Interview: Tom Arnold To Perform at The Clubhouse on July 9

Actor, writer, comedian and newly minted film director Tom Arnold is headed to Wainscott next week for a stand-up show presented by Governor’s Comedy Clubs at The Clubhouse.

The visit is one of many stops on his “My Crazy X-Wife Tour.” He said during an interview last Thursday that he is looking forward to returning to the Hamptons, where he’s stayed for a few weeks a few times with “fancy friends.”

“I’m excited to get there. It’ll be fun,” he said. “We’re staying with Max, my opener’s rich gay friends — rich gay couple — which is always good.”

Arnold’s opening act, Max Meisel, who he called a go-getter, also booked the tour. Meisel had opened for Arnold last fall in San Diego, then wrote to him, asking if he could open again.

“We have a mutual friend, the woman who played my daughter on ‘NCIS: New Orleans,’ so I know he wasn’t too weird. But, eventually, I just said, ‘Hey, book a tour for the summer, and you can open for it.’”

Arnold said he was waiting on his managers to plan a tour because he needs the money because he’s been in court for eight years with his ex-wife. He noted that when he says it’s called “The Crazy X-Wife Tour,” people assume he’s talking about Roseanne. But it’s not about Roseanne Barr, whom he was married to from 1990 to 1994.

“No, not even close,” he said, explaining it’s about his fourth wife — the only ex-wife he has children with. He said he had decided, “I’m going to do something positive and make some money doing this stuff and have some laughs.”

The tour started in late May and includes nearly 50 stops, some for two or three nights with two shows a night.

“It’s a lot of running around, a lot of grabbing your stuff, a lot of airports,” he said. “You know, Max is in very good shape. So if we’re running late for a gig, he has to run ahead. I go, ‘Run ahead! Block the door!’ So far, it’s been fun.”

Though he’s always done stand-up comedy, he said he’s done nothing this organized for some time.

“Back in the ’80s, Rosanne and I did some tours like this, but it’s been a while,” he said.

He pointed out that in recent years, his industry has suffered. He was not spared.

“COVID really shut my business down — a lot of businesses — and then we had a strike, a writer strike and actor strike. … I think that Hollywood, or whatever they call it, is just getting back on its feet, and so I’m like, I got to figure out something to do,” he said.

Of late, he always has something to do. Just two weeks ago he performed stand-up on Wednesday in Raleigh and on Thursday in Atlanta, followed by a comic-con in Georgia over the weekend, then filmed a few days on a movie set.

He recently reunited with his “True Lies” co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger for the second season of “FUBAR,” which Netflix released last month. He has a recurring role as Norm Carlson, a CIA torturer.

Arnold and Schwarzenegger work together off-screen as well.

“Every year, we give out 10,000 gifts at Christmas down in South Central LA, which is great, great fun — Miracle on 1st Street — and give out turkey dinners at Thanksgiving at another place,” he said.

He has also helped Schwarzenegger’s charity, After-School All-Stars, which was formed 30 years ago.

“It’s for after-school programs all over the country, and we’ve raised $1.6 billion doing that. But it’s a lot of fun, because he and I get to get on stage together, and our chemistry is similar, our relationship is very similar to ‘True Lies.’”

In 2023, he appeared in an episode of the short-lived “True Lies” television adaption, reprising the role of Arnie Orwig. Though that show did not last, “True Lies” the film has been one of the most enduring movies Arnold has acted in.

“I’ve been in 150 movies, four good ones,” he said.

“Carpool,” “The Stupids,” “Big Bully,” “Austin Powers,” “McHale’s Navy” and “Nine Months” are among the other films that fans bring up most when he attends conventions.

“Mostly ‘True Lies,’” he said. “People love that.”

This spring, Arnold took his first turn on the other side of the camera on a film set. He directed “The Break-Up Pill,” an upcoming movie about a man who enters a clinical trial for a drug that’s supposed to help him get over his ex-girlfriend. Arnold’s still in the process of editing the film, working with the editor while on tour.

“It was a perfect situation. I wasn’t planning on directing,” he said. “I’ve never directed a movie. I directed some television many, many years ago. This movie, I was just going to act in it, and it was supposed to film in January in Pacific Palisades, and all the sets burned down and the house of the writer.”

The movie was moved to March, but then the original director was fired.

He got a call saying, “Listen, we’re going to have to push to the summer. We’ve got to find a director.”

Arnold offered to direct it himself, but only if the film stayed on schedule. They agreed.

“They had done a lot of work on it before I got there,” he said. “They had a great crew who was working for not their usual rate — a crew that works on ‘Yellowstone.’”

Much of the equipment was donated, and they filmed at the Motion Picture & Television Fund home
outside of Los Angeles in Calabasas. He said it’s a beautiful campus, where people in the business retire, with a theater and hospital.

‘It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s a great place to film, and I’m grateful they let us do that. They got their own little mini golf course, and you do run into a lot of 90-year-old people who, you know, their careers, they were big time. They were cinematographers, they were actors, they’re whatever. And so we used as many of those as we could. And a lot of times they just come up to see what we’re doing and give some ideas, and I’m sure that their ideas are better than mine.”

They also shot around Los Angeles, which meant he got to be home with his kids, ages 12 and 9. “My daughter got to be in it,” he added. She read the script herself, asked if she could be in it, and gave him some notes for the edit after filming her scenes.

He said he’s not going to push his kids into doing what he does. “I do let them know how much work it is, because they have been on sets,” he said.

He shared that a couple years ago, when he was offered a role in a low-budget horror movie, he agreed to do it only if the filmmakers would give him two hours on set with the crew to film something with his kids. He instructed his kids to write something, which he said, from being a writer, he knows is key.

“They wrote a little short about their dad being in jail, which is hilarious,” he said, “because their mom has swatted us before.”

Swatting is a term for calling the cops on a home as a form of harassment.

Arnold said she has called the cops while they are sleeping and told the police, “His name is Tom Arnold. He’s very violent. He has a lot of guns. I’m worried about the kids.”

The cops come in very hot, he said. “I meet them outside, I say ‘Listen, slow down. Call your supervisor, because you’ve been here a lot and the kids are asleep, it’s a school night. I’m not waking them up, but they’re fine.’ And then the cops leave, but then I have to wake up the kids and say, ‘We gotta hide the guns, kids. Your mom, she’s ruining all the fun.’ So the fact that they wanted to have me in jail is very funny.”

Tom Arnold will perform at The Clubhouse, 174 Daniels Hole Road, East Hampton, on Wednesday, July 9, at 8 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. Age 16 and older. Tickets are $46 and there is a two-item minimum. To purchase tickets, visit govs.govs.com.