{"id":896762,"date":"2026-09-18T17:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896762\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T17:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T17:00:10","slug":"bill-hader-on-ai-cat-in-the-hat-and-jonestown-hbo-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896762\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Hader on AI, Cat in the Hat and Jonestown HBO Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBill Hader<\/a> offered his thoughts on voice acting and artificial intelligence while teasing his next projects at the Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by EY, held Thursday in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to executive editor Michael Schneider, Hader was asked about his concerns about AI as a filmmaker.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA new technology comes along and everybody kind of flips out. Like, oh shit, a lot of people are going to be out of work,\u201d Hader said. \u201cI don\u2019t want production designers to go out of work \u2026 those people are real artisans, and they\u2019re amazing. If this stuff can help them, it\u2019d be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSomething the \u201cSNL\u201d and \u201cTrainwreck\u201d star finds curious about the emerging technology is how different generations have responded to it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have talked to younger people, and they seem to hate AI,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not into it. I don\u2019t know why, but that\u2019s the vibe I get. When I got an iPhone, I was stoked on it, and I didn\u2019t think about Steve Jobs, you know? But [young people] are very aware of the people making [AI]. They just know so much. They\u2019re afraid that anything can be manipulated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBringing the topic back to the world of entertainment, Hader was adamant that artificial intelligence cannot rival the human creativity behind shows like \u201cBarry\u201d or new Emmys darling \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay.\u201d \u201cIf it can help things, you know \u2026 but I don\u2019t think so,\u201d Hader said about using AI in the filmmaking process. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen anything yet where I went, \u2018Whoa, that\u2019s better than Martin Scorsese.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHader then mapped out his career post-\u201cBarry,\u201d the widely acclaimed HBO dark comedy in which he played a hitman who is bit by the acting bug. Hader also co-created the show with Alec Berg and directed the majority of episodes. Coming soon, Hader directed and wrote a psychological horror film called \u201cThey Know,\u201d in which he stars opposite Linda Cardellini. And he voiced the Cat in the Hat in an animated adaptation due this November.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Schneider asked Hader how he approached voicing the iconic Dr. Seuss character, he quipped, \u201cThe same way I approached Barry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Warner Bros. animated reboot reunites Hader with co-director Erica Rivinoja, who worked on \u201cSouth Park\u201d with Hader almost two decades ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s just so talented, so I kind of just took her lead on it,\u201d Hader said. \u201cIt\u2019s such an iconic character that you just want to stay out of the way and do the best job you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHader said one of the things that surprises people about voice acting is that it requires \u201ca lot of energy.\u201d \u201cEverybody thinks you roll out of bed and you just do it. It is so hard, and you\u2019re literally screaming for four hours, saying the same line over and over and over again,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2018Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!\u2019 And they\u2019ll go, \u2018Could you give us another \u201cOpen the door\u201d?\u2019 and I just gave you eight versions of \u2018Open the door!’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHader went on: \u201cIt\u2019s kind of mind numbing. And then you see it and you forget all about how exhausted you are. Genuinely, I remember doing \u2018Inside Out\u2019 and driving back from a recording session, and I was like, \u2018I need to pull over and like just drink some water\u2019 because I was my brain was just fried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking about his next move on the small screen, Hader brought up his Jim Jones series in the works at HBO. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about doing Jonestown at HBO,\u201d he said with laughter. \u201cThat\u2019s not a joke. That is true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety broke the news<\/a> of the project in April 2025, reporting that Hader was developing (and would potentially star in) a project about the infamous cult leader. Asked about the status of the show, Hader said, \u201cI don\u2019t know. Me and Daniel Zelman, we\u2019re kind of still working through that. It\u2019s a very rough subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd for fans of the less rough subjects, Hader indicated he\u2019d be open to doing more \u201cDocumentary Now!\u201d with Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Rhys Thomas and John Mulaney. \u201cThat would be amazing,\u201d he said about continuing the IFC mockumentary show. \u201cI really enjoyed doing that show. That was a very funny show.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Hader offered his thoughts on voice acting and artificial intelligence while teasing his next projects at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,41184,465725,134,427],"class_list":["post-896762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bill-hader","tag-ent-tech-2026-recap","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896762","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=896762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}