‘When no one laughs, your soul leaves your body’: have you heard the one about the Bradley Cooper film inspired by John Bishop … ?

L ast Christmas, the audience at an open-mic night in New York welcomed to the stage a new standup. Alex Novak, he said his name was. Mildly funny, bit depressed. Mostly told jokes about getting divorced. Weirdest thing though: he looked exactly like that guy from Arrested Development . ‘Betrayal is a heavy word’ … Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day and Bradley Cooper in London, October 2025.Photograph: Charlie Clift ‘The only laughter I could hear was at the back of the room, and it was Bradley’ … Will Arnett in Is This Thing On?Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures ‘My generation had fairytales’ … Laura Dern with Will Arnett, and Calvin Knegten.Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures ‘Once you drop the act, you never wanna go back in’ … Andra Day with Bradley Cooper (left) and Will Arnett.Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures ‘Tess glimpses the person she once loved coming back into focus’ … Cooper on Laura Dern’s character (pictured with Will Arnett).Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures John Bishop in 2010.Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian Will Arnett in a 2003 promotional shot for Arrested Development.Photograph: Rex/c.20thC.Fox/Everett Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.Photograph: Jason McDonald/Netflix Cooper and Arnett in Is This Thing On?Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures Cooper directing Dern and Arnett.Photograph: Jason McDonald/AP “I was so naively unaware of what to expect,” says Will Arnett , almost a year later. “I’ve been comedy-adjacent for a lot of my life, but not a comedian. I had no idea what I was in for.” That was a crash course in confessional standup. Five nights a week, for six weeks, Arnett would write and perform material across the city, going up cold, ignoring any hecklers who might insist he was actually the star of one of the US’s best-loved sitcoms, as well as BoJack Horseman , Blades of Glory, The Lego Movie etc. All this to prepare for his first dramatic movie lead as a man who walks into a bar, finds he can dodge the entrance fee if he agrees to five minutes on stage in the basement comedy club - and finds himself in the process. ‘The only laughter I could hear was at the back of the room, and it was Bradley’ ... Will Arnett in Is This Thing On? Photograph: Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures “Every time a comic goes on stage, they are jumping off a cliff,” says Arnett. “It’s unnerving and very scary.” Sometimes it paid off. One night he went to a club, “and killed it. They loved it. Really vibed with me. And then I went around the corner to a different club, did the same jokes, and completely bombed.” Some actors are smaller than you expect. Arnett is more substantial: tall and brawny. Still, he withers at the memory. “There’s nowhere to hide. You feel your soul leaving your body. I’d gone up with such confidence, but there was just this profound silence. The only laughter I could hear was at the back of the room, and it was Bradley.” Bradley is...

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