The Untold Truth Of Will Ferrell

The world first met Will Ferrell on "Saturday Night Live" in 1995, when he joined the cast as part of an effort to resuscitate the show after its famously troubled 20th season. During his seven seasons on "SNL," Ferrell earned a reputation as both a skilled impressionist and a creator of memorable original characters. 

Since then, he's managed to do what not all "SNL" alumni have: He's continued to stay relevant. When he left in 2002, he told The Chicago Tribune he knew it was time, even though he didn't have a plan for the future. He already had a few films in the works, including "Elf" and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," but at the time, no one knew if his Everyman schtick was going to fly outside the sketch-comedy comfort zone he'd established. It did, so let's take a look at some things you might not know about Will Ferrell.

You might not know it, but Will Ferrell comes from a show-biz family. His father, Roy "Lee" Ferrell Jr., was a traveling musician and keyboard player for The Righteous Brothers. According to Ferrell, (via News 24), seeing his father's lifestyle was exactly why he spent "a lot of time at 18 looking for a way to avoid going into the entertainment industry."

The younger Ferrell has also told The Guardian that after his parents divorced, his father spent a whole summer with him and his brother while their mother headed to Japan. It brought them closer together, but it also made Ferrell realize he didn't want to have to worry about the instability of the entertainment industry. He decided to get into journalism, hoping to become a sports commentator. He hated it, though, and when he spoke with his dad, the elder Ferrell gave some advice that probably wasn't too encouraging. He said it was all down to luck, not talent, and that it was fine to give up if things didn't work out. While that might not sound reassuring, it convinced Ferrell to chase his dreams in the entertainment world.

Will Ferrell says he's had his share of failures, and when he gave the commencement speech to the University of Southern California's Class of 2017, he said his first foray into stand-up came with equal parts terror and exhilaration. He said that day — and every day since — was filled with fear of failure.

"But my fear of failure never approached in magnitude my fear of 'what if,'" he added. "What if I never tried at all?"

Bad reviews have helped him stay grounded, and he's even saved some harsh critiques and hung them up as a reminder that not only will some people not like him, but that it was all right. He believes the key is enjoying the journey without becoming too focused on the result, and told The Guardian it's not a matter of being fearless, it's a matter of being ignorant to the possibility of failure. "If you know too much," he said, "you will be totally paralyzed."

No matter how big celebrities become, they all had to start somewhere. Will Ferrell's start was his audition tape for "Saturday Night Live," and you might even recognize one of the sketches. The "Get Off the Shed" sketch got a few tweaks and ended up actually being performed on the show, but it's undeniably strange seeing the raw performance. That sketch was one of a few Ferrell did, and when he talked to The New York Times about the whole process, he said for the first part of the audition, he was asked to do any character, a political impression, and a celebrity impression. He did a stand-up bit as Ted Kennedy, the shed sketch, and Harry Caray reading a play. After meeting with Lorne Michaels and being asked to do an entirely new audition, he came up with the idea of offering Michaels $25,000 in fake money and just walking out. "But it was not a joking atmosphere," he said, so he never did it.

Instead, he did the shed sketch again, a Bill Clinton impression, and another sketch where he played a businessman in his office, rolling around on the floor playing with cat toys. Everything was met with silence. "And I'm thinking, 'Oh, it's over. It's just over now.'"

It wasn't over, and he got the job.

Every actor has their favorite work, even if their list of credits is as long as Will Ferrell's. So, what stands out to him?

He told The Ringer that "Anchorman" is his favorite film, and it's more because of the journey than the movie itself. "It's kind of the Cinderella story of the movie no one wanted to make," he said. The idea of a long script in the vein of "Anchorman" had been kicking around since his "SNL" days, but the original idea looked incredibly different. While the world didn't get to see the original survival-film concept featuring Ron Burgundy crashing a plane full of newsmen into the side of a mountain and then trying to escape a group of orangutans armed with throwing stars, another version eventually made it to the screen.

His favorite scene is from "The House," though, and it's when he and Amy Poehler drop their daughter off at college. He told Entertainment Weekly it was the raw emotion that made it his favorite scene to shoot. Contrast that with what he told The Guardian when it comes to characters: The "super-sleazy" ones top his favorites list.

