Jonah Hill opens up about the biggest role of his life: becoming a happier Jonah Hill

GQ cover dude Jonah Hill is taking a blowtorch to the idea that to make great art, you have to suffer for it. In a long interview with the magazine, the comedian-turned-serious-actor-turned-filmmaker (Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s came out in 2018) told fellow director Adam McKay that what matters to him most in his late 30s is his mental health, physical wellness, and happiness. The stereotype of the self-hating, self-abusing comedian no longer seems cool to him — only tragic.

Talking about his California beachfront neighbourhood, Hill tells McKay about his recently deceased 92-year-old neighbour: “His name is Geoff... I was talking to him one day on the deck [and] I said, ‘What’s the deal, man? You’re the happiest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Why are you so f---ing happy?’ And he’s like, ‘I just live my life, and I don’t look at what other people are doing.’” recalled Hill. “My hero used to be Mike Nichols, but now my hero is Geoff… this guy lived happy, not giving a f--k about the stupid rat race, and then died at 92 at the beach.”

As a young comedian, Hill grew up watching comedy icons like Chris Farley cope with pain and self-loathing by self-medicating with drugs and alcohol — a formula adopted by a too-long list of professional entertainers. “When I was a kid and I heard about John Belushi dying, it was romanticized, like, ‘Yeah, dude, he was punk rock and he died from heroin.’ And then when I was 13 or 14, I lost Chris Farley... I cried for a f---ing week when Chris Farley died, and it wasn’t like I was like, ‘How punk is that, dude?’ It was like, ‘What the f--k? This sucks.’” Farley’s death, however, seemed to mark a change in how deaths like his were perceived and over the course of his career, it’s contributed to Hill’s idea that making movies should be — brace yourselves — fun.

“When I was a younger actor and I would get Moneyball or something, I’d be like, ‘I’m going to walk around as the character for two years.’ Now I’m like, ‘F--k that, dude.’ I just come off as pretentious. It doesn’t help. I take my work seriously. But we should be having fun, and if we’re not, we’re just being miserable for some fake artistic pretentious reason, and I actually don’t think that’s rad.”

Therapy has also contributed to Hill’s view on working in the movie business. He’s currently making a project about his own therapist, Phil Stutz. Hill was introduced to Stutz by Joaquin Phoenix (a guy who definitely would walk around as a character for two years) and he credits Stutz with teaching him how to be kinder to himself.

“You know what the first thing Phil Stutz said to me was? He said, ‘You’re not a good artist because you’re f---ed up. You’re a good artist in spite of being f---ed up.’” He told McKay, adding. “It’s all a dumb mythology that you’re supposed to be miserable to be talented, and it’s so absurdist. It’s genuinely: I got healthier, my art got better, and I was happier. Straight up. I haven’t seen misery bring better art out of anybody. I just haven’t.”

To that end, Hill is working on movies “that are really funny but have a deeply human sadness to them as well,” one that he feels represents who he is as an artist and a human being. “What making Mid90s did for me personally was make me understand that I can just be a good person and have value and sit at the table. I don’t need some supernatural thing to offer that is beyond just being a good dude.”

And so Hill has a mission he’s committed himself to: being a better (dare we say the best?) Jonah Hill possible. “I love work. I love being creative,” he said. “I want to be happy. I literally want to be happy. That is the mission of my life, that I work hard at.”

BEFORE YOU GO: Issa Rae announces premiere for last season of ‘Insecure’

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