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"Arrested Development": A Bluth Reunion

The news of a fourth season of "Arrested Development" was first announced at the 2011 New Yorker Festival, where the cast reunited for a sold-out panel discussion. The video is now available for the first time since 2011.

Released on 10/02/2011

Transcript

(audience cheers)

Oh my God, I knew they'd be taking pictures.

We weren't told there was going to be an audience.

That's right, yeah.

So, we're a little caught off guard.

We thought it was a reunion.

Welcome everybody to the Bluth family reunion.

(audience cheers)

Applaud for me. Applaud for me too.

My name is Nancy Franklin.

I'm the TV critic of The New Yorker

and I'm just like you, freaking out with excitement

to have these people here today.

They all need no introduction,

but they're going to get a quick one anyway.

We have the show's creator, Mitch Hurwitz.

(audience cheers)

Portia de Rossi.

(audience cheers)

David Cross.

(audience cheers)

Michael Cera.

(audience cheers)

Jason Bateman.

(audience cheers)

Will Arnett.

(audience cheers)

Jeffrey Tambor.

(audience cheers)

Jessica Walter.

(audience cheers)

Tony Hale.

(audience cheers)

And Alia Shawkat.

Yeah! Yeah, baby!

Okay, thanks for coming, goodbye.

What a treat.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes,

I have to do a few housekeeping notes here.

Subscriptions are going up.

They really are too, even employee rates are up

to $50 now, but enough about me.

Okay, I saw some people taking photographs.

I would want to be doing the same thing,

but we have to ask you not to take photographs.

It's Will's request. Yeah.

Just don't take photographs of anybody else.

But here's the thing, some of you are going

to do it anyway, please though, no flash, okay?

Because it's just distracting.

We know you're going to surreptitiously take pictures,

but just don't use a flash.

But we will be doing it for money outside on the street.

That's right, that's right.

And other kinds of flashing is okay.

That's right, that's right, yeah.

Just specifically photography.

Yeah, exactly.

Good housekeeping.

This is going great, Nance, great, just power through it.

I know, this is going fantastic, wow.

If anybody needs a sponsor.

No wonder it sold out in 20 seconds.

So the other thing is, since I know you're all

going to be tweeting about it.

If you plan to use Twitter,

please use the hashtag, hey, TNYFest.

Oh. TNYFest, also.

Do you have a dog in this fight?

NancyIsGreat is the other hashtag, NancyIsGreat.

By the way, the housekeeping is going great.

I know, thank you.

Hashtag that.

And we're going to have a Q and A at the end,

so you'll get a chance to ask a lot of questions, okay.

(audience cheers)

Well, here we are at this reunion.

How long has it been since you were

all together in one place?

Oh wait, are we starting?

Get your notebook out.

You're not supposed to do that.

I think the wrap party.

December 2005.

Really? 2005, wow.

So I'm good at partying, why are you mad at me?

Did we have a wrap party?

I don't remember the wrap party.

I'm assuming it was a wrap party.

Where was the wrap party?

Santa Monica. That's right.

It was in Santa Monica, yeah.

That's right and that's when they burned off

our last four episodes against the opening of the Olympics.

That's right. That's correct.

There's a memorial plaque.

There's no bitterness, there's no bitterness.

And all of you, I think it's fair to say

that the show was a watershed moment

for American comedy and I think, to a great extent,

it was a watershed moment in a lot of your careers.

So, would some of you or all of you care to talk about

what Arrested Development meant for your careers?

Michael? Bateman?

Yeah, I know, Michael.

Michael Bateman?

Yeah, Michael, has anything interesting happened

to you, since Arrested Development.

He bought this new thing.

I think it was probably, got a fair price on it, yeah?

Go ahead, hit it Michael, what've you been doing?

Now I remember why I almost didn't show up today.

It's going to be real hot for

about the next hour and a half.

Well, I think we all have things

we want to say to Michael.

Is that what this is?

Michael, this is an intervention.

Everybody stand up.

I think it's fair to say that Mitch provided for us,

cover your ears, you won't like to hear this,

but he provided for us, a career, period.

We're all working in some respects beforehand,

but the combination of his writing, his talent,

his vision, pardon the term and the support of you guys,

gave us all a great opportunity

and that's why we're all here today.

Well, we kind of found each other.

In a funny way, we were all game

for doing this very different thing,

which looking back on it, it was very audacious of us

to think that we would even get this on TV and be able to,

but we all sort of shared a sense of humor.

I think, wasn't there something on the original scripts?

Yeah, there was a cover letter

that came with a script that basically said,

maybe, it was just sent to me, no divas.

Pretty much, no diva type behavior.

Yeah, it's going to be shot guerrilla style.

From the hip, we're going to not really have

fancy trailers and I remember reading that and thinking,

what are we getting ourselves into?

But there was a moment, I remember there was a moment

on the pilot, when we were shooting

in Lucille's apartment, which was at that time.

Ritz. Ritz.

It was a suite at the Ritz

in Marina del Rey, which you can go

and stay in, if you're so inclined.

The Lucille suite.

Yeah, and but there was a moment,

where we were shooting a scene

and we were all in it and there was that moment

we were like wow, everybody's kind

of doing the same thing, this is unusual.

Yeah, we shared a tone and so much of comedy,

I think is tone and everybody kind of got

into the idea of just playing it straight.

I think we'd all come, a lot of us had come from places,

where we've been, I'd written bigger, broader comedy

and a lot of you guys had played bigger stuff

and I think we all just relished getting to vibe like that.

I've said it before, pardon if anyone's heard it before,

I know Jeffrey has, but if memory serves,

he had the first line that we ever shot

and it was an actual monologue,

when he was accepting the award on the boat in the pilot

and we were all doing our off camera

or reacting, I guess, it was never really off camera

because we had two cameras, but he did that monologue

and it was no one had really ever spoke

because I don't think we ever had any rehearsal or anything.

Yeah, we did.

[Mitch] No we should, we should definitely do that.

But we got to watch Jeffrey pretty much establish

the comedic tone that this was going

to be played deadly straight, serious,

there was going to be no winking

and I just remember feeling so excited that like oh God,

we don't have to, because I came from sitcom,

multi-camera, spin everything and really wink.

And not only that, also, and it was still shooting

on Jeffrey in that same sequence when he gets arrested

and he takes the phone call, he's calling his secretary,

saying clean everything out and then,

Jeffrey threw in, why are you crying?

And that for me, in that same moment

was like, oh, this is great.

And Jeffrey wasn't even a regular at that point, right?

Well, I had a bowel movement if that's what you because.

Then, I got that wrong, I apologize.

But anyway, he could act like he hadn't.

No, he kind of just came in to do this as a favor

and in many ways, I feel like Jeffrey established a tone,

I think that's a really astute point

because he also, Jeffrey's always been

the most fearless performer I've ever seen.

On the Larry Sanders show, he was just a revelation.

I'd never seen anybody.

(audience applause)

But you know, I tell you, I knew when we shot it,

I knew this was very, very different

because we were on the boat that day and I remember

looking across and there was David on that boat.

[Mitch] On a pontoon.

Yeah and I said, whatever this is,

try and be a part of it because I was a day player,

I was just asked to come on for the day.

Does that mean you had not worked out the story?

If Jeffrey was a day player at that point,

how far had you gotten in the storyline?

Well, two thing about that.

First of all, just to finish the thought,

I feel like Jeffrey's fearlessness did kind of,

it became the thing that we all followed.

We all kind of said, alright, this is going to be

about flaws, that's the humanity we're going to explore

and I really think it created a tone.

But Jeffrey and I were pals and we had done a show together.

[Nancy] What was that?

It was called, Everything's Relative,

with Jill Clayburgh and Eric Schaeffer and a guy named,

Kevin Rahm and it was a very special experience for us.

And when I started working on this pilot,

I was thinking that he was going to play Tobias.

I had everybody in their 50s and it was actually,

it was Jill Clayburgh who said to me,

oh, that's horribly depressing.

I really said, why did I think it was all these people

in their 50s that just hadn't gotten it together yet,

but I think at the time, we were thinking,

he'd be in prison and that would be it

and there would be a new godfather basically, in Michael.

But itt was irresistible to, I think it was

during the pilot that you said, okay, I'm in.

I watched these guys and I watched this entire cast

and I said, oh, this is a treat, I got to get here, so yeah.

[Jason] Same thing happened with David, actually.

[Will] Yeah, David did the same thing.

Yeah, he denies this, but my recollection

is that I called David Cross early in the casting process

and said, any part you want at all.

Michael would be great for you, I think.

And you zeroed in on Tobias.

Yeah, as I remember it, it was.

[Jason] It was after your fourth call back.

Or at least the information I got was specifically,

you guys were having a real tough time casting Job.

