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Jonah Hill is ready to be funny again.

So said the funnyman Saturday night while appearing on stage at Hollywood’s Palladium as the surprise guest of SiriusXM’s Smartless LIVE hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. 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’s The Wolf of Wall Street, has kept a low-profile in recent years.

But on the heels of releasing his new Apple TV original film Outcome — a Hollywood satire that he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer — Hill sat for one of his longest interviews in recent memory and explained his retreat from the spotlight and desire to come roaring back.

“I’ve been gone for a while, so I’m kind of coming back and I’m like excited because I got all, like, serious for a while and I wasn’t as happy,” Hill explained to the Smartless trio of quiet few years of not appearing in any major films after Kenya Barris’ You People and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. “And then I had my family and I got happy, and now all I want to do is be funny again. That’s why I said yes [to being on Smartless]. I’m, like, I want to go fucking be funny in front of a crowd and that’d be awesome.”

The 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. “Real 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’s up baby,” 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’s native Los Angeles around the time they had their first child three years ago. “I live in a very small town in San Diego, and it’s amazing, and my neighbors are incredible people,” Hill explained. “I wanted to leave L.A. and raise a family outside of Los Angeles.”

Hill 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 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.

“If you’re bummed, you don’t 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,” he explained. “That’s the thing I fell in love with my whole life.”

Hill 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’s names and write them fan letters. “If someone shook me in the middle of the night and asked, ‘What do you do?’ I would say, ‘I’m a comedy writer.’ That’s what I do. I write jokes every day. I go and write scripts. You don’t know this because you just see the front side of it. But most of my job is writing comedy movies. That’s mostly what I do.”

Speaking 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 “pure stupidity” and “dumb.”

“I’m about to go on a run of just the dumbest shit you’ve ever seen in your entire life. I hope you left your brains at home. It’s 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’s so great. Kristen Wig is an American treasure.”

Cut Off is scheduled to hit theaters on July 17. “We are trying to bring comedy movies back to the theaters,” he addd.

After putting out back to back films featuring his multi-hyphenate talents, Hill said he’s ready to be an actor for hire. “I might take a job,” he said. “I’m so excited to just put on the t-shirt you tell me to put on and go be fun. I’m so excited like I was when I was young. It’s a fun feeling.”

Hill even promised “to try and make a movie every year that’s funny,” even if Outcome landed with less than stellar reviews. “Critics do your best, you cocksuckers,” he joked. “And then I’m going to make people laugh, so fuck y’all.”

New episodes of SiriusXM’s Smartless debut every Monday.

Jonah Hill turned up as the surprise guest at SiriusXM’s Smartless LIVE on Saturday night at Hollywood’s Palladium for an appearance that marked his first lengthy (and very public) solo interview in years. And he was super stoked to be there.

“I’ve been gone for a while, so I’m kind of coming back, and I’m excited because I got all, like, serious for a while and I wasn’t as happy,” Hill explained to the Smartless trio of a quiet few years before returning to the spotlight with his recent Apple TV film Outcome. “And then I had my family and I got happy, and now all I want to do is be funny again. That’s why I said yes [to being on Smartless]. I’m, like, I want to go fucking be funny in front of a crowd and that’d be awesome.”

Hill appeared to have an awesome time with Smartless hosts Jason Bateman (a close friend he called a mentor), Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. The hour-plus conversation covered nearly his entire career, from his debut film role in David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees to breakout turns in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up and Superbad opposite Michael Cera and Oscar-nominated turns in Moneyball opposite Brad Pitt and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

And before they really dug into the details, Hill joked that “people think I’m a nepo baby.” He said that he and his wife, Olivia Millar, were “just laughing” about that sentiment the other day. “My dad’s a fucking accountant,” he quipped of his father, Richard Feldstein, who has worked as a high-profile business manager for bands like Guns N’ Roses and Maroon 5.

But he did credit a real nepo baby, Jake Hoffman, for helping him land a part in Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, which starred Jake’s father, Dustin Hoffman. “Jake’s dad, Dustin, was like, ‘You should be a comedic actor,’” Hill recalled. “I was just trying to be funny all the time. … So, Dustin was like, ‘I’m doing this movie. I got you an audition.’”

The audition turned into a real part, and Hill found himself on set of the comedy starring alongside heavyweights like Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Isabelle Huppert, Jean Smart and more.

