Ask Toronto's Will Arnett how he wound up in the romantic comedy When in Rome, opening Jan. 29, and he's got a ready answer: "To tell the truth," the sardonic funnyman says, "it was a relief that somebody wanted me to do something where I'm not the dick."

That piece of self-analysis may seem a bit ruthless, but self-deprecation comes naturally to an actor who made it through a troubled adolescence, a painful struggle to launch a career, and a battle with alcoholism that nearly wrecked everything.
 
While playing wannabe magician George "Gob" Bluth II during three seasons of the cult hit Arrested Development – TV's portrait of the ultimate dysfunctional family that's now slated for a big-screen adaptation – Arnett moved from everybody's favourite guest-star sleazebag to becoming the go-to guy for a very particular type of 21st-century persona.

"I'm always attracted to characters who are a little bit flawed and a whole lot confident, and in that combination there is a potent elixir," observes Arnett from the Los Angeles home he shares with his wife, Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live veteran and star of the popular comedy series Parks and Recreation.

His nefarious 30 Rock character, Devon Banks, springs to mind, as does Arnett's voice work as "The Missing Link" in Monsters vs. Aliens.
"Look around the world today," he continues. "Everybody's kinda crazy, but they all think they're important and they all think they're celebrities. I'm fascinated by people like that. Yeah, I guess Gob was like that, but I thought he was just kinda pathetic."

When In Rome was a totally different kind of experience. A comedic reimagining of the classic romantic film Three Coins In The Fountain, it finds Kristen Bell playing a loveless career girl who throws four coins (must be inflation) into a Roman fountain and finds a quartet of strange men becoming smitten with her.

Arnett is Antonio, a would-be artist who takes Bell as his muse and plasters naked murals of her all over Manhattan. He's a perfect stereotype, with bulging eyes and greasy dark hair tumbling everywhere.

"Amy was actually pretty disgusted by my hair," Arnett confides. "She got really grossed out when I it got too funky and I let it dangle in the food when I came home."

But aside from that, he enjoyed working "with a lot of really good people in a loose and funny atmosphere."

It's an interesting place for Arnett to land after a long and frequently complicated journey that started in Toronto, where he was born on May 4, 1970.

"I was a little bit Rosedale, a little bit Yonge and St. Clair," he quips, parodying the Donny and Marie "country/rock `n' roll" mantra.
Despite many bios claiming that Arnett's father was CEO of Molson, that appointment didn't take place until the performer was well into his 20s. "When I was a kid, my dad was a partner at Stikeman Elliott," recalls Arnett, evoking the legal consortium whose slogan is "Canada's Top Business Law Firm."

Arnett tries to soft-pedal the amount of privilege in which he grew up, simply saying that "I had nothing to complain about. Sure, I could manufacture hardship if you wanted, but I was really a very fortunate kid. I had a great family. Terrific brothers and sisters."
His childhood memories are of a kinder, gentler Toronto, where "we never locked our front door and there was always a place for us to play hockey. I played competitively when I was a kid. I loved hockey. Still do. Go Leafs." The last is said with that trademark deadpan Arnett irony.
But despite the storybook façade, all was not well for young William. "There were the seeds of serious trouble underneath. I was disgruntled, restless, caused all kinds of trouble. I probably had an undiagnosed case of ADD, but back then, they just thought you were a problem kid."

So, in 1981, his parents sent him were all problem boys from good WASP families went: to Lakefield College School near Peterborough. Arnett's voice shivers as he recalls its "tough love" approach. "They would send you into the woods with a compass and a pack of matches to make your own shelter. You had to be good or you froze to death."

But even Lakefield lost patience with the troublesome Arnett. "I had a real bad attitude, causing all kinds of trouble. Let's face it: I was a real pain in the ass and I finally got my butt handed to me."

Having your son sent home from Lakefield could be taken as a real admission of defeat, but Arnett's mother came to the rescue and enrolled him in the Subway II Alternative School, which "allowed me to take theatre classes at the Maggie Bassett Studio (at Tarragon Theatre) and get credit for that. It turned things around for me. Finally, there was something I could put my energy into."

Arnett finally graduated from Leaside High School and went off to Concordia University in Montreal to study theatre, "but it was a big mistake. I barely lasted one semester. What was I doing? Going to class and getting drunk. Back to the old me again." He returned to Toronto and did some commercials – "You must find the one I did for Manwich. It's fantastic. Some of my best work," he deadpans – but it all seemed like a dead-end street. So he headed down to New York and studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute.

"I guess I knew deep inside, even back then, that I was destined to do comedy, and if I had been a smarter person I would have gone to Chicago and tried to join Second City. But oh no: I was Will Arnett and I was going to do something heavy and serious and people were going to notice me."

He switched to TV and landed some interesting guest spots on Sex and the City, Will and Grace, The Sopranos and – most memorably – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. "I played a child molester. My family loved that."

Then there were a lot of pilots that never quite made it for one reason or another. Arnett's normally dark mood blackened even further. "I went through some really tough times, living hand-to-mouth. You'd keep thinking there was this crack of daylight and that something would pluck you from this despair, but it never did. So I began to drink. A lot. Those were not my best days. I finally realized I only had two choices: get sober, or die. When things got tough, I had friends who were there for me and helped pull me out."

He met Amy Poehler and they got together, which improved the personal side of his life considerably, but the rest remained mired in gloom. "I was in another down period. Not drinking, but things weren't working out for me professionally, while Amy was making it on SNL. I was dropped unceremoniously from one more pilot, and I thought, `Okay, that's it.'

"My agent called and said she had another script for me to read. I told her to forget it, but she insisted."

Good thing she did, because it was the pilot script for a new series called Arrested Development. "God, it was alarmingly good!" says Arnett with awe. "I even allowed myself to hope that I might get it. And – son of a bitch – I did."

The critically-acclaimed series saved Arnett's career, and now he's eminently employable, juggling feature films, TV guest spots and independent projects.

One of his most recently announced ventures has seen him partner with his Arrested Development co-star, Jason Bateman, and TV titan Ben Silverman's new Electus multimedia company to launch DumbDumb, "a sponsor-driven advertising and production company" that will rely on a strong Internet presence to provide everything from web clips to feature films.

"Basically that's what I love doing," laughs Arnett, "screwing around with a lot of other funny dudes."

And even though it took him nearly 40 years to turn that into a successful career, both Arnett and his fans are glad he finally did.