That you guys had seen a lot of people

and when I look at Job, also Buster,

that was the one, at least that came from my.

I think this was right after we had cast Will Arnett.

Yeah, you're getting your timelines mixed up.

Or was it backwards.

Let's get back to the housekeeping.

Yeah, you guys have to pick up

after you leave, a little housekeeping.

Because I immediately got the sense of Tobias

and knew exactly what I wanted it to be,

but I had to fight for the mustache,

that was a big fight with Fox, it was.

Was that a real mustache?

No, but thank you. It still isn't.

But remember we, because apparently,

Gail Berman had this standing rule

that there were no hats or mustaches allowed.

That was rule of three.

That no hat for guys, she had three for women too,

but for comedy, specifically, her comedy rules,

for guys, no hats, no mustaches and no...

[Will] Cufflinks. No fluffy...

[Jason] Bracelets.

Fluffy shirts or I can't remember.

[Jason] Blousey cuffs. Blousey cuffs.

Blousey cuffs, which was amazing.

But blousey cuffs, they tried one on Vaughn Villain

and he didn't, alright, never mind.

But remember we had to shoot it twice

because there was somebody on the set.

I think it was Suzanna Makkos, who said,

Gail's not going to go for this and I had to say,

alright, and we were shooting on the boat, it was 6am.

But there were calls back and forth

and I'm like, what are you talking about, we're shooting.

We're shooting now on a boat and there were calls and then.

So we did have another take, where David played

the same thing, but without the mustache

and sort of purposely, maybe half as funny, right?

Right, right.

But then we got like somebody ran in

and oh, I just talked to Tracy Katsky

and we got the go ahead for the mustache,

as long as it's not this bushy,

it can't be bigger than this, like at 7am.

These calls going back and forth,

okay, we got the okay for the mustache.

The greatest thing about David's mustache

was for the entire run of the series,

my recollection on working on the show

and everybody else can back me up on this,

a million conversations with David,

where he was laughing or he was indignant about something.

It would be David coming and going,

listen, I just saw the craziest thing out there

and holding his sewn in mustache.

Laughing like a polite Asian woman.

Oh my God, it's so true, it's so true.

He spent years like that.

And also, I will say for years

that David would always go like this,

look at this, look at this, blue.

You could never get the blue out.

[David] Three showers.

It's still probably in there.

Just a few more points about casting.

Obviously, you had two people, who were teenagers

at the time, who are no longer teenagers.

Uh-Uh. I know, woohoo.

That has to be a difficult thing to cast.

Had you seen Alia and Michael in other things?

I actually hadn't seen Alia, I saw a picture of you

for that other project that I was casting at the time

and I loved your look, but I had no idea

whether she would be right and Michael,

I have to confess that I did see him in a pilot,

even though I really want to just take credit

for how good he is and everything.

He was already so excellent and I'd seen you in that,

what was that pilot you did, The Kennedys?

The Grubs. The Grubs, The Grubs.

With Randy Quaid and Carol Kane.

We're doing the panel tomorrow actually.

That's great, that's going to be nice.

You're doing it at that Starbucks, right?

Right.

Not a big, not a biggie.

I know you also have a good story

about how you found Tony.

Yes, wait, what was it?

Well first on Michael, I will say,

no, I found Tony in my bushes for some reason.

But with Michael, I had seen how good he was,

so I requested an audition from him.

I said, let's get him in and my first clue

to who Michael Cera was about two weeks later.

The casting director said, great news,

Michael Cera liked the script.

That's a step, how is that a step, he's a child.

But so smart and discerning and then,

you did an audition and my recollection of the audition,

I've talked about this before,

but is that you were on the far side of a bedroom

or something, it was on videotape in Canada,

I think in your mom's bedroom or something

and I remember showing it to Ron,

who or I don't know if it was Ron

or it was one of the Russo brothers,

but somebody said, I don't think he's doing anything.

Because he's perfectly still.

He isn't doing anything.

Got his thing, talking quietly, looking awkward.

And I was like, no, I think it's a choice.

I've seen him in this pilot and of course, it was a choice

and he was always such an enigma

because he was this unbelievably confident young man,

who always played such a lack of confidence.

Awkward, yeah.

I always had to play down in confidence.

It's coming out again, by the way, you should sit on that.

No, it really, can I tell the story, the erection story?

Sure, yeah, in the audition, I got.

[Portia] Really?

No, it's about my erection, no,

not the boy's, not the boy's.

I've so missed this.

We had to do a scene, where he was in the backseat

of a car and the idea was, he was so awkward

to be around his cousin in such close proximity,

he was going through his adolescence

and his father said at one point,

or I think you said, we're ass to ankles back here.

Yeah.

I think that was one you came up with.

Hey, we're ass to ankles back here.

Is that a Canadian phrase?

No, I think David just came up with it.

Oh, it was David.

But anyway, so then, they said,

Maybe, why don't you sit on your cousin's lap?

And then, Jason said, a bumpy road ahead

and then, we were going to push in on Michael

looking uncomfortable, but he didn't look uncomfortable.

He was just looking around and I thought,

I've got to say to him, I've got to somehow

go to this 15 year old boy and use the word erection

and say, this is what's happening here.

I was very trepidatious about this and so I said,

I think the idea here is Michael

that you're a little aroused by this.

That's very good, oh thank you,

good, oh funnier, much funnier, thank you.

Much funnier, thank you.

That's a good way to take it.

That's hysterical. What does that say?

Okay, I've just been given a message.

Oh, we have another guest.

We seem to have another guest.

Hello Ron?

[Ron] (audience cheers) Hello.

Ron Howard is on the phone right now.

Ron, are you there?

[Ron] What the hell is going on in there?

We need some narration quickly, we don't know.

[Ron] Oh okay, it's the perfect collision

of art and commerce, personal agendas

and the fans love and the creative call

of the wild, it's Arrested Development.

Yeah! (audience cheers)

Now, we actually have the full cast.

This is the unsung hero of the show.

[Ron] Ron? Yes?

What are you wearing?

[Ron] Well, I have a beard,

but you see the network never knew about that.

So anything you'd like to say

to the assembled cast here and Mitch, the creator?

Well, or we can just fold you

into the question and answer.

That's fine, I'm very confused.

My assistant got it wrong.

I thought I was actually doing narration for the movie.

Hey, is there going to be a movie?

Actually, we can talk about that.

Yeah.

(audience cheers)

No, that's not going to do well.

The question that everybody asked me,

when I said, if you were talking to the cast

and the creator of Arrested Development,

what would you like to know and people would send

me messages in capital letters saying,

when the hell is the fucking movie coming out?

So, people have obviously been interested in this,

since the show ended, the very last thing

in the series is a sort of nod to this.

Mitch, tell us a little bit

about what's happening with that?

Well, I think we actually, we're 80 percent of the way

to an answer and I'll take you through it this way.

Okay, because Ron and I have been talking about this

for ages and trying to get this going

and we don't completely own the property,

there are business people involved and studios

and that kind of thing, but just creatively,

I have been working on the screenplay for a long time

and found that as time went by,

there was just so much more to the story.

In fact, where everyone's been for five years

became a big part of the story.

So in working on the screenplay, I found,

even if I just gave five minutes per character

to that back story, we were halfway through the movie

before the characters got together

and that kind of gave birth to this thing

that we've now been pursuing for a while

and we're kind of going public with a little bit,

we're trying to do kind of a limited run series

into the movie, there are deal things to be worked out.

A limited run TV series?

A limited run TV series.

(audience cheers)

Of the Carol Kane thing.

The thing that Michael did with Carol Kane.

That's what we were, but the idea

is it's very unconventional approach to it

because we're basically doing, hoping to do,

nine or 10 episodes with almost one character per episode,

where the first episode will just be Buster.

We're kind of picturing, well, the latest joke we have

is that it's Cambridge, Massachusetts

and there's all these scientists in lab coats

and they're waiting for somebody,

Buster comes through the doors in a white lab coat,

let's begin, and they, oh, you don't get

to wear the lab coat, we're experimenting on you.

Naturally.

Give us a taste of what taking

that lab coat off will look like.

And then, we go through his life

and we meet the people in his life

and maybe he goes to see his therapist,

he's getting a good rate on because it's Tobias

and he lost his license, so we can do crossovers

and things like that, but it's an unusual style of show,

I think and we get him to a certain point of peril

in his life and then, maybe we jump over

to Maybe and she's living with Cornel West.

Of course she is, right.

And we go through this kind of thing that builds

the peril in their life until they all come together

really in the first scene of the movie,

so it requires and Ron has been working on this too,

but it just requires studios to work together

that don't typically work together,

film and TV, but it's a really ambitious project,

but it's also a very simple project in a way

because it kind of gives the fans a level of detail

or granularity, which is a big word on the west coast,

you guys say granularity yet, it's coming.

