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Launching a mobile phone service that saves consumers money might not be the usual path a trio of successful actors, directors, and podcasters might take. But for Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes — the three guys behind the wildly popular SmartLess podcast — it actually made total sense.
“We were interested in continuing to work with one another, and to find some other interesting things that we could learn about and try our hand at that would be different than acting or directing or producing or writing or podcasting, whatever,” Bateman, 56, tells PEOPLE, of their new newly launched mobile service SmartLess Mobile.
“We thought, what other business would make sense for us to try? And since we know that people usually listen to our podcast on their phones, we thought, well, that’s kind of an organic thing. What could we do in the phone space?”
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It turned out Will knew a guy who knew a guy in telecoms. Soon, the three were becoming well-versed in data plans and learning how much they were overpaying for unlimited data.
“We didn’t know anything about this before we got into it,” says Arnett, 55. “We were getting educated as we went along, and luckily, we happened to be partnered with people who do know what they’re doing. I mean, Sean used to think a gigabyte was something he did with a hot fudge sundae.”
Smartless Media
The premise behind SmartLess Mobile is that instead of customers paying for unlimited data plans (as most cellphone users do), they’ll instead pay for data only as they use it, in an à la carte manner.
“The big statistic is that 90% of the time we spend on our phones is through WiFi,” Arnett says. “When somebody educated us about this, quite literally through organic conversations, it was like ‘Oh wait, so we’re paying too much for data.’ And truly, I don’t like overpaying for s–t.”
Hayes, 54, says with a laugh, “It’s a big trigger for me to overpay for anything.”
They say switching to their carrier is simple — according to a release, new customers only have to download an app, scan a QR code on smartlessmobile.com and they can keep their own numbers. The coverage is through the already existing T-Mobile 5G network.
“Look, are we usually in the business of going out there and trying to find things to save America money? No,” says Bateman of the lower cost plan. “But because most people listen to our podcast on their phone, it just kind of organically shaped into something that really made sense for us to try.”
Despite jumping into the new business venture, they say their weekly podcast, which has been insanely popular since its inception in 2020, isn’t going anywhere.
“It’s fresh each week because the guests are always new and they’re always at the top of the zeitgeist, and it’s really interesting for us to be able to talk to these people, most of whom we didn’t know before,” says Bateman. (On the show, each guest is handpicked by one of the hosts, and the other two have no idea who they’re about to talk to.)
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The longtime friends first met years ago. “We met in the hallways of Hollywood,” says Hayes. “And then when Will & Grace started in 1999, we started playing poker every Tuesday with the Tenacious D guys.” The podcast kicked off as something fun for them to do during the pandemic — they had no idea it would become such a success.
“It’s already been five years, which is crazy to us even,” says Arnett. “But it doesn’t feel like that long. You might be exhausted by listening to us, but we’re not tired of doing it yet.”
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So any other crazy SmartLess Media ventures in the works? “Maybe we’ll try renewable energy,” says Bateman. “Wind farms.”
“Fracking might be a lighter lift,” jokes Arnett. “No, we’re going to kind of take our time with this and watch this grow again. Somebody asked us, again, why this business? And it’s like, why does anybody start any business? Because it’s fun. You’re passionate about it, You believe in it. And it’s about the people you get to do it with — in this case Sean. And Jerry over there.”