Jimmy Fallon was notorious for breaking character on "Saturday Night Live," but let's be honest. Everyone who watches "SNL" hopes to see the actors crack and break, and Will Ferrell enjoys it just as much as you do.

When he hit the couch with Entertainment Weekly, he admitted outright the entire point of the "Love-Ahs" sketches was to make Fallon break completely and be super uncomfortable. It wasn't just over-acting and being too enthusiastically affectionate with costar Rachel Dratch, but it was the "slightly Madonna-esque" accent, too. In one installment, Ferrell even used the churning waters of a hot tub to disguise his attempts to poke and pinch Fallon to get a reaction from him. "Hey, I'm just in character," Ferrell told Fallon during an appearance on the "The Tonight Show." "But it added to the hijinks." It probably didn't help that they did the sketch five times, and each time had to get worse for Fallon.

Will Ferrell's George W. Bush is the definitive impression of the former president, so of course, everyone wanted to know where Ferrell's political leanings went. When he talked to Elle in 2012, he revealed that while he's a registered Democrat, he considers himself a progressive instead. "I'm for whoever has the best idea, regardless of the party," he said, and went on to talk about one of his own ideas for America's political system. He's in favor of instituting a new policy: Every Congressman who votes for war is required to send one family member, and he says that'll make them think twice about what they're doing. Not only does he liken his political views to those of the country's Founding Fathers, but he also notes they probably wouldn't get elected in modern America.

In 2016, he created some serious waves when CNN reported he jumped from the Bernie Sanders ship to Hillary Clinton's side. According to Clinton, he not only donated to her campaign but was behind a Los Angeles fundraiser. Ferrell was a little more vague with his true feelings, saying he was simply backing the Democratic nominee, no matter who it might end up being. He was decidedly more emphatic in 2024, when he joined comedian Billy Eichner (above right) for a revival of the latter's "Billy on the Street" series that saw the pair running through the streets of New York City, shouting their support for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. 

When GQ talked to Will Ferrell in 2004, they asked what literally every American had been thinking: Did his impression of George W. Bush help Bush get elected, and how did Ferrell feel about that?

He might make a good politician because he didn't really answer the question. He did say, though, that he thought of the gig as just one of a number of characters he played, and when Lorne Michaels asked him to reprise the character he'd first done in 1999, he had no idea it would be so popular. He simply said Bush's election made him think some of the traits he'd emphasized, like "basic stupidity," are traits that America's totally cool with.

In 2017, Jimmy Kimmel asked Bush himself what he thought of Ferrell's impression of him, and it got the former president's stamp of approval. According to Bush, he had dinner with Lorne Michaels one night, and they got into a discussion about words like "strategery" and "misunderestimate." Michaels credited his writers for the first one, but Bush was convinced he'd said the word himself. That's the sign of a good impression.

Watch enough of his comedy and you'll notice Will Ferrell is naked a lot of the time, but he told Dazed he doesn't go out of his way to shed his clothes on screen. He added that it's not in all of his movies and that there's no "concerted effort on my part to be partly nude in movies. It just seems to happen."

The Talks asked him about the rumor he had put on weight to get the "right context" for nudity, and Ferrell said that was never the case, either. "I just kind of have a comedic-looking body, I guess. If anything, I really have to exercise just not to look too fudgy."

And he does more than just exercise; he's even run marathons in New York, Stockholm, and Boston. He told Competitor Running that some of the best ideas would come to him while running. "I learned ... to run without headphones and music so I could focus and get into my thoughts." When it works, it works.

Not every movie idea is a winner. In 2016, it was announced Will Ferrell was considering playing another president, this time on the big screen. Supposedly, he would play President Ronald Reagan in a movie The Guardian said was hyped as a "hilarious political satire." The film was based on the idea that Reagan had actually been suffering from dementia while he was in his second term (he wasn't), and it was up to his staff to keep things running smoothly.

After news broke, Reagan's son Michael tweeted, "Alzheimers is not [a] joke ... It kills," while the former president's daughter Patti Davis wrote an open letter to Ferrell in The Daily Beast. She appealed to him to visit a dementia facility and explain to the patients and families there just why Alzheimer's is a source of comedic material.