Tell us how it's used in TV.

Well, it's like inside baseball.

I don't know what level of granularity to go into here.

Let's not over use it.

Detail, in other words another fancy word for detail.

Yeah so and then, Jason

and I have talked about this a lot.

Jason has really been kind of the soul of this whole thing.

Jason has kind of kept this alive,

really and been the champion of this thing creatively

and I'm really grateful for that

because I think we're now on to something really good,

but I'm halfway through the screenplay

with Jim Vallely, I'm writing this,

my old kind of first lieutenant

and Dean Lorey, who has worked with us for years.

Didn't you and Jim worked

on the Golden Girls together, right?

We did yes, we were the puppeteers

for Estelle in the seventh season.

I did the jaw and the mouth.

That's just wrong.

Jim just did the handbag, he came on

just as the handbag guy.

So but, I really have to say and we've talked about this,

the cast has talked about this, I think we're all game,

we've hated being coy, it's just been

that we've been trying to put together

this more ambitious idea and I think we're very close.

The script is halfway done and we have to get

the film companies on board and see if,

they've always been great to us, but times are tough

and money is tight, but I'm very hopeful.

There's business left to be done,

but creatively, we are all on board

and have a very specific plan about how it would come out

and what we would do and when we would shoot it,

I think we're targeting next summer to shoot.

Our hope is, yeah, to kind of be perhaps,

the series is in the fall and but this isn't my decision.

So you're all leaving your schedules open for this,

you've sort of earmarked time, everybody's ready to do it.

Yeah, I think we have a way.

It's not going to be a big budget movie,

but the show is, we always made do with things

and then, for awhile, right when they started,

I always have to say, I kind of was perpetuating

a little thing like wouldn't it be funny

if Michael Cera was the hold out, let's put that out there.

And Michael had that Andy Kaufman thing

and was like, yeah, yeah, let's make people think

and then, it really turned ugly, very quickly.

So really, I just have to say, for those of you

that have been following the saga,

Michael's always been great

and always been game and everything.

But next year, I do have a thing.

A small conflict, yeah, no diva clause has to go.

Will family relationships change?

What will Lucille be in her next, how will her life

be different or would you rather not say at this point?

I'd rather not Jessica find out.

Jessica, could you just put your hands over your ears.

I think we're going to keep some of the details

kind of quiet for now, just for the fun of it,

but I will give you this spoiler alert,

they fuck everything up.

No really?

Yeah, they'll say, I've made a huge mistake.

I don't think that it is giving away too much

to say that as you alluded to, I think, earlier Nancy,

that the very last line of the last episode,

was Ron saying to Maybe, as she was pitching the idea

of a television show about her family,

Ron saying, yeah no, I don't think anyone

would ever watch that, but maybe, a movie?

And then, it went to black.

[Ron] Which by the way, just to be honest.

Jesus Christ, what the hell?

It's the voice of God.

I was just completely patronizing Mitch.

I just thought, oh, come on, okay well, I'll say it.

It was kind of a master stroke to make

the most powerful director in Hollywood

to say, maybe this is a movie.

Because he's still an actor, he'll just read it,

he'll just say it.

And I also get to do the narration from any kind of,

sometimes I do it from the cab of a truck.

Yeah, it's true, he did.

Going back, that turned out to really be

a propitious decision to ask Ron to do that narration

because for so many reasons, first of all,

it's a voice that we've just heard in our life

for such a long time, even when he was a little boy,

it's just such Americana and such

a non-judgmental open quality to Ron, in general,

but to kind of play that against this family

and I don't know, it was such a great combination.

What now, the TV show?

And Ron, by the way, I also have to say,

in case, people probably know this,

but Ron developed this with me.

Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask.

I've gotten a sense from things that he kind

of called you in and said, can you do this show

about a family dysfunction, so how much did Ron bring to it?

[Ron] Well, let me clarify that,

I just thought there was an interesting,

stylistic new way to kind of do a family comedy.

That was really it, I had a sort of a point of view

about the way you could use this sort of

faux documentary style, there was a new sort of

television grammar and Mitch took that

and honestly, just came at it.

Together, we thought, well, it'd be a funny situation

to have an extended family that's in some kind of trouble

and then, I remember Mitch came back with,

and I've always feared, Mitch,

that it's all a little too close

to home because it happened so quickly,

but it was pretty remarkable, the set of characters

that he immediately came back with.

Ron, what was your feeling that you could do this

new kind of comedy, what was that based on,

what had you seen that led you

to think that you wanted to do this?

[Ron] Well, reality TV and I had done a movie

that was sort of about that, before reality TV

really kicked in, which was sort of observing that

which was this comedy Edtv, but also, things like.

(audience applause)

Oh listen to that.

Yeah well, thank you,

where were you when it was in theaters?

But also, shows like Cops and the sort of

the beginning of reality television

and I also felt that because just technically,

this kind of aesthetic, this documentary aesthetic,

given this sort of breakthroughs in technology,

you could shoot pretty fast and I felt like it would give

a new kind of quality control to the comedy

and give actors and writers more chance to experiment

and push it and then, the other thing

that Mitch and I started talking about

was just the layers of the kinds of jokes,

so they can be verbal, they can be visual,

it could be flashbacks and we felt like we could just get

more sort of density of comedy into it.

But ultimately, it all boils down to who are the characters

and it was initially, supposed to be heavily improvised show

and largely, it was cast with people

that we felt could really excel and Mitch was wide open

to that, but from the first pilot on, whenever I go

and talk to any of the actors, I'd say,

you're doing a lot of improv and everybody would say, well,

we're free to, but the script's so good

and I think Mitch and then, Mitch's team have just always

had this remarkable sort of connection

to who these characters are and why they make us laugh

and really the most spectacular cast,

I really wish I was there with you guys

because you're a remarkable bunch.

Listen to that.

I will say and you guys can speak to this,

but I think that technology, which really started this

in a way, saying, we can move faster,

we can do multiple takes, that's what really changed,

I think the style of the show.

Without question, the ability too.

The scripts were so great.

By the way, it should be also noted

that for us, we knew how great the scripts were

and we were talking about this the other day,

but we used to get our scripts, say, on Sunday night

and by the end, we'd get them Monday afternoon,

when we already shooting, but.

I still owe you that last one.

But, the scripts were so good,

we used to call each other and say,

these scripts are, did you get the latest script,

it's so, so good, so we were starting

from such an advantage with the material

and then when we were actually shooting,

because of the style, because of the handheld style,

it really lent itself to moving quickly,

to changing stuff on the fly, to the camera finding stuff.

That was another big device that enabled,

that told the story in a much different way

and it really freed it up.

Yeah, the style itself gave us that freedom.

And just the pace, there's nothing worse

than making a comedy film and I believe

I've made a lot of bad comedy films.

No way.

No, come on, no, no.

It's fine, it's fine, that's a different panel.

And it's just me and one other person,

but the point is, is that that process can be so slow,

can be such a grind, where you shoot half a page a day

and by lunch, you've just shot a master

and you've forgotten why you thought the scene was funny

and there's nothing left about it that's interesting.

In this show, we shoot five pages before lunch

and we'd have 50 set ups.

We had one of the scripts was how many scenes were there?

There were like 96 scenes, one of the last scripts.

[Mitch] Well, you had come from Ally McBeal,

I guess where it was very constructed, very set.

Yeah, who did that?

You had to hit your mark or else

you wouldn't get your face on the camera.

So yeah, it was very stylized.

I think most of us had that experience

and that first day on the boat,

when we were watching Jeffrey,

we were just like, what do you mean we can move?

We can go over here, it was so exciting.

But also, you had to be on your toes every second.

There could be a camera under the couch, we never knew.

You had to be good every single time.

What's the analogy, if there is any,

to working in theater, which you've done a lot of,

how was doing this kind of show,

was it a little bit like doing theater?

I think it is, I think we were presenting

a mini little play every week.

And I think one of the things about Arrested Development

was that everybody had such great energy,

which you have to have.

I was still using.

I had a character that was born on the fly.

Oscar was born on the fly.

Simply because I had this Darnell wig

that was so, we had to replace and so, Darnell?

I'm okay with it.

So they afforded me a new wig

and they're cut like this and we had to show it to Mitch

and the writing offices were up there

and we went up there and we showed him

and I remember Mitch saying like that

and called some writers and the next day, Oscar was born.

Amazing, yeah, probably the most ugly wigs

ever to appear on screen.

Same money, right?

Absolutely, the same.

Two characters, same money.

Two trailers, oddly enough.

Two trailers, just paid for one.

But that's another great example of Mitch.

Also, the way that they wrote.

I remember there's a scene, where my real wife came

and played the wife of my character

(audience cheers)

and she's no longer with us.

In New York, no, no, she was here yesterday, she left.

