Early Life
Arnett was born in Toronto, the son of Edith Alexandra (née Palk) and Emerson James Arnett, who was a corporate lawyer and brewer, among other occupations.
In Toronto, he attended Francophone schools. He speaks French, but has stated that he is not currently fluent in the language. Arnett briefly attended Lakefield College School in Lakefield, Ontario, but was asked not to return after a semester for being a troublemaker. He then attended the Subway Academy II which allowed him to take theatre classes at the Tarragon Theatre, and eventually graduated from Leaside High School.
He attended Concordia University in Montreal for a semester, but dropped out. When he was a teenager, Arnett's mother encouraged him to pursue an acting career and he began to audition for commercials in Toronto. He decided that he really enjoyed acting and that it was something that he wanted to do with his life. Aged 20, in 1990, Arnett moved to New York City to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. He began appearing in plays in New York and his first acting role was in the Felicity Huffman independent film Erie, which was filmed on the Erie Canal.
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