Tony Hale Talks Working With Julia Louis-Dreyfus and What He’s Learned From Fatherhood: ‘Everyday Is Its Own Lesson’
He’s best known for his roles on Arrested Development and Veep, but Tony Hale also focuses his energy on being the best father he could be!
The 48-year-old tied the knot with his wife, makeup artist Martel Thompson, in 2003. They share one daughter, Loy Ann Hale 13. The actor recently touched on just how much he’s learned being a dad. “I think every day is its own lesson but you know you spend a lot of years helping to create a foundation for them growing up,” the comedian exclusively told Closer Weekly. “You know when they were little and getting older, and she’s getting to the age now where you have to trust that foundation that you walked with her, or that you kind of helped her learn and stuff, and just treating each other with kindness and respecting yourself and respecting others. Now you just kind of have to trust that they remember a lot of that and she’s a really wonderful kid. But she teaches me more every day.”
“It’s also like you learn a lot about, you know you don’t have as much control that you thought you did and you have to kind of — I have to kind of surrender her up and just give her back to God every day, honestly,” Tony continued. “And she knows that she’s loved and that I’m there for her. Parenthood is a big lesson on powerlessness a lot, you know.”
Perhaps Tony can discuss parenthood with his Veep costar Julia Louis-Dreyfus, especially since she will be a guest on his new animated show, DreamWorks Animation’s Archibald’s Next Big Thing, which will debut on Netflix on September 6th. “It was really, I mean she was so kind to do it,” the Primetime Emmy winner gushed. “She plays a space monkey who lives in a space station in space and she’s terrified of space (laughs), and so Archibald comes along and kind of helps her reignite her passion for space.”
“It was just having worked with Julia for 7 years on Veep, she’s a pretty wonderful person, so she was kind enough to say yes,” Tony continued. “It was really fun to work with her in the booth and her come and do the material which is very silly but she just loves Archibald and she was also — you know I was on Veep, because we did the book back in 2013 I think and I was doing Veep so she’s been able to see the whole kind of journey of Archibald and so it was fun for her to come do a voice for us.”
It is so great to hear that Tony and Julia got to work together again, especially since it is a project that Tony’s daughter was all about. “She’s 13 now so a lot of what I do embarrasses her now but when we were doing the book years ago, Archibald’s sister’s name is Loy as is my daughter’s name and it was really fun to have her help kind of how she wanted Loy to look and some of the artists that did the illustrations,” the TV star revealed.
“She was like I like her having argyle socks and pigtails, and it was fun to share that together,” he added. It’s nice to share work that I’ve done with her, to take her to stuff. It’s really cool.”
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Reporting by Diana Cooper