Oh for fuck's sake, but we had this scene

and then, it just kind of ended

and her character hadn't really been resolved

in that episode or going forward.

And I remember her saying, that's it, there's nothing

and I said, yeah I know, I went up to Mitch,

it was still that first season.

I went upstairs to that weird elevator

and I said, hey listen, and Mitch was like, yeah, yeah,

tell her to hang out for like an hour

and then, they wrote and Mitch came down

and was like, we've got it.

And Mitch was like, you're going to shoot in here

and there were like these pages

and it was this whole misunderstanding

of I'm in love with your brother,

you're in love with Michael, that whole scene,

they wrote it on a napkin and it was a great scene,

but that was another example of what it was like,

it was just all sort of run and gun, no guns.

Tony, how much input did each person have?

Did you say no, I wouldn't do this

or my character wouldn't do this?

Did you play a big part in creating Buster?

I remember going up to Mitch and asking about Buster

and him saying, all Buster want in life was safety.

I thought that was really just classic

because anytime safety was threatened,

I would just go in a neurotic tailspin.

But I will say, the thing that I,

so many things I appreciated, but a big thing was the aspect

of surprise in the show was anytime you're involved

in something, you kind of know where something's going,

you kind of get the formula in,

we were just constantly surprised.

By the way, a seal's going to bite off your hand.

By the way, Liza Minnelli's going to be your girlfriend.

There was so much, that's what was so exciting.

You were just like, I've got my mom,

you're not good boy for my girlfriend.

By the way, you're going to adopt a Korean orphan.

That's right.

You still have him, don't you?

You kept him, you still have him right?

I don't think people really understand.

I actually, the door was open in the office one day

and I actually saw Mitch and Jim break a story

and it was, I looked through and I remember this

because we were on the set and we're looking at the thing,

it looked like Jim was delivering a child from Mitch.

Mitch was on his back and talking and Jim was pacing.

[Mitch] Between my legs.

It was an amazing, amazing event.

There's a lot of strands that went through this

and then, the rewind factor and then,

the blue left on a wall and this mind that this came out.

Jokes on the fridge too.

There's a lot of stuff, if you freeze frame

and little things that hark back to an episode

from literally, six episodes ago, that's a joke that is,

if you watch, if you freeze it, you'll get a joke.

But a lot of times Mitch wouldn't even tell us about it.

You'd go and you'd talk to the prop guy

or set dressing and you'd say, hey do this or do that

and we discovered on take three or whatever,

I'd go up to the fridge and go,

hey Will, look at this thing that's on the fridge.

But that's what I mean by like-minded.

I think we all really got into the idea of

and we're very energetic about this idea of detail

and specificity and idiosyncrasy.

Everybody just really got into this idea of,

I always think of Alia, who played such

a kind of psychotic character in a way.

[Alia] It's true. Thank you.

And I would say, like Tony, like so different personally.

Both of those guys, I think.

Tony, first of all, just on Tony,

we would see him go into character.

Nobody made us break more than Tony Hale to a person.

When Tony came into a scene, he was so in character.

It was so alarming, he'd come in.

Oh, get in there Tony, we're about to roll.

Are you all set and ready for it?

But he'd come around the corner

and he'd be like, hey guys, and we'd lose it.

Right, how many times did we?

I remember my wife would always,

because when you're in that character for so long,

yeah, you'd come home and she'd say,

you're just a little hyper-sensitive.

I was running on the bike path

on Westside Highway yesterday and I ran

by these two guys and all I heard was, hey brother.

(audience cheers)

But Alia played this very, very fearless character

and she was so young, I think you were 13

maybe when we did the pilot?

Yeah, something like that.

And you remember what you said, when I asked you

if kissing Michael was you first on-screen kiss.

Did I lie to you because it was, right?

Was I trying to act like it wasn't?

Everyone's just talking filthy and everything.

We're on a boat like sailors and we're just this troop

of actors very comfortable with each other

and she said, it's my first kiss.

It's like, oh right, she's just a young girl.

It's changed me for the rest of my life.

Her dad was standing off camera, just like.

I have a Middle Eastern father, whose very Middle Eastern.

So he was just like very tense

and everyone was joking about it so much

like it was so fun for them that they were experiencing it

through me, like oh, it's your first kiss

and I was like, I don't like this, I don't feel good.

You were very believable as a movie executive, seriously.

I don't know how you knew how to do that,

but you took it very seriously.

I didn't take all of it very seriously, in general.

I remember you talking about it very casually too.

I think you'll be like a movie executive or something,

what do you think about that?

And I was like yeah, that's great.

I'm going to make a sandwich, very casual.

No, it's real, I've been watching them again.

In preparation for the movie and you're really,

she is a film executive, kind of above it all.

(audience applause)

Is that for film executives?

To film executives all around the world, you're great.

One of the other things that's so great about the show

and there are so many, which we can't even get to,

but it has all kinds of comedy, verbal, visual, physical

and I think of Portia's character,

the way you threw yourself into it,

almost like a screwball comedy comedienne,

as they used to call them from the 30s or 40s.

How did you know that it wasn't too much?

In other words, how did you know how to do that

without sort of making it too big?

I don't know because I've been watching

the episodes lately and I look at my character

and think, my God, what was I thinking?

It's funny because it was kind of fine line,

but I just constantly told myself,

so long as I was completely self-absorbed,

everything else was going to work out.

Shallow, vain and just completely self-absorbed

and it kind of worked and but yeah,

I did some crazy physical comedy.

There's nothing wrong with wearing slut on my chest.

[Alia] Shmolly.

Oh, that's right and the clothes.

I didn't get that, the first time we were shooting.

I was like, I have to say this, what does this say?

You paid great close attention

to every character's clothes.

Michael was always wearing the same.

Jason was always this sort of this LL Bean,

Brooks Brothers kind of guy.

Which by the way, Jason wasn't.

Michael had these weird flat, Michael

and David always had these weird flowery shirts

that were kind of not very attractive.

Reyn Spooner?

Reyn Spooner shirts, I actually grew up wearing

what Michael wears, which is a California thing.

It's an inside out print.

Well then, there were the denim cutoffs

underneath the flowery shirts.

The never nude, Jessica had these great sort

of silk suits and Jeffrey, God knows,

you were wearing all kinds of crazy stuff,

especially when you were living up in the attic.

But that orange suit was great.

Just come to work and (whistles)

But I remember, I always thought that it was,

what a great acting kind of exercise for Jeffrey,

whose just such a pro and he's a consummate comedian.

So we just put him in a room with no props,

even the table is bolted down in an orange jumpsuit,

not even fun clothes to play with, it's like okay, be funny.

You know what's interesting in his house,

he has an attic, no I mean the Mitch in his house now.

That's right.

He showed me his attic and it's

very much like my attic was.

It's a very, very fun, creative.

Do you have dolls named Polly in your attic?

Is there a jacuzzi?

They're inflatable, the inflatable kind,

but they're dolls.

Just my favorite thing ever

was Jeffrey saying, I overdid it,

after he puts in the hot tub in the attic.

Bright red, it's so hot.

And I remember when Michael snuck up to see you.

We have to talk about Michael Cera some more.

Okay, go ahead, if you want.

Anyone can take the ball on that, he's a kind man.

Did you have the idea, I'm sorry Michael,

I'm not talking about you right now,

this is another question, we can get back to you though.

Did the show evolve from the beginning,

the sort of satirical elements,

speaking to American culture and this sort of emptiness

of sort of real estate speculation

and our foray in Iraq and all that.

Did that occur to you from the very beginning?

I think that stuff, I'm always a little leary of people,

who sort of talk about the meaning of their work,

because in my experience, you don't start that way.

You just start trying to tell a story and I think

we were telling a story that was kind of of its time.

There have been a lot of accounting fraud

and that kind of thing in the news and then,

it turned out like that there were some things going on

in America that represented this very conservative family,

so it did kind of fold into it.

I don't think we started thinking,

let's do a parable of the Bush family.

Was that George Bluth, was that meant

to echo George Bush a little bit in the name?

Not really, my wife came up with Bluth.

She's good with names, she came up with Sitwell too.

Who came up with, David, you can probably pronounce

it the best, who came up with the last name of Tobias?

Funke? Yeah.

That was in the pilot, that was in there from the start,

just Doctor Funky, was what we were thinking.

But now, it's kind of I feel like the rest of the world

is going through what the Bluths went through in 2004.

It's like being forced.

I will say, the one kind of highfalutin idea

that Ron and I talked about a lot

in the making of the show was that it was people

whose money had kind of separated them from each other

and enabled their eccentricities

and kind of the idea, I don't know if it really came

across in the show, but was that by losing their money,

they were forced, it was the best thing

that ever happened to them, and they went kicking

and screaming into being happier people, but I don't think

we got you too happy, actually now that I say it.