Page Six reported Ferrell dropped the project almost immediately, quoting a representative who said it was one of many scripts he had been looking at. His decision was lauded by both Reagan's children and the Alzheimer's Foundation of America.

"Elf" has become one of those Christmas classics, a movie many of us have to watch to make the season feel complete. Will Ferrell could definitely make a sequel, but he says he absolutely won't.

There are a few reasons, and his typical response is something along the lines of looking ridiculous if he tried to put those tights on again. But when he talked to The Guardian, he admitted there was more to it than just that.

"I remember asking myself: Could I withstand the criticism when it's bad and they say, 'He did the sequel for the money'? I decided I wouldn't be able to," he said. He reportedly turned down a whopping $29 million to do a sequel, but he said he's more interested in maintaining the integrity of his work and protecting the legacy of the original film. "But you watch," he added. "I'll do some sequel in the future that's crap."

For more about stars who killed Hollywood projects, read our feature on actors who stopped a movie from getting made. 

They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. When Will Ferrell hosted an AMA Reddit thread, he acknowledged all the talk about there being an uncanny resemblance between himself and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith (pictured). He commented, "A lot of people think that it's me playing for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But that would be an insult to Chad Smith. The truth of the matter is there is no Will Ferrell. Only Chad Smith."

Fortunately, Smith has an excellent sense of humor, too. Things went back and forth, and in 2014 they both appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" to compete in a drum-off. (Spoiler alert: Ferrell's not half bad, but he's no Chad Smith ... probably.)

That wasn't the end of the relationship between Chad Smith and Will Ferrell, either. In 2016, the pair organized a massive charity event called the Red Hot Benefit Comedy + Music Show & Quinceanera. Ferrell told Rolling Stone never celebrating his quinceanera was one of his only regrets, so they were going to set it right. Ferrell went on stage representing his favorite charity, Cancer for College, which gives college scholarships to cancer survivors. Smith represented Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea's Silverlake Conservatory of Music, and according to Rolling Stone, great fun was had by all.

Sure, Will Ferrell's movies make a ton of money, but is he worth the salary he commands? Not according to Forbes, which has put him on its list of Hollywood's most overpaid actors a few times.

In 2010, it was "Land of the Lost" — a big-budget flop — that earned him a place at the top of the list. For every $1 he made, his movies brought in only an average of $3.35. And in 2013, he landed the No. 3 spot (under Drew Barrymore and Eddie Murphy), with Forbes saying for every $1 in his pocket, his movies averaged $3.50.

It's not exactly an honor most actors would like to get, but when Den of Geek asked Ferrell what he thought of it, he called it "a badge of honor" before pointing out that only a few years before, he was on lists of the industry's most bankable stars. He also volunteered to fix it by starring in the next "Terminator" movie for only $1, which we'd probably all watch the heck out of.

Even people who don't buy into Will Ferrell's particular brand of humor have to admit he's pretty much the most normal guy in Hollywood. He doesn't come with much in the way of scandals, there's not too much outrage over his life choices, and if you hadn't seen him on the big screen, he's the guy you might meet at a party. Or the gas station. He gets indifference instead of hate, except from Joan Rivers (pictured).

The cranky red carpet diva was always expected to be more than a little catty, but when it came to Ferrell, she was downright venomous. She once said, "You have to be careful of meeting your idols because I met that Will Ferrell and he's an a**hole."

Seriously, Joan? Ferrell explained in Rolling Stone, saying he'd been told to go say hi to her at the Golden Globes. When he walked up to her, she was in mid-conversation with Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols and asked him if he knew who he was interrupting. He responded with, "Yes, they're very big important people," which sounds like something we all wish we'd think of at times like that. She misinterpreted his joke as something else, and the hate stuck. For Ferrell's part, he talked briefly to Entertainment Weekly after her death and credited her for opening some serious doors for women in comedy. That's a class act.

Certain skits and sketches from "Saturday Night Live" have taken lives of their own, and Will Ferrell's "More Cowbell" — more properly called "Recording Session" — is one of those. It's become synonymous with Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," and when Ferrell talked to Rolling Stone about his favorite "SNL" sketches, he cited that one, largely because it almost didn't happen.

