Hello.
Hi.
How are you?
Pretty good, thanks.
Great.
How are you?
Good to see you.
Good to see you, too.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I mean I saw you this morning and stuff.
Right.
Yes.
But the last time you were on the program you
surprised me for my birthday--
Yay, I did.
Which I was completely surprised.
You kept that a secret for about--
Five, six months.
Six months.
Yeah.
And it was so hard too, because she's really observant, not
nosy, just observant.
[LAUGHTER]
Right, exactly.
So, yeah.
It was really quite a feat to pull that off.
So, as you know, I've talked about it a lot,
and I'll never stop talking about it.
Well, I am building the Ellen DeGeneres Campus in Rwanda
to save the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
And so that is what she's doing, and--
[APPLAUSE]
You know, it's kind of hard to know what to get you, right?
So, I thought that that would be a good gift.
It was a good gift, because she remembered
that Dian Fossey meant a lot to me when I was growing up,
and I wanted to live in Africa, and help save the gorillas
that like Dian did.
Yeah.
And then at one point towards the end,
closer to the birthday, you kept saying you really
have no idea what I'm getting you,
and I was like I had no idea.
And Portia said, how much is too much to spend
for your birthday?
[LAUGHTER]
It was a little bit of a worry 'cause it's not like a watch
or--
No.
--something like that.
It was sizable--
No, we--
--pledge that I made.
So yeah.
We have to raise $10 million to build this foundation.
Could be a little too much?
Right, it's amazing.
And then we went, and we're leaving in a week
to go to Africa.
So we had to get all these shots,
because you can apparently die.
[LAUGHTER]
Yes.
Yes, and the doctor listed all the ways in which we could die.
Right.
Yes, and I'm like happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday!
[LAUGHTER]
We're getting on a plane--
$10 million please, on a plane for 30 hours,
and you can die in all these ways.
In all these different ways.
We have to like spray our clothes
and soak them so things don't get to us--
Eh, you'll be fine.
--and kill us and--
It'll be fine.
It's going to be fun.
You'll love it.
It will be fun.
You're gonna love it.
Yes, I'm gonna love it.
Yeah.
It's gonna be great.
By the way, while I was doing all of this,
I also was planning her birthday,
and I need to say this [LAUGHS] on the air.
So it was up to me to do the guest list,
and I may have left a couple of very important people off
of the guest--
it's my fault.
Good.
That's what I want to say.
Thank you.
Sorry, Jane Fonda.
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
There were a couple people that were so mad.
My idol, and I forgot her, Heidi Klum.
You make the best swimsuits ever.
I'm so sorry.
I know.
There were a lot of people that are coming up
to me going I heard your birthday party was good.
And I'm like she did it.
My fault.
I didn't know.
And also, you aren't a big fan of doing press and talk shows,
so thank you for being here.
She really doesn't.
That's why she actually quit acting.
You decided you didn't want to do anything more with acting
and you got off of Scandal.
Yes.
So I was approaching 45 and I just kind of--
Aging out.
Thank you.
Yes.
But I just kind of was wondering, is there something
that I could tackle now that I've never
done before that would be really challenging and different?
And I kind of knew what acting would look like for me
for the next 10, 20 years.
So I decided to quit and start a business.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
But you're here because you said you were going to quit,
but then you didn't.
You went back to Arrested Development and here you are.
So I made this decision about 18 months ago.
Shonda Rhimes wrote me off Scandal.
It's fine.
I called Mitch Hurwitz, who's the creator of Arrested
Development, and I said, if there
is a season five I won't be doing it because I quit acting.
And he seemed really understanding
and he totally got it.
We had a great conversation, and then he
wrote me into five episodes.
Don't know how it happened.
But yes, I am on season five.
So now you're doing Arrested Development.
Twitch is a huge fan.
Oh yeah?
Honestly I'm really excited that you're
coming back because Lindsay and Tobias is so hilarious.
And I can't wait for the season to start,
but I also wanted to say that the people from Arrested
Development love you all and know
that you're heading off to a trip
to Rwanda for such a great cause.
And in honor of that they're going
to present a check to the Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund
for $50,000.
What?
[APPLAUSE]
Oh my God.
Wow.
That is so generous.
I can't believe that.
No.
What it means is they want you to do season six.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Thank you so much everybody from Arrested Development.
That is incredible.
The first eight episodes, it's really hilarious, too.
That show is so smart.
It's brilliant.
And whenever we go anywhere people aren't a huge fan,
so I'm glad you did it.
But when we come back, we're going
to talk about why you quit acting and what you're doing.
But the first eight episodes of season five
of Arrested Development will be available May 29th on Netflix.