Now also, did the sort of specter of cancellation,

did that hang over the show from the very beginning?

In other words, ratings were not great,

but did you feel, did you all feel

that it could happen anytime, the cancellation

and did that affect the actual content of the show?

There was that brief period after the Emmy win

in the beginning, where we were like,

we felt confident, but then that went away quickly.

It was when we showed up to work and in the lot there

at 20th, there was this pathetic soccer team banner.

That you could only see if you worked

at Fox, not the outside part.

That's right.

You have to know they have, the entrance,

they have huge massive billboards that you drive on,

as you drive on the lot, then they have these,

they're just huge, they're massive.

Promoting all their other shows like,

so you can kick a soccer ball like a 5th grader

or whatever and behind, copywright,

behind the overhang was the banner.

It was like a banner that you'd have inside a deli

like Grand Re-Opening, under new management

and it was painted by a 12 year old.

Congratulations on the Emmy, well thank.

Yeah, but we knew it was special from day one,

but I think the thought of it being canceled

and that kind of hanging over our heads, just made us

really enjoy every episode and it made us.

[Jason] It kept us. Yeah.

It definitely added to the feeling on set.

We kept narrowly averting.

I didn't have an expectation that we would stay on the air.

Jason, you probably didn't.

We were used to doing shows that do a couple seasons

and then, go away or do one season.

But you know what was interesting

is that the density of your writing

and the rest of your staff was such that

this was in the advent of the DVR

and everyone was able to pause stuff and so I think.

For the new technology, but we didn't actually,

remember, we were almost right before it.

Yeah, very quickly I think the audience,

you guys could attest to this.

I know I did, Will and I, I think

we watched almost every episode.

We would, a couple of times and we're big narcissists.

We would pause, you pause the show to see fridge stuff

or whatever and so I think people quickly realized,

well, I'm better served to watch this show

after I've recorded it, I'll watch it the next day

or whatever and this was before they'd started monitoring

those views and crediting the show.

It was the year before.

Yeah, just the year before.

When we were canceled, it was

the year before, they switched over to.

Incorporating DVR.

It was also the year before Nielsen

started counting college campuses.

Bad timing.

DVDs, I think people felt, well, I can just wait

until the DVD comes out at the end of the year

and then, I can watch three in a row

and it's only going to take me an hour.

Because remember that first season,

I think only 20 minute episodes.

It always was 20 minutes.

Yeah, 21, 22.

But didn't we have to shrink some of our content

for a give back on our anyway.

We had to cut 30 seconds off

between season two and season three.

It sounds like a little thing,

but there was so much material we were trying to pack in

and so many great performances and it was just that hard.

But I think that may have been, you tell me,

it may have been in your mind that this show

would maybe best served in a dark room,

in a movie theater, where the only light

is that screen and there's no distraction of a phone

or a fridge, so you can appreciate perhaps,

the minutiae that you were putting in there

and therefore, maybe the idea of the movie started.

Yeah, I think so.

I also think that it was just audacious.

I think we just got into the idea

of just making this very dense show

with a lot of comedy and we were doing call forwards,

we were setting up Saddam's house.

Things that you really couldn't even appreciate in the time,

almost as an experiment on somebody else's dime.

[David] And it was a dime.

Hey Ron.

Hey, but because I was always here or there,

working on something else and doing this narration,

I felt like I was the luckiest guy

because I loved the show and I was sort of the first one

to get to really see it, start to finish

because there would be a rough version of it

that I would lay the narration down and then,

there'd be some re-editing and rewriting of the narration

and then, I'd do it again, but that was really my contact

with the show, so it was sort of as a fan very quickly,

but secondly, people who would show up doing guest shots

whether it's my brother Clint or then,

Henry Winkler or Liza, who I knew

and people would come and call me and just say,

there's this most remarkable experience happening over there

and I think that that is one of those sort of

intangible things that kept the show on

in a way as long as it was because even the execs,

everybody involved knew there was something

pretty remarkable there and something sort of

worth fighting for, but also certainly, it was registering

on screen and it was really something exciting

and I've never experienced anything

like the way fans have hung on to this show

and kept talking about it, kept viewing it,

kept clamoring for more and that kind of thing.

It's absolutely unique and great.

It really is the fans, you guys really kept the show

on the air much longer than it probably had a right to.

And the critics too, the support of the critics.

It's funny because living here in New York,

you're out and about a lot and at least, twice a day,

somebody I'll see on the street and they'll quote a line,

they remember lines, it's incredible.

That's amazing and of course, it went off the air

five and a half years ago.

They're watching the DVDs.

But I bet that happens less to you, Michael,

I'll bet you you're more known

just because you've grown up with your audience,

I'll bet people don't stop you about Arrested

as much as they do like Superman.

No, people yell George Michael at me a lot, a lot.

And you say?

Hey, hey.

And the DVDs have done well, financially, right?

They've sold well, right?

I don't know, it seems like.

How many people here have copies of the DVDs?

(audience cheers)

Yeah, so yeah.

They keep those numbers kind of close to the vest,

but just anecdotally, we go on Amazon.com

and check the rank and it does seem like at Christmas time,

it really spikes up into the top three because people

are coming home from college and discovering it.

But all of this, I have to say, is just such a gift to us.

I think we early on figured out,

we're just doing this for us in a way.

We just all felt really fortunate to be able

to do this comedy and never thought.

It's almost like putting a note in a bottle

and three years later, the note comes back and says, haha.

Oh the joke, yeah, the joke, they got the joke.

And it's so rare in this TV landscape now too,

to have a show that's lasted this long in people's minds

because things come and go so fast, so yeah.

Jason, just getting back to sort of what it was like

to be in the show, play these characters,

this was obviously, a big departure for you.

You've been in all these shows,

you've been in shows as a kid.

Did you have any trepidation about playing this

and also, that you're the normal one,

did that seem, you were sort of

the Marilyn Munster of the Bluth family.

What was that like to play the sort of

supposed more or less sane character, what was that like?

Well, I was coming from a place

of having done a lot of pretty bad television

or at least, soft, multi-camera stuff

we were talking about earlier.

Did it seem bad to you at the time,

when you were doing it?

It didn't seem bad, but there were definitely better stuff

on TV that I wish I could be a part of

and it was right at a moment where television comedy

was making a transition into single camera comedy

and that multi-camera comedy was kind of

the studio audience stuff was becoming a little bit passe

and so, when I got this pilot and I saw that cover sheet,

it was obviously, something very, very different

than what I was known for and so I thought

they're not going to see me for this

because I carry this baggage of something that opposite

of what they're trying to do.

Mitch was very, very nice to me.

No, I was just stunned by how good you were,

I was one of those people carrying that baggage.

I remember seeing your name on that list

that she had prevailed upon your management

to have you come in and audition

and I thought, oh, I don't know if I'm going

to do the Jason Bateman pilot this year.

That was without really knowing Jason Bateman.

I just knew like all of us, you have some kind

of reputation at the moment and it's always

about the parts people get to play and he came in

and in a second, really instantly, I was like, oh my God,

he's fantastic, he's exactly what you see on the show.

So then, I went to the head of Fox and said,

we got the person, it's Jason Bateman

and she said, oh, I don't know

if I want to do the Jason Bateman pilot this year.

We know how those go.

Yeah, and then, of course, he came in

and showed her what he does and she said,

we've got to get him, got to get him, lock him down.

So I had a huge appreciation for not only

what the show was, but also, selfishly,

what it could do for me to hit the reset button

because of all this sort of baggage.

And to answer your question about

was I okay playing the straight man?

First of all, that's kind of my sense of humor.

My mother's British and so my take is very dry

and I'm much more of a sort of a reactor than an antagonist,

but I appreciated the value of the show

and to make comedy work, I think,

I'm not a doctor of comedy, but you need.

[Alia] What? An antagonist.

We're finding out now you don't have a license for this.

You're a dentist of comedy.

Right, right, you need an antagonist

and a protagonist, obviously, you need somebody

to ground it and to react to it.

Well, I will tell you, I remember cutting together

the first cut of the pilot and all this hilarious material

and it wasn't funny, it just wasn't connecting

and I was very worried and I realized,

we're not cutting to Jason.

You know something?

I must say, I'm sure for the rest of everybody here,

that if we had not had him to play off of,

we were the satellite around him, it wouldn't have worked.

With a lesser person, it would not.

I was trying to be you guys, the people

like observing this craziness and then,

it affords, I guess, the writing staff

to take those characters as eccentric as you wanted,

as long as you had somebody to tether it to.

And I never really thought of Jason

really as the straight man either.

Here comes something hurtful.

No, no, no, let me just say.

I've never thought of him as a straight man

but my point is is that what Jason did,

just to echo what Jessica was saying,

what Jason did was so hard and multi-layered

because not only was he dealing with everybody,

but he had a different relationship with each character

that was very specific to each character

and he brought that in every single take

and even within the take, if he was dealing

with different people, it was so difficult.

