Will Arnett Fell Off the Wagon While Shooting 'Flaked,' but Is Sober Once Again
Will Arnett (Photo: Getty Images)
Sometimes art imitates life, and sometimes it goes the other way around — just ask Will Arnett, the star and co-creator of Flaked, a show about a 40-something man named Chip who is struggling with sobriety, a character that is more than loosely based on the star’s real life. The idea for the series came to Arnett in the summer of 2012, when he was in a “tricky place” in his life. Personally, his nine-year marriage to Amy Poehler (which is about a century by Hollywood standards) was coming to an end, as was his sitcom Up All Night.
Will met Amy in 2000 in New York, just after he got sober for the first time and after she landed her life-changing gig on Saturday Night Live. Amy was actually on a date when she and Will were introduced, but her date didn’t go well. “She and I spent the whole night talking,” he recalled to the Hollywood Reporter. He moved to New York with her. They got married and had two children. “I was in love with the person I wanted to be with, and I was back to making good money. It was like, ‘Oh wait, if I get sober, this is all it takes?’” Fast-forward a little over a decade to Arnett, alone, working on Flaked.
Arnett with Amy Poehler in 2004. (Photo: Getty Images)
Will began crafting an idea for a show about a man who’d “had his heart broken,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “I think that’s the part that I share with Chip. And then at the end of episode 6, he’s proved right: that when he finally let somebody in, he gets betrayed — and it’s like, 'Yep, that’s why you can’t let anybody in.’” Another long pause. “And, yeah, I felt the same way.”
He intended for the show to showcase a depth he doesn’t often get to utilize in his comedy roles, but reported that it “became this tough, uncomfortable process.” Specifically, revisiting his struggles with alcohol proved to be a challenge. “Because I was putting a lot of stuff about my own life in there, I noticed it really starting to affect my mood and my behavior,” he said.
“As I was writing all this s*** [on Flaked] and I start shooting it, I started getting confused about where I was at,” he revealed. “Hardly anybody knows this — but I started drinking again.”
Making a tenuous situation even worse, the early reviews of his passion project were pretty scathing. Bad reviews are always unpleasant, but bad reviews about something that so closely resembles one’s real life are downright painful — and the 45-year-old star wasn’t sure if all the effort was even worth it. (Fortunately, later reviews have been more uplifting.)
While he didn’t get specific about the nature of his recovery, he did insist that he is back on the wagon once again and has been for at least a few months. He reported that he’s attending AA meetings (when they don’t conflict with his sons’ T-ball practices). “I described it at a meeting recently like a whistle off in the distance for a train you know is coming for you,” he explained. “It was a bummer, but it happens. And for me, it happened as easily as it had [the first time]: It was right there.” He had tried to convince himself that slipping back into his old ways was something he needed to do to play the part of Chip, but over time, he said he hated the way he felt. “I was filled with shame.”
Though there was no distinct rock bottom to kick him back into gear, Arnett is certain of what motivated him to get sober again. “I just know where this path goes, and it’s a dead end,“ he revealed. "I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m smart enough to know that this is not where I want to live. And I’m a dad now, a parent first and foremost.”
