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17 Feb 2026 9:06
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  •   Home > News > Entertainment

    Will Arnett was "intimidated" by his Is This Thing On? co-star Laura Dern at first

    The pair play a divorcing couple in the Bradley Cooper-directed movie and the 55-year-old actor has confessed that he felt a sense of trepidation before production started as he is a huge fan of the Jurassic Park star.


    Will explained to People: "I was nervous. If the scale is one to 10, I was probably a million.

    "And... I kind of had this moment early on where I admitted to Laura - I so admire her work over all the years, everything she's done. I look up to her. She's such a beautiful artist and performer and all of these things. And I said, 'I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm intimidated by it, and I'm going into deeper water than I've ever been before.'"

    The 30 Rock star added: "And she was so gracious and gentle and a really tremendous partner throughout this whole process. I admire her even more now."

    Arnett was previously married to actress and comedian Amy Poehler and recalled how he "cried for an hour" while on his way to filming Arrested Development when they separated in 2012.

    He told The Guardian newspaper in 2022: "Just brutal, brutal, brutal. I was driving to the set one day and I pulled over to the side and cried for an hour."

    Will - who has sons Archie, 17, and Abel, 15, with Amy - admits that he found it extremely hard to deal with the marriage ending in the glare of the public eye.

    The BoJack Horseman star said: "People talk about you like they know you and they talk about your relationship as if they know what's going on.

    "So imagine how weird that is. It's brutal with any relationship, and we have kids.

    "And without getting into specifics, you then see stuff online, like, this one journalist wrote: 'I'm Team Amy.' I'm like: 'You're a grown person. What are you talking about? This is a breakup. This is a family. This isn't some game.'"

    Arnett explained that "you get over it" as time passes.

    He said: "It's been almost 10 years and my kids are so lucky that Amy is their mother. And I'm so lucky that we're such a huge part of each other's lives, even more so than we were five years ago."

    © 2026 Bang Showbiz, NZCity

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