![]() ![]() A little Martin Mull from "Fernwood Tonight." Some Chevy Chase from the Saturday Night Live days…I used to say, "This is a guy who thinks this show is about him. And yet his massive insecurities were so dramatically cloaked in a kind of over the top entitlement…He just seemed like a guy that a lot of comic actors would naturally take to. In a way it was the easiest to write because he wore everything on his sleeve-he was as bad at hiding his inner life as he was at guarding the secrets to his illusions. ![]() I was actually surprised, because I thought it would be the easiest part to cast. One other interesting thing is that we could not cast the role of Gob when we were doing the pilot of Arrested Development. He just gets at something so simultaneously over the top and real in his characters. But I think Will is fascinated by entitlement-which is also something of a theme for me-and he's able to play characters that suffer from the dead end of that life condition because he understands both what's ridiculous about that lifestyle, and how insidious it can actually be. Perhaps Jack Benny, who so famously played cheap, but who equally famously was one of the most generous guys in the business, also overcame that temptation. ![]() I feel like he understands the urge to be shallow, and to take himself too seriously-it's pulled on him perhaps in his life-and he's made a choice to not let it happen to him. Like many comic performers who get known for the less-than-savory personas they depict, Will is really the antithesis of the self-involved, emotionally stunted clown who he so easily slips in and out of. I remember watching him boldly commit to an impersonation of a chicken-holding his spine as stiff as a board while shooting his feet behind him like an ice skater and clapping-and, between breathless laughs, saying, "This guy was doing drama last year. He's so astoundingly funny that he risks only being known for that, but when he came to Arrested Development it was from a dark Irish play in New York. Really, he's an actor, he's a writer-a lightning fast wit. ![]()
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