{"id":631829,"date":"2026-04-27T12:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631829\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:08:11","slug":"jonah-hill-wasnt-happy-for-a-while-but-hes-ready-to-be-funny-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631829\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah Hill “Wasn\u2019t Happy for A While\u201d But He\u2019s Ready to Be Funny Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJonah Hill<\/a> is ready to be funny again. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo said the funnyman Saturday night while appearing on stage at Hollywood\u2019s Palladium as the surprise guest of SiriusXM\u2019s Smartless<\/a> LIVE hosted by Jason Bateman<\/a>, Will Arnett<\/a> and Sean Hayes<\/a>. Hill, who broke out 20 years ago with roles in Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall to become an in-demand comedy star who got nominated for two Academy Awards for Moneyball and Martin Scorsese<\/a>\u2019s The Wolf of Wall Street, has kept a low-profile in recent years. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut on the heels of releasing his new Apple TV original film Outcome \u2014 a Hollywood satire that he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer \u2014\u00a0Hill sat for one of his longest interviews in recent memory and explained his retreat from the spotlight and desire to come roaring back. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been gone for a while, so I\u2019m kind of coming back and I\u2019m like excited because I got all, like, serious for a while and I wasn\u2019t as happy,\u201d Hill explained to the Smartless trio of quiet few years of not appearing in any major films after Kenya Barris\u2019 You People and Adam McKay\u2019s Don\u2019t Look Up. \u201cAnd then I had my family and I got happy, and now all I want to do is be funny again. That\u2019s why I said yes [to being on Smartless]. I\u2019m, like, I want to go fucking be funny in front of a crowd and that\u2019d be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe family he mentioned is his wife, Olivia Millar, and their two children, a 3-year-old boy and a baby. He beamed while talking about all three, particularly his wife who was in the audience. \u201cReal quick, before we go any further, my wife is here. My best friend. Shout out to my beautiful wife, Liv. Where is she? Oh, what\u2019s up baby,\u201d he said, as he pointed her out in a private box on the second floor of the venue. The couple moved to San Diego from Hill\u2019s native Los Angeles around the time they had their first child three years ago. \u201cI live in a very small town in San Diego, and it\u2019s amazing, and my neighbors are incredible people,\u201d Hill explained. \u201cI wanted to leave L.A. and raise a family outside of Los Angeles.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHayes, Bateman, Hill and Arnett during SmartLess LIVE. Hill praised Bateman as someone he looks up to \u201cvery much,\u201d adding, \u201cI would call him a mentor because I admire his relationship with his amazing wife, Amanda, and the father he is to his children and he\u2019s great at his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth\/Getty Images for SiriusXM)<\/p>\n

\n\tHill appeared genuinely giddy to be on stage while soaking in the spotlight, a moment many of his fans thought they might never see again after he released a lengthy statement <\/a>in August 2022 announcing that he would be stepping back from media appearances and public facing events due to 20 years of anxiety attacks. He credits his family for the vibe shift. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you\u2019re bummed, you don\u2019t feel like being that funny, right? The first thing I thought about when I had my kids and was so stoked, it was like I connected to back when I was just like 12 and I was just being funny for fun,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing I fell in love with my whole life.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHill credits The Simpsons with making him fall in love with comedy. He said he was so obsessed with the iconic animated show that he used to record episodes on VHS and pause it during the credits so he could jot down all the writer\u2019s names and write them fan letters. \u201cIf someone shook me in the middle of the night and asked, \u2018What do you do?\u2019 I would say, \u2018I\u2019m a comedy writer.\u2019 That\u2019s what I do. I write jokes every day. I go and write scripts. You don\u2019t know this because you just see the front side of it. But most of my job is writing comedy movies. That\u2019s mostly what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of, next up Hill will star opposite Kristen Wiig in Cut Off from Warner Bros. The comedy was written and directed by Hill and he gave the room a quick pitch by calling it \u201cpure stupidity\u201d and \u201cdumb.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m about to go on a run of just the dumbest shit you\u2019ve ever seen in your entire life. I hope you left your brains at home. It\u2019s called Cut Off and Kristen Wig and I played two dumb ass heirs, rich kids in their mid-40s who get cut off by their rich parents, played by Bette Midler and Nathan Lane. It is like Step Brothers, Clueless and Trading Places. It\u2019s so great. Kristen Wig is an American treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCut Off is scheduled to hit theaters on July 17. \u201cWe are trying to bring comedy movies back to the theaters,\u201d he addd. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter putting out back to back films featuring his multi-hyphenate talents, Hill said he\u2019s ready to be an actor for hire. \u201cI might take a job,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m so excited to just put on the t-shirt you tell me to put on and go be fun. I\u2019m so excited like I was when I was young. It\u2019s a fun feeling.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHill even promised \u201cto try and make a movie every year that\u2019s funny,\u201d even if Outcome landed with less than stellar reviews. \u201cCritics do your best, you cocksuckers,\u201d he joked. \u201cAnd then I\u2019m going to make people laugh, so fuck y\u2019all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNew episodes of SiriusXM\u2019s<\/a> Smartless debut every Monday. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHayes, Arnett, Hill and Bateman at SiriusXM\u2019s SmartLess LIVE at Avalon Hollywood on April 25, 2026. The event was sponsored by Ashley Furniture<\/a> and SkinnyPop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth\/Getty Images for SiriusXM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonah Hill is ready to be funny again. So said the funnyman Saturday night while appearing on stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,34805,27948,27370,185827,24051,53078],"class_list":{"0":"post-631829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jason-bateman","13":"tag-jonah-hill","14":"tag-martin-scorsese","15":"tag-sean-hayes","16":"tag-smartless","17":"tag-will-arnett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}