{"id":462541,"date":"2026-02-06T15:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/462541\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T15:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:56:20","slug":"laura-dern-interview-actress-admits-she-was-concerned-about-working-opposite-will-arnett-in-is-this-thing-on-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/462541\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Dern interview: Actress admits she ‘was concerned’ about working opposite Will Arnett in Is This Thing On? | Exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: Laura Dern<\/a> has worked on all kinds of movies, from blockbusters like Jurassic Park<\/a> to emotional dramas such as Marriage Story.<\/p>\n

But the Oscar winner tells nine.com.au working on Bradley Cooper<\/a>‘s latest directorial offering, Is This Thing On?, had an unexpected element that left her a little “concerned”.<\/p>\n

Dern plays retired volleyballer Tess Novak opposite funnyman Will Arnett<\/a>, who stars as her husband Alex Novak \u2013 a man who tries stand-up comedy as their marriage falls apart.<\/p>\n

\"LauraLaura Dern was ‘concerned’ about one thing when starring opposite Will Arnett in Is This Thing On? (Slaven Vlasic\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Arnett co-wrote the movie \u2013 loosely based on UK comedian John Bishop’s life<\/a> \u2013 together with British writer Mark Chappell, before Cooper got involved and re-worked the script.<\/p>\n

Cooper then asked Dern for her input, so when the \ufeff58-year-old actress went to film scenes opposite the original writer, she admits she was nervous.<\/p>\n

“I worried about that,” she tells nine.com.au in London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I think I was concerned because [Arnett and Chappell] had an idea of Tess … then Bradley invited me in to sort of bring what I was seeing in Tess.<\/p>\n

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\"BradleyArnett co-wrote the movie – loosely based on John Bishop’s (right) life – before Bradley Cooper (left) re-worked the script. (Karwai Tang\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

“He and I collaborated on this, including [Tess] as a professional athlete and John and Mel Bishop and their relationship, which inspired this, and I spent time with Mel, so it became this morphing of all this energy.<\/p>\n

“I hoped Will would feel great in the discovery but I think at the very beginning, I worried.”<\/p>\n

It turns out Dern had nothing to be scared about because instead, she believes it was “amazing” and added another layer to the movie.<\/p>\n

“[It] added to the idea of, ‘I thought I knew you, but there’s so much I don’t know’,” she says.<\/p>\n

Dern has known Cooper for two decades and he, in turn, has been best friends with Arnett for more than 20 years, playing the common link between the two actors.<\/p>\n

While Dern and Arnett had “met socially a few times” and would “riff and make each other laugh at something, do something silly”, they didn’t know each other very well.<\/p>\n

So, Cooper instructed them through a “relationship bootcamp” of sorts to get to know each other better and make their long marriage on-screen more believable.\ufeff<\/p>\n

“He [Cooper] immediately led us to dive so deep you would not believe it, before we started,” she recalls.<\/p>\n

\"LauraCooper asked Dern for her input, so she went to film scenes opposite the original writer, she admits she was nervous. (Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images f)\"WillCooper led the stars through a “relationship bootcamp” to make their on-screen marriage more believable.\ufeff (Searchlight Pictures\/Jason McDonald)<\/p>\n

“We did a very personal workshop, the three of us, for a week together before we even started prep and that was amazing.”<\/p>\n

Cooper also “demanded” another type of bootcamp from Dern \u2013 getting her to train like an athlete to understand Tess’s mindset.\ufeff<\/p>\n

“Bradley also entrusted me, I guess (and demanded), the discipline of feeling her story, feeling it in my body,” Dern says.<\/p>\n

“So I was also training constantly and feeling the rigour of that kind of discipline, just energetically really helped.\ufeff”<\/p>\n

Dern’s commitment to the character is something that shone through to co-star Andra Day, who plays her best friend in the movie, Christine.<\/p>\n

\"WillWhile Dern and Arnett had “met socially a few times”, they didn’t know each other very well before filming. (Searchlight Pictures\/Jason McDonald)<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I realised she puts so much work into understanding every single nuance about her character,” Day tells nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s what makes her such a joy to be around, I feel like she really delves into the nuances of herself.”<\/p>\n

Day says there was an “ease of dropping into being besties” with Dern that “floored [her] a little bit”, as the Grammy-winner shared the set with the Oscar-winner.<\/p>\n

\"LauraAndra Day (right) says there was an “ease of dropping into being besties” with Dern. (Frazer Harrison\/Getty Images)\"BradleyThe other person Day has enormous admiration for is on-screen husband Cooper, calling the filmmaker a “visionary”.\ufeff (Searchlight Pictures\/Jason McDonald)<\/p>\n

“She was so wonderful… she was just so generous and so willing and vulnerable,” she says, gushing just as a real-life best friend would.<\/p>\n

“Anytime they yelled, ‘Cut!’, everyone on set just sort of gravitated toward her, just to receive any type of wisdom.”\ufeff<\/p>\n

The other person Day has enormous admiration for is her on-screen husband, Cooper, calling the filmmaker a “visionary”.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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“I tell people: there’s talented people, there’s hard working people, there’s passionate people, but when all of those things are in the mix, then you have a visionary and that’s what he is,” Day says of the A Star Is Born director.<\/p>\n

“So when he called about this role, I’m like, ‘I don’t actually care what it is, I definitely want to be a part of this’.”<\/p>\n

Is This Thing On? is out in cinemas across Australia now.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Laura Dern has worked on all kinds of movies, from blockbusters like Jurassic Park to emotional dramas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-462541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}