He was plate-spinning basically

and he was so fantastically excellent.

Reacting is a big, big part of comedy.

It's Jack Benny, it's an unusual gift

to be able to funny in stillness.

And you never forgot that he loved his son

and that was the thing that was so.

But he also, he did, but he.

Well, that's that straight gun thing.

But the great thing is that it wasn't

a one-dimensional love that you were also,

occasionally a jerk to the son.

You lied to him, so it pretty believable.

I was not a perfect father.

You were not a perfect father, you were a good father.

But we made it through didn't we?

Here we are, years later.

Will, you played a real jerk on the show.

You think so?

He doesn't know that, he doesn't know that.

He does now. Very sensitive.

Oh, I saw that jerk, I know what you mean.

Is that the most fun kind of part to play?

I'm going to make you say it.

I know, right, right, are you a jerk in real life, no.

There it is, go ahead.

Is that sort of the most fun

because you've done other roles like this,

would you consider it a sort of

the most fun to do that kind of character?

Honestly, first of all, of course, I can't,

I never thought that Job was a jerk, but he was just

completely out of touch with reality in every way.

[Nancy] Well, like everybody on the show.

And everybody, yes.

[Nancy] Except for Jason.

What Will played too was incredible vulnerability.

I think that's what's striking to me

as I re-watch the shows because you remember

the magic act and all that stuff.

No, illusions, illusions.

But to see him deal with Jeffrey,

when Jeffrey says, not you, I don't want you around here,

you just watch him fall apart.

I was always thought that Job's main objective was

all he wanted was the love of his brother and his father

and he knew that he wasn't going

to get the love of his mother, that was gone.

She didn't have any left, all she gave to Buster.

And he was kind of jealous that George Michael

had shown up and to distract his brother's attention.

It was very clear from the start

that when Will went in and read for the network,

there were probably five guys left

that needed to go in after Will was done with his audition

and as soon as Will finished his audition,

he walked out of the audition room

and all the network executives followed right out

after him, they didn't need to see anybody else

and they walked right back to their offices

and all those five actors stood up with their sides ready

to go in and watched everybody just leave the room

and they said, oh, I guess that's it.

Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio.

It's true.

We could not cast Job, we could not find

somebody that could play that part.

Everyone played it New York and played it street kind of,

like Brooklyn, I don't know what they were doing,

but they were playing, hey you want a buck, got a buck.

I remember a few guys did more like a Tobias kind of read,

like really calm and with those lines,

it wasn't that kind of swagger.

No, it wasn't at all.

It was always intended just to be a guy,

whose completely confident and self-absorbed.

And Will came in, it was just unbelievably great.

Will, who are you models, if any, in comedy

that you are inspired by or took off from?

This is challenging.

What, what Jason?

I love so many models.

[Nancy] I know, right.

[Mitch] Let's just talk about your models.

Well, she's going to find out?

Comedic models. Got it.

Just make them up.

No, to me, there were so many funny guys

that I loved, we talked about Mitch and I share a love

of Steve Martin and certainly, Chevy Chase.

There was a time when he was just,

when I was a kid, thought he was so hilarious.

But probably, the most influential thing to me

were things like Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I,

things like that, that to me were just showed

that you could be really funny, but desperately sad

and pathetic at the same time.

I always was drawn to that kind of the idea

of sort of being really confident and really dumb,

I always loved that combination.

That's just interesting and fun to me.

And David, what about you?

You've done tons of comedy and improv

and tons of stuff, who, if you had to name two people

that sort of inspired you at the beginning

of your career or now, who would they be?

Andy Kaufman was huge in the sense of, oh you can do that,

which is stuff that had never been done before

and then, Monty Python and that encompasses

all kinds of comedy, of course, but there's two.

Okay and we're going to questions in a minute,

but Portia, you grew up in Australia,

what did you see when you were growing up

of sort of American culture, American TV and movies?

See, not a lot actually.

I kind of grew up watching the BBC and Monty Python

and Blackadder and John Cleese was like a hero of mine.

Miranda Richardson, I thought was really

a genius comedic actress, which she didn't really

do much of, but she was so great and I just love it

when people are so angry all the time

and that's kind of what the British do best,

so I watched a lot of that, a lot of Australian comedy

and I never could really hook into American comedies

very much when I was a kid because it was just

a very different kind of sensibility

and I think when I got past the cover sheet

on the pilot episode of Arrested Development

into the first or second page, I thought

this is exactly what I respond to.

This is kind of the best of all that humor

that I grew up with and it's American

and I just knew it was going to be something really special

and by the way, with that cover letter,

I was so scared of being a diva

that I was actually an hour early today here, yeah.

That's off now, that expired, even now, you can act up.

No, I'm still really scared of that.

No, it's done.

I remember getting that cover letter

and reading this is going to be, as you said,

down and dirty, no diva and I remember thinking

like how is Portia going to deal with this?

[Mitch] We were all worried, we were all very worried.

Actually, these are such interesting answers,

let's just before we get to questions,

go down the row and whoever hasn't answered

this question yet, give a quick answer

of just a couple people that have been important

in your life, when you started out that you want

to be like or just something like that.

Can I be excused to go to the bathroom?

What?

Can I be excused to go to the bathroom, is that okay?

Yeah okay, I have to pee so bad.

You will come back though, right?

And she's so polite.

Michael?

We can talk about Alia now.

Can I answer for Alia?

Yeah, Michael?

Bill Murray was always really big for me,

when I was four years old, he kind of was everything to me.

Oh really, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

And you were also a Andy Kaufman guy though.

Andy Kaufman too, but later on.

Bill Murray was when I was just figuring out

what I thought was funny.

Oh, he's such an original.

And I see that in you actually, now that you're saying it

because what I see is the original take.

There's nobody who can do a Bill Murray take

and there's kind of nobody that can do a Michael Cera take

in a way, it's really true.

I love Bill Murray too and John Cleese, as well.

Gene Wilder was a big fan of mine.

Let me finish.

That's an interesting factoid.

I am dyslexic, Will, I'm not dyslexic.

But he does love me.

No, Leslie Nielsen was.

He loved you.

Another big fan of mine.

I got to go to the bathroom.

Jeffrey?

You're not going to know these guys.

One guy was Charles Laughton.

Sure, Charles Laughton.

Oh, you don't know Charles, you?

Because I thought he was, I said,

oh, he's so odd and so wonderful

and the other guy was Ralph Richardson.

I was a big, big.

What Richardson roles in particular?

Well actually, the last one that he did,

the pinter play on Broadway with John Gielgud,

I actually couldn't leave the theater

and I was on Broadway at that time

and there was just something about him

that there was no wink in his world,

he was just in this world and I don't know,

it was very, very cathartic for me.

It would've been great, if you had

just a long roll of toilet paper.

Well, I did get my period so.

Oh my God, alright goodnight everyone.

Jessica, who were your people?

Okay, well as far as comedy,

I love Kathy Griffin, I absolutely.

What? I love her.

She's much older than you though.

I think we're talking about somebody.

Who else do I like?

I just thought of who it was, wait a minute.

Shakespeare? Shakespeare.

Oh my God.

Not contemporaries.

I do love Kathy Griffin, nobody knows?

They all know who Kathy is?

Is that a strange person, is that

a strange person for me to love?

Kathy? Kathy.

No. No, not at all.

I also think Ellen DeGeneres.

Yay. Yeah, she's funny.

Of course, actors Meryl Streep can do no wrong in my eyes.

Hilarious. And she loves you.

What did Jeffrey say, what did he say?

Hilarious. She's hilarious.

Well, she is funny actually.

She is funny, she's very funny, Meryl.

And Tony, how about you?

I think Tim Conway was the guy that I always loved

just because he could say so much

without saying anything, those sketches he did,

I could have watched him for hours.

What did you guys say?

Just say Ellen. Ellen, yeah.

I'm really bad with names, but the actress' name

from Young Frankenstein.

Madeline Kahn.

Madeline Kahn, I think is my favorite.

Or Cloris Leachman.

Yeah, Cloris Leachman too.

She's hilarious.

Not as attractive, I'm just kidding, Jesus.

Mitch, I know you were influenced by Modern Family.

A lot of Modern Family.

By the way, did you see the photoshoot

where they're all wearing white?

And a wonderful vaudeville team called Fenster McGee.

Do you guys know this, no, I don't have a vaudeville team.

Vaudeville team. I'm a bit older.

Not much.

We should give people a chance to ask some questions.

[Ron] Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Jimmy Stewart.

Oh, I'm sorry, oh my God, bad moderator, bad moderator.

I'm so sorry, Ron, oh my, alright,

Ron, I'm sorry, go ahead.

That's great.