It started with Ferrell, who said he came up with the idea when he was listening to the song and "would hear the faint cowbell in the background and wonder, 'What is that guy's life like?'" He pitched the sketch at an "SNL" meeting with Norm Macdonald's help. But the time wasn't right, Lorne Michaels didn't really get the joke, and it "died in committee."

The sketch got pushed to the back burner for months, and it wasn't until Christopher Walken signed on to host that Ferrell dug the sketch out, gave it an overhaul, and tried it again. There was something about Walken that made it work, though Ferrell said some people still missed the point. According to him, "It really was about the exuberance of a guy who was given the green light to really express his art," and according to what he's heard, the cowbell guy was "a little bit like that."

Will Ferrell has talked a little bit about his slight obsession with playing pranks on coworkers and bosses alike, and when he went on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," they chatted about how Lorne Michaels was a favorite target, even though he didn't have much of a sense of humor for that kind of shenanigans. Michaels often wouldn't even react, like the time Ferrell ran into his office, slammed a random Emmy on his desk, and shouted, "Now is our time!"

It went on until his very last show, too. Meyers recounted a time when Ferrell took an old-school typewriter into his last pitch meeting and clacked away on the keys as everyone else pitched. Ferrell went last, and when it was his turn, he read all the notes he'd taken on everyone else's sketches and walked out.

He's also told Conan O'Brien his pranking days went back to college, starting when he would crash his friend's literature class dressed as a janitor. The professor grabbed him in the hallway about a week later and asked Ferrell to keep randomly doing it. He considers that professor one of the most important figures in guiding him not just in his career, but in "allowing me to be me."

It's hard to imagine someone as outgoing as Will Ferrell failing at expressing himself, but according to what he told Rolling Stone, that's exactly what he did at every "SNL" pitch session. Every Monday, the cast would get together with Michaels to pitch ideas for that Saturday's show, but Ferrell said he consistently failed at getting any of his ideas across.

"I would literally say things like, 'I have a sketch that takes place in a recording studio'" ... and that's it. Sketches wouldn't be written at that point, and he said he was terrible at putting big thoughts together in brief pitches. He credited Michaels for trusting him enough to green-light writing up half-baked ideas from the pitch stage, and said he's grateful he had someone who was willing to take a chance on his material.

"Elf" became a classic and helped cement Will Ferrell's post-"Saturday Night Live" career, but he played Santa first. When Ferrell talked to Spliced Wire, he not only apologized for "A Night at the Roxbury" but also said the goal with "Elf" wasn't just to make something funny, but to make something with heart. In "Elf," Santa Claus is played by Ed Asner, who clearly had plenty of experience playing the grumpy boss. While Ferrell hadn't played an elf before, he had played Santa — and he said it gave him an insight into the second-fiddle life of an elf.

Chris Kattan played his elf during a five-week stint at a mall in Pasadena, where Ferrell donned the big white beard and red suit to play Santa himself. He and Kattan were in the sketch comedy group The Groundlings at the time, and Ferrell remembers absolutely no one cared about the elf in the slightest.

Ferrell thinks the whole Santa act is a little worn, too, and in 2015 he appeared on "The Tonight Show" as "the new Santa Claus," complete with blond wig and Bluetooth earpiece. He delivers presents by drone and sits in other people's laps ... probably not the same type of Santa he played before.

Some actors are willing to suffer for their craft, and Will Ferrell is one of them, when it comes to consuming sweets, at least. A running gag in "Elf" is Buddy's four food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. Take all that candy and factor in some extras — like the cotton balls Ferrell ate on screen, which were actually made from cotton candy — and just the thought is enough to make your teeth hurt.

In a 2003 interview with blackfilm.com, Ferrell said he not only ate the sugar, but also suffered all the ill effects you might imagine you'd endure if you ate like Buddy the Elf. "I ingested a lot of sugar in this movie and I didn't get a lot of sleep," he recalled. "I constantly stayed up. But anything for the movie, I'm there. If it takes eating a lot of maple syrup, then I will if that's what the job calls for."

Love Will Ferrell? Not a fan of Ellen DeGeneres? You might be happy to know that he once punched her in the face, but it was completely accidental.

When Ferrell and "The House" costar Amy Poehler showed up on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" (via Facebook) in May 2017 to promote the new movie, there was a little reminiscing about the 2001 "Saturday Night Live" episode DeGeneres hosted. While they had a tough time remembering the particulars of some of the sketches, no one forgot that Ferrell had accidentally punched DeGeneres in the face while they were rehearsing one segment.

