Henry Winkler has been called the nicest man in show business, but it's difficult to understand just how likeable he is until you actually speak with him. Even during a very early-morning interview, the Fonz is engaged, gracious and entirely charming.

"How are you?" Winkler asks, seeming genuinely interested. "There is nothing I'd rather do at seven in the morning than be talking to you."

You almost expect him to give you a hug and a mug of hot cocoa.

The 63-year-old actor seems almost too well-adjusted for a Hollywood veteran, especially one still so well-known for a sitcom character he played in the 1970s. But Winkler remains completely grateful that he had the opportunity to play Arthur Fonzarelli on Happy Days, avoiding the anger and bitterness that surrounds so many other typecast actors.

"It is true that you are typecast because the character is so popular," Winkler admits. "But here's the thing: then it's up to you to figure out how to get through to the other side. Those actors who are bitter are then selling themselves and their lives short. Life is too fabulous to do that."

It's a tactic that seems to have worked for Winkler, who has enjoyed a bit of a career renaissance in recent years. Not that he needed the help – he won a Daytime Emmy Award for his voice work on Clifford the Dog and has coauthored the successful Hank Zipzer series of children's books – but much of Winkler's recent success is due his role as inept attorney-at-law Barry Zuckerkorn on Mitch Hurwitz's beloved-but-cancelled sitcom Arrested Development.

Not only did the role allow Winkler to make fun of his Fonzie past (one episode featured Winkler actually jumping over a shark, a nod to the infamous Happy Days episode), but it let the actor show off his impressive comedic chops to a whole new audience. Of course, the humble man that he is, Winkler gives all the credit to Hurwitz.

"Truly, honestly, I would say this to anybody: the man is one of the three geniuses that I have met and worked with in my life. Gary Marshall, Adam Sandler and Mitch Hurwitz," Winkler says. "The time between you asking the question and the funny answer that comes flying out of his mouth is negligible. Most people have to stop and think, 'How am I going to answer that?' But not him."

Which is why Winkler was so eager to work with Hurwitz again. Sure, there's the planned Arrested Development movie (which, he says, Hurwitz plans to write this summer), but he jumped at the chance to join the writer's new show, the adult animated series Sit Down, Shut Up. Winkler was even willing to go through a nerve-wracking voice audition for the part.

"When you're acting in a role, like when I was Barry on Arrested Development, you've got your body, you've got the other people, you can scratch yourself, you've got some kind of weird ivy coming out of your shirt because you got caught in the bushes," he explains. "When you're acting in front of a microphone, you have to put all of that in through your vocal chords, into the mic. Auditions are an amazing thing as an actor, because no matter what you've achieved, no matter who you think you are, you're always back to zero. I want to tell you, I've been doing this a while, but it's intimidating."

But a week later, Winkler was sitting at a large conference table for the first read-through of the Sit Down, Shut Up pilot, along with fellow Arrested Development alums Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, as well as other well-known comedians like Will Forte, Kristin Chenoweth and Kenan Thompson.

"I play Willard Deutschebog, the German teacher, whose mantra is, 'If there were such a thing as reincarnation, I'd kill myself tonight,'" says Winkler, chuckling. "The script, we kept having to stop because it's so funny. We couldn't concentrate. I mean, my character takes medicine so that his toenails don't fuse into a hoof!"

Clearly, Winkler has no insecurity issues about the desperate, pathetic characters Hurwitz keeps asking him to play.

"Maybe he has just seen my soul," Winkler jokes. "What I've learned is that after three years of Arrested Development, Mitch says, 'I think this is funny,' and you say, 'Yes, sir.'"


Sit Down, Shut Up premieres Sunday, April 19, at 8:30 p.m. ET on Global and Fox.

Related Links:
• Michael Cera Joins the Arrested Development Movie
• Jason Batement Fuels Arrested Development Movie Rumours

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