapist TV, almost like a comedy Fantasy Island in a way. And for whatever reason, maybe we didn’t do our job delivering what people wanted, it didn’t work out. But that’s okay.

AE: If you’re telling someone about Up All Night what makes it stand out? How is it different from some of the other sitcoms already on air?
WA: I think that it’s very accessible. It’s very real whether you have kids or not. It’s not just a show about people having kids, it’s a show about people, our generation who leave high school and college and don’t start a family immediately and spend twenty years focusing on their careers and themselves. And then all of a sudden, life kind of comes at you at forty. And you’re forced to do the things that previous generations did at twenty-five, and you’re doing it a lot later and you’re a little more set in your ways.

So it’s not just what happens when a baby happens, it’s what happens when life happens at age forty.

I think that a lot of people are going through that, and then of course you have the baby aspect of it. You also have writers who understand and come from Saturday Night Live and Parks & Recreation, really funny writers who understand how to reach the audience. Who are speaking the comedy language that young people understand.

It’s kind of what is happening right now so it’s very accessible, funny, real, and kind of naturalistic.

Next Page! What makes a joke "offensive"?