Well, Woody Allen and Billy Wilder

as sort of comedy directors and Woody also as an actor.

Jimmy Stewart doing comedy, Jack Lemmon doing comedy.

Paul Reiser and Dick Van Dyke,

both from The Dick Van Dyke show

and so many people, who when they hit their stride,

whether it's Dudley Moore in Arthur

or Eddie Murphy, a bunch of times.

When it clicks, it's a comedy that's just stunning,

it's just like nothing else.

But not Madeline Kahn, that's so interesting.

Madeline amuses me. Okay, good.

Hey Ron, I just wanted to thank you

for sending your second best phone.

Alright, people must have some questions, so fire away.

Come to the microphone here, please if you would line up.

Now I have to tell you, we're probably not going

to have time for everybody's questions.

And try to make it as short as you can

and then, alternate between mikes here.

Or you can ask all your questions at the same time.

Yeah, and don't forget Ron's here

like our moderator forgot that Ron's here.

[Man] This is not for Ron.

As obsessive fans, we all have favorite parts,

but I was wondering if the cast could speak

to certain parts that really stuck out for them

that were either brilliant or just over the top,

they just loved it so much, I feel

like we'd get a kick out of that.

I think all my favorite lines were done by you, Jessica.

They're the ones that stick out.

(audience cheers)

Thanks to the writer.

This doesn't bode well. Thanks to you Mitch.

That was my favorite.

My favorite episode was the one-armed guy

that taught us lessons, peer pressure I think

and partly, not only was it really really funny,

I thought, but I was just so excited

that our leader comes up with these ideas

about how can we make a one arm man teach these guys lessons

and just sort of writes backwards from that.

That one I remember being just

really being scared at one point

because we were on the dock and I remember thinking

this is out of control here, I don't know what,

what am I doing, what is this, I thought it was a sitcom

and there's all these, remember, squibs and the guns.

Boats coming up.

You know something?

My favorite line, one of my ever favorite lines

was not said by me, but it was when Buster took my rape horn

and I said, Michael, Buster stole my rape horn

and he says, this is the line.

Yeah, like anybody would ever want to R her.

I love that line.

That's how you hurt mom.

Thank you.

[Man] So I was going to say, this has been amazing

meeting all these other Arrested Development fans

I bought Buster's hand on auction.

Oh my God.

[Man] And I met the guy who owns Job's segway,

who brought it here as well.

How much was it, how much did you have to pay?

[Man] This was 350.

Oh, get out of here.

[Man] There's a lot of hands, right,

there's a lot of hands.

How did you keep this thing on

They actually extended my sleeves,

so it looked like they were there.

[David] Don't give away the magic.

[Man] But my real question also is how much got cut?

These episodes were short and you had

so much amazing material, but how much got cut?

Yeah, I was a little bit in a battle always

with the studio because they were spending so much money

on this show and the show had so many scenes

and they were always saying, you got to write less scenes

because it gets cut, so I almost made it a mission

to not cut any scenes, but cut lots of little things

inside the scenes and it got to a point,

where if you watch the show, a phone never rings

more than half a ring, there's a knock on the door

and someone answers, nobody ever crosses a room.

I think we lost some great lines,

but we really never, I don't remember losing any big pieces,

unfortunately for a DVD set or something.

[Woman] Hi sorry, this is a question for Mr. Hurwitz.

I just watched, it was part of a class,

we watched the pilot of Everything's Relative.

[Woman] You're kidding. Yeah.

No, I'm not kidding, but yeah.

In the pilot, Jeffrey Tambor's character actually does

the awkward back rub that Buster does later

in Arrested Development and I was wondering

I know that everyone obviously developed

their own characters, but I was wondering

if there were more things like that.

Well yes, I think you come to something like this

and you just, television is so voracious

in its appetite for new material

that you end up using every joke you've ever known.

When I was in high school, my joke was

that the car I wanted to buy was the stair car.

I remember making that joke as a 15 year old

and then, doing the pilot, it's the stair car anything,

shove it in there, so it may very well have been influenced

by that Jeffrey, his big bear hands on someone's shoulders.

That's so funny, thanks.

[Man] Hi, I came all the way from Boston to be here.

This really feels like Thanksgiving reunion,

so thank you guys for coming together for this.

Up in Boston, I discovered a place called, The Chipyard.

[Man] What? Yeah.

At Quincy Market, a place called, The Chipyard,

it's a cookie store that maybe Mitch can tell us

a little about and the reason it fascinated me was

because I want to know that's one of those true things

from your past that must have been an inspiration

from the show, what else from your life was real,

like Mrs. Featherbottom, perhaps or anything like that?

That was real and I blew myself for two straight years.

So that's impressive, just for fun.

The Chipyard, I have to tell the story quickly,

but it's just too boring to go into,

but basically, my brother and I had a little cookie business

that we started when we were 12 and a half and 13,

it kind of figured into a larger custody battle.

Well, how long can we go?

Well, sorry, but anyways, so I spent my childhood

kind of working in this tight little confined space

and that was really the banana stand

and my brother, who is a 50 year old surgeon

saw the episode, where we burned down the banana stand

and he called me and said, you burned down The Chipyard.

Did you? Yeah.

And he said, does dad know, has dad seen this?

And then, he called my father and said,

hey dad, watch Arrested Development tonight

and every time you see banana, think cookie.

Very seditious to wait 35 years and then,

make fun of The Chipyard, but yeah, it's still there.

Actually, my good friend runs it.

Yeah, he must be a really good friend.

Come on.

[Woman] Hi, thank you so much for coming.

This is the reason why I wanted

to come to school in New York.

It's so cool to see all you guys in here.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask, so obviously,

over the three seasons of Arrested Development,

there were a ton of guest stars.

Which were the guest stars, who were the most fun

to work with, either because of the character

or the actor and generally, which were the ones

that you'd like to see brought back

with the TV series or the movie?

I actually loved Bob Loblaw.

(audience cheers) I loved him.

I loved Martin Short, that episode.

The fans did not like, at the time,

I don't know if that's changed,

but that was our favorite episode

and I think the fans just were.

Hard to keep a straight face.

He was amazing.

And the fans at the time were what's going on,

we want to see the family and we gave

so much screen time to Martin.

He was brilliant and the whole idea was so brilliant.

Henry Winkler was a super nice guy, amazing guy.

I like Bob Einstein too.

Super Dave.

Dave, who played his voice with the head camera, right?

Isn't he Albert Brooks' brother?

Yes, whose real name is Albert Einstein.

Michael, you were friends with Mae Whitman.

No, you were friends with Mae Whitman.

We should all be friends with Mae Whitman.

Yeah, she's awesome, Ann Veal, yeah.

And Judy Greer.

Oh, Judy Greer was great, yeah.

Because you had that great scene

with her early on in the run.

Hair up, glasses off.

You know when she showed her norts.

You're talking about who what?

Her norts.

I guess I do, I don't know.

I have a quick question for Ron.

I know you knew Liza Minnelli, when you were a little kid

because her father Vincente Minnelli directed the movie,

The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

Which he was in, he was Eddie.

Yes, yes, which you were Eddie.

Did you maintain a relationship with her through the years

and is that how you got her to be in the show,

how did Liza Minnelli become.

[Ron] No yes, she had sort of babysat for me.

Her dad actually, because I was the only kid in that movie

sort of had her come down every once in a while,

I think and hang around and so,

every once in a while, we would cross paths

and just kind of remember that,

but no, I didn't really keep up with her,

but I did I think make an initial call

once Mitch sort of had this idea

of Liza Minnelli being in it

and just sort of introduced her to the show

and my recollection is that she already knew the show

and thought it was hilarious and she was really,

really thrilled to be in it, so I did a little recruiting

and it was based a little bit on our past relationship,

but I think the part and the show

and her own sense of humor about herself

and sort of just her own understanding

about comedy just led her to want to do it.

Yeah, she was amazing in that.

Yeah, she was such a good sport.

Thanks Ron, here's another question here.

Oh over there, okay yeah.

[Woman] I didn't really have a question,

I just wanted you all to look at me.

No I do, I do, I do.

[Ron] This is our team, even our fans are funny.

[Woman] Thanks. Our fans are funny, yeah.

I was just wondering, with the looming threat

of the cancellation because to me,

the series wrapped up so well in this neat little bow

with Annyong coming back and then,

with Job and Ann on the boat.

Everything wrapped up so perfectly to me,

how far in advance did you kind of create

that he was going to come back

and that he was going to take everyone down and that.

We had certain things like that that I wanted to plant,

but I didn't have it worked out, I just kind of thought,

well, we might need this at some point.

There were still a lot of things, by the way,

that we set up that we didn't pay off

that I'll try to dig back up to the movie,

but that was, I remember getting the call

from the network president at the time

and it's a hard call for them to make,

but it's a corporate decision that they're not going

to go forward with the show, but in this case,

it was listen, Stacked is coming on, remember that?

