Q 6

PLAYBOY: Some journalists believe you're poised to become the next Will Ferrell. Is there room in Hollywood for two comedy superstars named Will?

Will Arnett: There's no way you're gonna crush Will Ferrell. You can't destroy him. He's indestructible. I'm flattered that anybody would compare me to him, but I don't know how to respond to something like that. Will is so fucking hilarious, and he's got to be one of the sweetest people on the planet. But just between you and me, off the record: I would love to see him go motherfucking down. And if it's at my hand, all the sweeter. Believe me, I will not look twice when I put my foot on his head to step up.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Ferrell shot to fame after showing his naked ass in movies like Old School. Do you have any plans to expose yourself on film?

Will Arnett: I don't think a lot of people want to see me nude. But there's a scene in my next film, The Brothers Solomon, in which I'm naked. I'm hugging Will Forte, and he asks me to put on a towel. I turn around, right at the camera, and you can see the top half of my pubes. People love pubic hair. You show an audience the short and curlies and they go nuts.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Speaking of The Brothers Solomon, the plot involves your trying to sire a child as quickly as possible. Do you have any interest in becoming a father?

Will Arnett: You have moments when you realize everybody around you is having kids. A lot of the gals on Saturday Night Live have had kids recently. And from Arrested Development, it turns out Jason Bateman's sperm work. Who knew? I gotta be honest: I always thought he was born with an extra-big clitoris and they just decided to call him a man. But his wife gave birth not long ago, so I guess that proves something. So yeah, when all your friends are getting pregnant, you start thinking about it.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Most people know you best as Gob, the lovably inept magician from the now-canceled Fox sitcom Arrested Development. Gob has become urban slang for "making an error or mistake, particularly of great magnitude." Is that flattering, or do you feel bad that Gob has become the cultural equivalent of failure?

Will Arnett: No, that seems pretty accurate. Gob is an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. He's a selfish, self-pitying, self-aggrandizing jackass. Not long ago a guy came up to me and said, "My friends call me Gob because I'm so much like him." And I said, "You know they're not complimenting you, right? Because Gob is a fucking idiot."

Q 10

PLAYBOY: You were nominated for an Emmy for Arrested Development. If you had won, would you be more or less obnoxious than you are now?

Will Arnett: Oh, definitely more obnoxious. But I never had a chance. I was happy just to be nominated. But if I'd won? I would've shoved that Emmy in so many faces. You would've seen that shit from satellite images. Instead I just lost graciously.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Were you a Gob-like kid growing up?

Will Arnett: I grew up in fear of authority but with a general dislike for it as well. I was at odds with my keepers in any sort of scholastic environment. I never did anything all that bad, except for, you know, moving a tremendous amount of white horse from Colombia for some dudes. I was a mule for a while. I got involved in some human trafficking during college. But we've all done that, right? We've all laundered money out of the former Soviet Union, right?

Q 12

PLAYBOY: All kidding aside, are you telling us you've never done anything illegal, or just that you've never been caught?

Will Arnett: I was a bad kid for a while. I'd break curfew, smoke bud, drink booze, all the usual stuff. My parents sent me to an all-boys boarding school when I was 12--a school designed to even out uneven boys--and I was constantly caught smoking. You had to chop wood if you got caught smoking, so I was always chopping wood. It was a very outdoorsy school. You got graded on white-water canoeing, or they'd send you out into the woods with a pack of matches and you had to build a quinzhee and survive out there for a few days. I liked that aspect of it. When I was 16 they asked me not to return. I technically wasn't kicked out, but I guess they caught me smoking and drinking one too many times. I still look back at it fondly as the place I learned to smoke. I can kill butts with the best of them.