William Emerson Arnett Quotes
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When you're young, you kind of take yourself seriously, and you think, like, "People need to see what I can do." And it's so laughable, especially with actors.
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I probably suffered from ADHD, but they weren't so quick to diagnose it back then. For PE, they'd drop you in the woods with a compass and a pack of matches. It gave you confidence that you could rely on yourself.
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I want my son to wear a helmet 24 hours a day.
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It's very rare that people are exactly who they appear to be. Venice has a lot of that too, but the face of it is quite beautiful, interesting, and textured.
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Well, we were never coming back to Fox... that was clear.
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Well, no, I didn't because I didn't even know the nominations were coming out. I gotta say, it wasn't even on my radar. I hadn't... I hadn't even thought about it.
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Arrested Development was such an amazing experience in every way, and you know it was very unique in that it was a show that received a lot of critical acclaim, and yet we didn't ever achieve the ratings that we wanted.
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The show had run its course on the Fox network.
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Theres a lot of lying and these are people who are incredibly flawed, and not in very sort of empathetic ways, either. Some of the things they do are pretty awful and some of the things they do to each other are pretty awful.
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Everybody has some good in them and they can be relied on.
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Everything's not black and white. We choose to make bad decisions or not. I wanted to explore that and shine a light on it. Chip is trying to be a better person and lead a better life. His methods are just super flawed.
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I don't want to make a show about AA because it's a personal experience for anybody who is a part of that. My relationship with it has changed over the years, and I wanted the show to reflect that in a real way.
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Arrested Development opened a lot of doors for me.
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Because we have this whole other human being we have to think about other than ourselves. We had the luxury before of being totally self-centered.
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I remember asking my dad, "Why didn't you ever move to the States? You probably could have made a lot more money." My dad said, "Because I have an obligation to give back." I always admired him for that.
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I've always maintained that I don't think comedy should be reviewed. I think it's un-reviewable, because it is so subjective.
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And then we've got Blades of Glory, and we've got Brothers Solomon, and I've got a script in development with this guy Chuck Martin who used to write on Arrested, and, you know, we have a few things in various stages of development.
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Yeah, I don't think you can live anywhere else - it's such a great city [New York]. L.A. is kind of a necessary evil, but man, I love going back to New York.
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Arrested Development opened a lot of doors for me, and once I sort of became, I guess what you'd say "available," there was a lot of opportunity out there, and it's been nice; a lot of people have found it in their hearts to offer me movie parts.
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Playing the assholes in the movie is fun.
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When all of your friends are getting pregnant, you start thinking about it. But for Amy and I, show business is our baby.
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All jokes aside, it's a very difficult job playing the straight man. Jason is potentially the most brilliant straight man that ever was because he's also really funny while doing it, which is even harder. I've always seen myself playing characters who are flawed. We use comedy in our lives to obscure the drama.
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The idea of the straight man is very important. But I'd rather it be somebody else, because it's not as fun. And when I say somebody else, of course I mean Jason Bateman. He's born to play boring characters because he's such a bore. He's one of the most boring human beings.
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I often get, 'Oh, you always play the asshole.' An asshole is somebody who knows that they're doing it, but continues to behave a certain way. The one sort of common thread to me has always been that these are imperfect people.