Pamela Anderson? Pamela Anderson.

That's why, now I get Stacked alright.

Alright, I got it, I got it.

And it really was, I always kind of think about that.

It was like, Mitch, Pamela Anderson's going to be,

I get it, I get it, well, we'll clear out.

We still had five more episodes to make

and they were so hard, every one of them was so hard to make

and then, we added to it that level of difficulty

to wrap everything up, but I will say,

the gift of that was we were at an episode,

I'd been trying to break a story for weeks,

it was the Andy Richter Show and it just did not have

a point of view and it really bothered me,

it was just a bunch of stuff, so that was the one,

we started talking about Showtime and HBO

and all those inside jokes about save the show

and everything, so I was kind of grateful

for at least helping that episode.

Thanks. Hey, great looking at you.

Ha ha ha ha.

[Woman] Hi, this is a question for everybody,

I guess for the writing and the acting.

You guys talked a lot about the depth of comedy

and how the technology sort of lent itself to that

and a lot about sort of the future

and you talked about this exciting new format

of TV into a movie and I was wondering

what else you had in your minds about, I don't know,

about what other innovations you had in your minds

as far as letting us enjoy the show with you?

As someone who owns all the DVDs

and I've seen every episode several times.

How to continue the life of it sort of?

[Woman] Yeah, and also just what you would think about

that might allow us, like what kind of format

or what kind of innovation you might, if any,

that you're thinking of that would lend itself

to our participation and also our enjoyment.

Jason talked about the pausing

and all of that and I do do that.

We don't know where the episodes are going to be

for you to watch them, but without getting into specifics,

I'm sure you guys can imagine that there are ways

to distribute those, where you can be

a bit more participatory.

The new episodes.

[Woman] Do you think about interaction

at all with your fans?

Uh, uh, uh, that's two questions.

[Woman] Sorry, I didn't mean, sorry.

Seriously, we only have 10 minutes left.

But it kind of answers the question

that we're not open to interaction,

I think that's a really nice point.

At least, I'm not, but yeah.

Thank you, sorry.

[Man] Yeah, I was kind of wondering,

well, it was interesting to me,

when you guys were talking mostly about the writings

that you're saying how much of it was on the fly

and how much you were open to changing things

and being creative with it, whereas when I sit and watch it,

even a level beyond pausing it,

I've watched every episode a billion times

and you always find new jokes, you're like,

oh, I never noticed that was there.

So clearly there was a lot of attention to detail

and layering, how did you balance between being creative

and being flexible and being able to still stack every joke

15 layers deep, so that you can watch it 50 times.

I have to run to the bathroom, do not answer that yet.

Alia and David have been doing cocaine

for quite a long time together.

He had some.

They're trying to dial it down,

but they don't have a handle on it yet.

It's such a thoughtful question.

I think the answer to it is that

every creative thing you go into,

just kind of emerges as its own, it develops its own style

and I think one of the reasons,

we did less improv, although, there's a lot of improv

in the show, but one of the reasons,

we didn't do too much of it is because there was

so much story that we had to get to

that Michael Cera would have to say a joke,

but that also said, where he was going

in that afternoon and that don't tell somebody else,

so it was very tight that way,

but I think a lot of the improvisational feel

of it came from the performances

and the technology of shooting things a number of times

and these guys really found depth to everything they said.

But at the same time, I will say the way that Mitch writes

and I noticed is that when he says,

we didn't have a story, we didn't have a point of view,

he's always thinking about the big picture.

There are literally files and files,

pages and pages of story and what he wants to have happen

with the characters and also, he keeps it in his mind,

he's always thinking about the big picture,

so that when something does come up,

like the example that I gave, he's like,

oh, that makes sense because I already have this piece

and this piece, this is something

that I've been thinking about doing.

It's like he's got this open folder of ideas

and quite literally, you do.

I know that you kind of reference of stuff

that you want to do, that you think about,

that's part of your writing process.

It's part of my writing process,

but also was specific to this show

because for whatever reason, I got it in my head

that I didn't want there to be an episode,

where Lindsay doesn't have a story

or where Maybe is not represented in it.

It just developed a level of complexity that way

in trying to service everybody.

And also, under all the complexity, truly, was this sense

that there was a partnership with the audience.

I forget where, I think there was actually a website

that somebody told us about called, Television Without Pity

and we would go on there and we would listen to,

we would watch and read the comments.

I was looking for the toilet paper.

And we knew that there was an appreciation

for the specificity of it, so there was always

a partnership with the audience

and we loved and appreciated the feedback

and the trust that you guys had in us and we kept.

What are you guys talking about?

You missed it.

Arrested Development.

There's something about being behind,

I was perpetually behind, which was incredibly frustrating

to me, but to much more so, I think to the cast

because they're getting their scripts,

as they're walking on the set and then,

having to realize, wait, I don't want to get

to this attitude yet because we're shooting out of order

and everything, but I think being that late in the process,

there was also a freshness that came from it in a way.

We really could adjust on the fly

to something that worked the day before.

And there also was the occasional scene

that felt a little bit like a free for all.

Do you remember our therapy session with Bob Odenkirk.

Oh yeah.

There were moments like that

that were just one little scene that just lived

in its own world that we could just go crazy.

And there was a lot of improv on that.

That whole thing was improv.

There are little moments like that.

Thank you.

[Woman] Can you all chicken dance and then, end it.

(audience cheers)

Chicken dance!

No you do it.

[Woman] I have one stipulation, at the end,

Will, can you end it with club sauce.

Again, that's falling under your two rule.

Oh yeah, get the hell out of here.

[Woman] Chicken dance, chicken dance is more important.

We're all thinking, there was

a question we all wanted to ask.

Why don't we save that for the very very end,

that'll be our good bye.

Alright, alright, good answer, alright.

Good question, thank you.

[Man] Hi, I've watched this show a lot, like a lot.

To the point where now, like to fall asleep at night,

I just listen to it like I'll play it on my computer

and just listen to it and that's a fun, new, innovative way

to watch it because you catch little things

like Cal Cullen saying, they're crooked,

when he leaves the room about her boobs.

Somebody call security, please.

After watching it this much,

that it's meant to be ambiguous,

but what do you think the religion of the Bluths is?

That's a good question.

I think they're anarchists, no I think they're actually,

I will say a lot of it, I had done an autobiographical show

the other one with Jeffrey and this one was kind of more

about my wife's family, who some of whom may be

here tonight, I don't know.

So it started that it had a real Gentile vibe to it

and then, it kind of got more Jewish.

I think it got straight A Jewish.

Right and I think the name Bluth kind of,

my wife was the one saying, we got to find a name

that's Jewish, but not too Jewish

because you just want to have that freedom, comedically.

Good question, thank you. Thanks.

[Man] Hi, one of my favorite parts of the show

was the On the Next Arrested Development section,

can you talk a little bit about where that came from,

was it always in your mind that it was going to happen

or was it just about squeezing so much into the show.

The brief answer to that is that,

it was a really kind of craven way

to get the pilot picked up because I knew

that when they test pilots, that one question they ask

is would you want to see another episode.

So, it really did come from that and it was like well,

let me just put some teaser on the next, it's a pilot,

of course, there's no next episode.

Did you think you wouldn't actually address it later?

I had no plan on addressing the specific scene,

I just thought, but particularly in the pilot,

which is where it started, it was like okay,

well, let's show that the kid's going to be uncomfortable

with his cousin, let's put a little sex in there,

let's show that he's loving prison

and just anything to just create the promise

of you've got to come back and then, it was a great thing

because you could always end on a big joke

and that was the saver of it really, it was fun.

I've been told unfortunately that we have

to wrap it up now and before we get

to the chicken dance, I just want to,

I can't thank you all enough, everybody here,

except for Jessica flew in from California to be here,

we're so fortunate to have you here.

(audience cheers)

And thank you Ron, Ron, can you hear me?

My pleasure, somebody snap a picture

of the chicken dance and email it to me.

By the way, Ron flew in too, he's just right outside.

It's just an extraordinary pleasure,

it's a great show, thank you for creating it.

We're so flattered, we're so touched and flattered.

I really sincerely, we're so grateful for this support

and it really means the world to us, we never expected it

and it's made this a wonderful experience.

It's been amazing, can I also

just say this is the first time

that we've all been together, and as we all stood there

in the wings waiting to come out and you're playing

the clips and we're all talking to each other.

This is a very special moment for all of us too.

For all of us to be here, it means a lot to us too,

so thank you very much.

Thank you so much, thank you.

Let's do it.

Do it and get out of here.

Goodbye everybody.

Ready?

To my recollection, it goes.

[Nancy] Thank you, thanks for coming,

thank you for coming.