Actor Tony Hale is magnificent at playing a certain kind of emotionally stunted, buffoonish man-child dependent on an older woman. On the dark comedy series Arrested Development, he’s Buster Bluth, the mama’s boy who uses a prosthetic hook after a terrible accident involving a seal. On Veep, he’s the excessively devoted personal assistant to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Vice President. (“VP,” his character Gary Walsh says, “stands for very precious.”) If you think you see a pattern, Hale would be the first to agree with you.
Arrested Development was revived this year after a long hiatus – it had been canceled in 2006, after just three seasons – and Hale was unsure if he could recapture Bluth’s particular brand of miserable codependency. Hearing his fictional mother’s hectoring, belittling voice brought it all back. It “was like riding a bike again,” he says. “It was very Pavlovian and terrifying at the same time.”
As a young actor, Hale had dreamed of a role on a sitcom, while spending much of his time in commercials. Yet landing the gig on Arrested Development didn’t satisfy him as he had imagined. He says that his Christian faith helped get him through that period. “If you’re not practicing contentment where you’re at,” he says, “then you’re not going to be content when you get what you want.”
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.