He recalled that he sent her protective boxing gear by way of apology, and it doesn't seem to have phased her much. In fact, she said, "He felt so bad about it, but I loved that I got punched by Will. It made me happy."

If you happen to see Will Ferrell on the street, don't be fooled by the super-approachable, down-to-earth persona he projects. Autograph magazine has pretty regularly rated him among the worst autograph signers in Hollywood, but it wasn't always that way. According to Autograph's editor Steve Cyrkin (via BBC), Ferrell went from the best to the worst around 2007.

Ferrell commented on the dubious honor in a 2008 interview with AV Club, saying that he signs tons of autographs, so he's not sure how he's one of the worst. Maybe it's the rest of his statement that puts him in the "horrible" category, as he also adds he taunts and ridicules people who ask. "I'm like, 'How badly do you want this autograph? ... You say you're my biggest fan, really, prove it.' I'll do things like that. They have to earn it."

Lifetime doesn't seem like Will Ferrell's typical choice of partner network, so when an entire saga unfolded in 2015 — starting the day after April Fool's — people didn't know what to think. The whole thing started with reports that Ferrell and Kristen Wiig had been working on a top-secret Lifetime project called "A Deadly Adoption." The day after the news broke, the duo announced they were pulling the project because it had leaked. In June, though, billboards advertising the film started showing up, and it became clear they hadn't pulled it after all.

Even after it aired, those who saw it seemed to have no clue whether it was supposed to be a serious film, a parody, a comedy, or something completely different. Ferrell talked to Deadline about it in 2017, saying not only was it a horrible movie, but that he did the whole thing as a joke. He wanted to make a movie for Lifetime as a complete gag, partnering with another comedian and making fun of all the cliches these movies typically contained. But Wiig has gone on record saying it wasn't a joke at all. When she talked to Vulture in 2015, she said they had never intended to make a comedy and suggested it had been completely mislabeled. So, no one knows — not even the people who were in it.

Five years after leaving "Saturday Night Live" and headlining movies, Will Ferrell wasn't completely creatively satisfied. "Will and I had both worked on 'Saturday Night Live' and missed doing sketch," Ferrell's former writing and production partner Adam McKay told Vanity Fair. The team connected with producer Chris Henchy, and in 2007 they launched Funny or Die, a site that hosted low-budget comedy videos but with a gimmick: If a clip received enough up-votes, it could be featured on the portal's front page.

The first video featured on Funny or Die was "The Landlord," co-directed by McKay and starring Ferrell as an apartment resident in arrears, to the extreme ire of his screaming property manager, portrayed by McKay's 2-year-old daughter, Pearl. The clip went viral and established Funny or Die as a comedy destination. More than a video hosting site, it became a development lab for rising stars and television shows. "Drunk History," "Billy on the Street," and "Between Two Ferns" all started out as Funny or Die projects. "The most surprising achievement, in my opinion, is how many people have come through F.O.D. I know for Adam and I it is extremely satisfying that we were able to give all sorts of comedic voices a platform to grow into their own," Ferrell told Vanity Fair. The site's founders and financial backers sold Funny or Die in 2021 to a new investment group; Ferrell remained with the site as a consultant.

Will Ferrell is objectively one of the biggest stars in "Saturday Night Live" history, joining the show as a full-fledged cast member and writer in 1995 and departing in 2002 for a movie career already underway. With the number of celebrity and political impressions and recurring characters he contributed to "SNL" over his seven-year stint, Ferrell was very valuable to the late-night institution, and his worth was expressed quantitatively, too. At the time, most "SNL" cast members earned $15,000 per episode. Ferrell was contracted to receive $17,500 per installment, which at the time, was the most ever paid to an "SNL" star.

Ferrell didn't just have the most money of the "SNL" cast — he had the most clout, too. In 2001, the show briefly parted ways with actor Chris Parnell. Ferrell led a contingent to convince producers to bring back the cast member. "This show fired me. Then they rehired me. First time that ever happened. Will Ferrell made that happen," Parnell said in a tribute montage to Ferrell on his final "SNL" episode. "How can I ever repay that? He was more than a great performer. He was my friend."

