Printable Biography of Will Arnett

Since his success on Arrested Development, Arnett has landed major film roles. He recently played a supporting role in the comedy film Blades of Glory and the antagonist in Hot Rod. He played the starring roles in 2006's Let's Go To Prison and 2007's The Brothers Solomon. Arnett has also done work as a voiceover artist for commercials, films, and television programs.

Arnett was born in Toronto,[1] the son of Alexandra and E. James Arnett, a corporate lawyer, and brewer among many other occupations.[2][3] In Toronto, he attended French-speaking schools.[4] He still speaks French, but has stated that he is not currently fluent in the language.[5] He graduated from Leaside High School and briefly attended Lakefield College School in Lakefield, Ontario.[6] He attended Concordia University in Montreal for a semester, but dropped out. When he was a teenager, Arnett's mother encouraged him to pursue an acting career and he began to audition for commercials in Toronto. He decided that he really enjoyed acting and that it was something that he wanted to do with his life. At age 20, in 1990, Arnett moved from Toronto to New York in order to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.[7] He began appearing in plays in New York and his first acting role was in the Felicity Huffman independent film Erie, which was filmed on the Erie Canal.

In February of 1996, Will Arnett began acting in television pilots. His first was a pilot with Kevin Pollak and his wife, Lucy Webb, for CBS, that was not picked up."[8] The pilot was The Underworld which revolved around "The head of an organized crime family [who] hounds an ex-con who only wants to go straight."[9] After the show was not picked up, he appeared in the movie Southie, which was directed by Arnett's friend Dave McLaughlin. In 1999, Arnett was cast in another pilot for The Mike O'Malley Show on NBC. Arnett was a regular on the series, playing the protagonist's friend Jimmy. The show was picked up, but it was canceled after only two episodes.[8] Arnett has referred to 2000, the year after that show was cancelled, as "the darkest year of [his] life" and he admits that he "didn't get a lot of work" and "drank those years away."[8] Arnett considers the summer of 2000 to have been a turning point for him because a friend helped pull him out of his battle with alcoholism and he began to get his career back on track.

In 2001, Arnett was cast in another television pilot, Loomis, for CBS. The pilot starred comedian Cheri Oteri as a local news reporter, and Arnett played her slacker brother. The pilot was not picked up. In 2002, Arnett was once again cast in a fourth television pilot. This pilot was for the CBS sitcom Still Standing; but even though the show was picked up and ran for many years, his character was cut from the series after the pilot.[1] Arnett became so frustrated, after his fourth failed pilot, that he "swore off pilots"[1] altogether, until his agent persuaded him to audition for the pilot for Arrested Development.