No one does cocky and blissfully clueless quite like Will Arnett. The actor and comedian perfected that attitude on Arrested Development, BoJack Horseman, and 30 Rock. His distinctive raspy baritone gives equal intensity to the Lego movies and GMC truck commercials. And it all comes together on the wildly popular podcast SmartLess. What began as a passion project with Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman exploded into a phenomenon, with SiriusXM recently snagging the rights in a reported $100 million deal. There, Arnett applies his deadpan sarcasm to chats with Bradley Cooper, Selena Gomez, and President Joe Biden, to name-drop a few. Offstage, the real-life nice guy confesses to a weakness for sweets, acknowledges something sad about rice cakes, and stakes his claim to being an early-stage cold-plunger.
WAKE-UP TIME: Six A.M. I go to bed by 10 P.M. at the latest. I put a real premium on good sleep and try to get a lot of it.
BREAKFAST: I’ve got my routine down: I feed the dog, let her out, make two Nespresso pods, pour some hot water in, and add my indulgence of two cubes of brown sugar. I then drink my coffee and have a cigarette.
WORST VICE: It’s got to be the smokes. I’m not smoking a crazy amount, but any amount is stupid. But I’m old-school like that. It will probably say that on my tombstone when I die early—“He was old-school like that.”
VITAMINS AND SUPPLEMENTS: I don’t take them. I should. If you look at a photograph of me, you’ll probably think, Man, that guy needs vitamins and supplements.
SNACK: My healthy snack is a rice cake, which I don’t like. It’s a real gut shot. It feels like I’m being punished.
GUILTY PLEASURE: I have a lot! I’ve got a sweet tooth, and I’m always on the hunt for a really good chocolate-chip cookie. My new super-guilty pleasure is McConnell’s Sweet Cream Caramel Brownie ice cream. It’s the Cadillac of ice creams!
WORKOUT: It varies depending on where I am. In L.A., it can involve hiking, weights, and lately I’ve been mixing in a Katalyst suit that engages the muscles with electro pulses. It doesn’t mess with your joints. I’ll also do some boxing for cardio.
TRACKER: I wear my Apple watch to keep myself honest. It spurs me on if I haven’t done enough during the day.
WELLNESS HACK: I’m not here to shame people—that’s not my goal—but I’ve been a longtime sauna/cold-plunge guy way before all the tech bros and the people driving the crypto trucks got into it. About 10 years ago, I built my first cold plunge, and I try to do it every morning first thing. It makes a huge difference for me.
MOOD LIFTER: The cold plunge is my quick hack, but my real mood lifter is playing golf. I’m not the world’s greatest golfer, and anyone who has played with me will attest to that. I’m not a throw-the-club-in-anger kind of guy. I accept that hitting the occasional bad shot is part of the deal. It’s kind of like life in that way. It’s not always going to go perfectly and once you accept that, it makes it a lot easier.
THE MIND-BODY BALANCE: I’ve gone in and out of therapy over the years, but generally once I start doing it again, I go, “Oh yeah, this is really great!” I feel that way about massages too. Every time I get one, I think, “I should do this more than once every six months.” I also try to connect with an old group of friends and find that seeing them regularly is really helpful for my mental health.
HOW DO YOU HANDLE LIFE ON THE ROAD? I try to exercise daily to regulate my body. Getting outside, walking around, and reading books at night helps, too. I spend a lot of time reading about European history, which seems de rigueur for middle-aged white dudes.
sKIN CARE: I don’t wash my face. I’ll use some soap or body wash but that’s it. I have some creams laying around, and occasionally, I’ll think, Oh, I should put some eye cream on before bed.
ABOUT THE TAN: I use a moisturizer with an S.P.F. I get a lot of flack about how much sun I get. And when people say, “Man, you’re really tan,” now what I do is respond with a “Thank you!” I was brought up where you didn’t make personal remarks about someone’s appearance. So now I put it back on them and disarm them by saying, “Thank you!” and let them think I’m taking it as a compliment.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR APPEARANCE … Is everything an option?
ANY STYLE REGRETS? I recently saw an old pic of me with patches all over my jeans and thought, What were you thinking, bro? I also went through some very preppy stages in my life that we could all do without.
THE BEST THING ABOUT GROWING OLDER IS … I’m less judgmental about myself and other people, and If I’m being brutally honest, that has only come in the last year. I used to be much more judgmental, and letting go of that has been really freeing.
THE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’D GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF: “Get to bed. Go home. You’re not missing anything.”
Holly Parmelee, formerly an associate publisher at Little, Brown and Company, is an editor and writer at Serendipity magazine