Will Ferrell's time at "Saturday Night Live" coincided with that of another breakout star from the show, Chris Kattan. They appeared in many sketches together, including the recurring bit where they played dance club creeps that was expanded into the 1998 film "A Night at the Roxbury." But "SNL" has long been infamous for cast feuds, and Ferrell and Kattan were headed for conflict.

"SNL" producer Lorne Michaels put the "Night at the Roxbury" movie together, and he wanted Amy Heckerling, coming off recent successes like "Look Who's Talking" and "Clueless," to direct. In his memoir, "Baby, Don't Hurt Me," Kattan alleged that Heckerling made romantic moves on him, and that after he declined her propositioning, she told Michaels she wanted to quit the movie. An irate Michaels ordered Kattan to get involved with Heckerling because the movie studio would only make "A Night at the Roxbury" if the noted director was involved.

Kattan claims he connected physically with Heckerling, who ultimately didn't direct the movie but did help produce it. "I had tried to hide my relationship with Amy, not realizing how obvious it had been to everyone else, including Will," Kattan wrote. Ferrell acted professionally during production, but after filming concluded, he broke off all personal contact. "So I got all your messages, but I didn't call you back because I didn't want to talk to you," Kattan says Ferrell told him, adding, "I don't want to be your friend anymore."

Compared to movies about other sports, there aren't all that many films about soccer. But at the peak of his box office powers in the mid-2000s after "Old School" and "Anchorman," Will Ferrell starred in one of the more high-profile ones, the moderately successful "Kicking & Screaming." Ferrell must have really liked soccer to make such a film, and he invested some of his substantial fortune to be a part owner in one American soccer team and one "football" team in the U.K.

Los Angeles FC began play in Major League Soccer in 2018. Along with other celebrities such as retired pro athletes Nomar Garciaparra and Magic Johnson, Ferrell was an early joiner and is now a minority stakeholder in the franchise. In 2024, Ferrell bought into the much older team Leeds United of the U.K.'s second-level Championship League. That squad was established in 1919 and counts actor Russell Crowe among its owners.

In 2011, Will Ferrell returned to a recurring role in episodic television for the first time since he left "Saturday Night Live" for a movie career. He joined the cast of NBC's mega-popular "The Office" as Deangelo Vickers, the sexist and odious new boss of the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Ferrell first appeared during the last run of episodes featuring original series star Steve Carell before he quit portraying manager Michael Scott after seven seasons, and it was his idea to come on "The Office." As the lengthy and acclaimed run of Carell, his friend and "Anchorman" costar, came to an end, Ferrell wanted to appear. "I was thinking it'd be just a cameo or whatever. I was up for anything," he told the "Office Ladies" podcast. Producers offered Ferrell four episodes instead, while media reports incorrectly implied that he'd be a replacement for Carell.

Showing up to the set of a long-running series and trying to fit in with a tight-knit cast saying goodbye to a beloved coworker proved tough for Ferrell. He may not have worked out as a permanent new addition had that ever been the plan. "Those last shows were emotionally charged and you guys were all having a moment. I'm like, 'What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here,'" he recalled. "I just really felt like an outsider. To no one's fault." Luckily for Ferrell, Vickers didn't last long, and his fate went down as one of the most messed-up things to ever happen on "The Office."

Will Ferrell and Adam McKay were creative partners for more than two decades. Both hired at "Saturday Night Live" in 1995, and they made sketches together and then movies like "Anchorman," "Step Brothers," and "The Other Guys." They were also co-principals in Funny or Die and the company Gary Sanchez Productions, until McKay left the former in 2018 and both figures dissolved the latter in 2019 as part of an announced professional divorce.

While the pair promised the split was civil, Ferrell told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that he and McKay had drifted apart in their work. Ferrell wanted to make broad comedies, while McKay preferred to tackle pointed political satire. "He wanted growth and a sphere of influence, and I was just like, 'I don't know, that sounds like a lot that I have to keep track of,'" Ferrell said. "At the end of the day, we just have different amounts of bandwidth." McKay revealed that the Gary Sanchez staff had separated into two camps, each supporting one of the creatives. With their relationship already tenuous, McKay recast the leading role of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in his HBO series "Winning Time." Ferrell desperately wanted to star, but McKay thought John C. Reilly more closely resembled the real person, and gave him the role instead. And he didn't tell Ferrell before he did it. "I should have called him and I didn't," McKay told Vanity Fair.

