‘Smartless: On The Road’: Director Sam Jones On Going Behind-the-Scenes With Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes & Will Arnett
25.05.2023 - 16:19
/ deadline.com
Actors and podcasters Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes allowed the cameras to turn on them during their celebrity-filled North American tour — the result of which is Smartless: On The Road, a limited series currently streaming on Max.
Directed by Sam Jones (Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed, Off Camera with Sam Jones), the six-part docuseries provides fly-on-the-wall, intimate access of the three friends as they traveled through Boston, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles on their sold-out live tour.
Here, Jones talks about how the docuseries came together and what we may learn about the three men that we didn’t know before.
DEADLINE How did this docuseries come about?
SAM JONES Jason asked me if he thought there was a documentary in there. I kind of pitched them with ‘trust me enough to give me a key to your hotel rooms.’ I asked if they would stay in the same hotel and travel together and not have a big crowd of people with them. If they could let me have access at all times, I think that’d be really cool ‘cuz it would be like we were on the road together. They agreed to that.
DEADLINE So you accompanied them to all the shows?
JONES Oh yeah. We were an embedded group the entire time. We had three cameras, and I was one of the them. It was the three of us and a sound man and a producer running around with them, flying on the same plane and riding on the same buses and staying in the same hotels. I was in their rooms more than I was in mine. Each episode is a city.
DEADLINE Did you decide early on that you weren’t going to show what happens at the live show?
JONES When I got in the edit bay, I decided it made the most sense [to leave most of the live shows out]