“What was that like being on a set?” Bateman asked Hill of his freshman outing on what became a highly publicized production after leaked audio surfaced revealing an intense conflict between Russell and Tomlin as the filmmaker berated her in front of the crew. She later told The Hollywood Reporter that she was “stoic in her suffering” and that it eventually dissipated.

To answer Bateman’s question, Hill said, “David O. was fucking nuts at the time.” But he was quick to ground the statement with a series of compliments.

“He was buck wild and I’m like homies with him. He’s awesome. Super nice guy. But in that moment in life, and I’ve had my own, trust me, he was buck wild, dude. He was screaming at Lily Tomlin. It’s online and shit. And he’ll talk about it. He’s cool. He’s one of the best directors ever. I mean Flirting With Disaster and Three Kings, he’s so goated. It’s insane.”

Not only did Russell scream at Tomlin, but Hill claimed that on his first day on set, he witnessed a fight between the filmmaker and a high-ranking member of his creative team. “Everyone’s screaming at each other,” he stated. “The first time I walked on set, him and K.K. Barrett, the production designer, were joking around wrestling and then it turned into a real fight. It was like joking that turned into a fight, and these guys were fighting and they were setting up my first scene to act. I was like, Hollywood is so tight.”

For his part, Russell once told IndieWire that the production was like “a party” except for the day of the explosive fight, “but then that was the day that gets remembered.” He added, “I became a better filmmaker because of it, but it was painful. It was six years of losing my way a little bit.”

To bring the story full circle, Hill said that he made a commitment back then that if he were ever to find himself in a director’s chair, he would hire Barrett. And he did. “He did my newest movie, Outcome,” Hill said. “Full circle, 20 years later. The greatest production designer ever.”

In Hill’s Outcome, he also had a pinch-me moment by hiring Scorsese for a cameo in what marked a reunion after the two worked together on Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street. “He came in so prepared. Honestly, the whole thing was so psychedelic,” Hill said of having him make a cameo in the Hollywood satire, playing a representative of Keanu Reeves’ character. “Him coming to set and me directing him. It was so psychedelic. It was like childbirth. [I was like], ‘This is so trippy.’”

He said as an actor you “go through withdrawal” being directed by Scorsese “because the poor unfortunate other directors you have to work with after cannot compare, no matter how wonderful, prepared and amazing they are.”

Russell has a new movie out by year’s end, Madden, starring Nicolas Cage, Christian Bale, Shane Gillis, Will Ferrell, Sienna Miller and Kathryn Hahn. Hill has a new movie out this summer, Cut Off, which he wrote, directed and stars in opposite Kristen Wiig.

New episodes of SiriusXM’s Smartless drop every Monday.

Pedro Pascal felt the full force of his emotions during the Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu panel at CCXP Mexico.

The Chilean-born actor joined director Jon Favreau as unannounced guests at the event in Mexico City on Sunday ahead of Disney releasing their film May 22. Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White also star in the movie that marks the first theatrical release for a feature from the Star Wars franchise since 2019.

Pascal, sporting a Mexico men’s World Cup 2026 soccer jersey, explained that it was meaningful for him to have the project hit the big screen after he originated his titular character on the streaming series The Mandalorian. The show premiered on Disney+ back in 2019.

“As soon as I saw this, I knew that it would be a new authorship of a streaming experience,” the actor said about the series that was last seen with 2023’s season three finale. “But I always had a dream in my heart that it would be on a big screen because that’s how I was developed as a child. I went to the movie theater so much with my family, and I saw the Star Wars movies on the big screen.”

After then sharing some words in Spanish, Pascal became visibly emotional and paused to push back tears. This led to a big cheer from the crowd as attendees started cheering his name. After again addressing the audience in Spanish, the actor blew a kiss to the fans. Video from the moment can be seen above.

For Favreau, it was important that the film expand the series’ story while still feeling accessible for the uninitiated. The Mandalorian and Grogu centers on Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pascal) and young apprentice Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, as they help defend the New Republic. Favreau, Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Bryce and Dave Filoni serve as producers on the feature that has a script from Favreau, Filoni and Noah Kloor.

“We wanted to introduce these characters to a new audience,” Favreau said. “But for the fans who have been there forever, like [this crowd], we wanted to evolve the relationship. It’s not no longer about the Mandalorian rescuing Grogu. Now Grogu has leveled up. He’s a Mandalorian apprentice. He’s studying under Luke Skywalker. He’s coming into his own, and now he’s discovering and unleashing his abilities.”

The panel, which included an appearance from Grogu himself, concluded with a screening of the movie’s opening footage.