Every so often, Will Ferrell pops up in an unlikely place, either on-screen or interacting with actual people in the real world, just to get a laugh or to fulfill a comedic impulse. In 2011, Ferrell obtained permission from the Pabst Brewing Company to make a series of commercials for its Old Milwaukee brand of beer, completely on his own and at no cost to anyone. Ferrell taped multiple short, barely budgeted ads of himself hanging out in and around the seemingly arbitrarily chosen Davenport, Iowa. In 2012, the ads aired, but only in and around the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa (including Davenport). One featured Ferrell trying and abandoning an acrostic poem about beer and Davenport, and another showed him fishing. Ferrell also bought ad time for an Old Milwaukee ad during the Super Bowl, but only in the minuscule TV market of North Platte, Nebraska.

After his Funny or Die partners gifted Ferrell a Staples Center security guard uniform, the actor wore it to a Los Angeles Lakers game. He didn't clear it with any Lakers or arena staff, and after spotting retired NBA star Shaquille O'Neal in the crowd, acted in his completely made-up capacity as a security guard and tossed him from the venue. Similarly, in 2022, Ferrell crashed a warm-up session at a Golden State Warriors game by taking the court in costume and in character as Jackie Moon, his character from the basketball movie "Semi-Pro."

Will Ferrell has made quite a few movies about many different sports, including "Blades of Glory," "Kicking & Screaming," "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," and "Semi-Pro." He's probably drawn to movies about feats of athletic skill and prowess because in real life, Ferrell is a solid and talented competitor. While attending University High School in Irvine, California, in the mid-1980s, Ferrell served as the first-string place kicker for the varsity football team. Over four years, he made 41 points-after-touchdown (missing only nine times), and in his senior season in 1986, Ferrell nailed 14 field goals — a single-season record for the school.

In adulthood, Ferrell is an accomplished long-distance runner. He completed the 2001 New York City Marathon in just over five hours, and weeks later, pulled off the Boston Marathon in just under four hours. Ferrell also finished the 2002 Stockholm Marathon and the 2013 Los Angeles Half Marathon. The actor took it up a notch in 2002, braving the Nautica Malibu Triathlon, which added lengthy portions of swimming and cycling to all the running.

For every successful, quotable, and enduringly popular comedy that Will Ferrell has made, there are many more scripts he worked on, developed, or championed that never entered production. While still employed by "Saturday Night Live" in 1998, Ferrell signed on for what would have been his first leading movie role. In the never-filmed "The Whistleblower," Ferrell would've played a guy who realizes his company's goods are defective and finds himself the target of corporate contract killers. Around that time, Ferrell and Adam McKay wrote a crude and silly screenplay called "August Blowout," about a competition among hyper-aggressive used-car salesmen. Instead, Paramount Pictures elected to make "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star," but Ferrell and McKay took the most ridiculous and obnoxious elements from main character Jeff Tanner and blew them out until they got Ron Burgundy for "Anchorman."

Ferrell also nearly starred as condescending blowhard Ignatius J. Reilly in an adaptation of "A Confederacy of Dunces," John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1980 comic novel. John Candy, John Belushi, Chris Farley, and Zach Galifianakis have also been attached to the project, but it's never gotten off the ground.

While he's been famous for about 30 years, the tabloids and Hollywood rumor mill have featured exactly zero scandalous news items about Will Ferrell's love life and dating history. He's never been romantically linked to anyone besides Viveca Paulin, whom he met in 1991 in an acting class when he was about 24. "It was kind of too much too fast at too young," Ferrell said of the instant connection with Paulin on the "MeSsy" podcast (via People). "Then we were just friends for five years and then we circled back to each other."

Ferrell and Paulin, a part-time actor and also an auctioneer, got married in 2000 and soon thereafter started building a family together. They'd go on to have three sons, Magnus, Mattias, and Axel. While she grew up in the Boston area, Paulin was born in Sweden, and the family still takes semi-regular trips to the Scandinavian country. Ferrell has learned some Swedish in honor of his wife and her cultural background.