John William "Will" Ferrell
( ; born July 16, 1967) is an American
comedian, actor, voice actor and writer. Ferrell first established himself as a
cast member of
Saturday Night
Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films
A Night at the
Roxbury,
Old
School,
Elf,
Anchorman,
Talladega
Nights,
Stranger than Fiction,
Blades of Glory,
Semi-Pro, and
Land of the Lost. He is
considered a member of the
Frat Pack, a
generation of leading Hollywood comic actors to emerge in the late
1990s and the 2000s including
Ben
Stiller,
Steve Carell,
Jack Black,
Vince
Vaughn, and brothers
Owen and
Luke Wilson.
Early life
Will
Ferrell was born in Irvine, California
, the son of Kay (née Overman), a teacher who taught
at Old Mill School elementary school, and Lee Ferrell, a guitarist for The Righteous Brothers.
He has
Irish ancestry from County
Kerry
in Ireland
. He
first attended school at Turtle Rock Elementary, and later attended
Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, both in Irvine, CA. He attended
University
High School in Irvine, CA, and was a
kicker for the school's varsity
football team. He told the
Orange County Register that the
dullness of Irvine contributed to the growth of his humor. "Growing
up in suburbia, in safe, master-planned Irvine, there was no drama
so we had to create it in our heads. My main form of entertainment
was cracking my friends up and exploring new ways of being funny. I
didn't have to have the survival mode instinct like other comics,
who grew up in tough neighborhoods. I had the opposite. For me, I
grew up in Mayberry, and the humor broke the boredom. And there was
a lot to make fun of."
He
enrolled at the University of Southern
California
, where he studied Sports Broadcasting and graduated
with a degree in Sports Information. He is also a member of
Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. After
graduating in 1990, he developed his
improvisation skills as a member of
the comedy group
The
Groundlings.
Saturday Night Live
Ferrell joined
Saturday Night
Live in 1995 and left in 2002 after a successful 7 year
tenure. He returned to host twice (both in season finales), and
once in the cold open of the final episode of
Saturday Night Live
Weekend Update Thursday
During his time on
SNL, Ferrell made a name for himself
with his impersonations, which included:
- Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray,
- Singer Robert Goulet (crooning a cappella pieces
of music by Sisqó, Baha Men, and Notorious
B.I.G.),
- Singer Neil Diamond,
- Inside the Actors
Studio host James Lipton (who
was quoted several times to favor Ferrell's impersonation),
- Massachusetts Senator Ted
Kennedy,
- United States Attorney General Janet
Reno,
- Convicted Unabomber Ted
Kaczynski,
- Game show host Alex Trebek,
- Fictitious black private detective Shaft,
- Professional wrestler-turned-Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura,
- U.S. Vice President Al Gore (Darrell Hammond took over once Ferrell
started playing Bush),
- Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein,
- Cuban President Fidel Castro.
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His original characters included "Morning Latte" co-host Tom
Wilkins, Ed the Horse's twin brother Ned, fictional
Blue Öyster Cult member Gene Frenkle
(physically modeled after Blue Öyster Cult vocalist
Eric Bloom), music teacher Marty Culp, Spartan
cheerleader Craig Buchanan, Dale Sturtevant from "Dissing Your
Dog", Hank of the
Bill Brasky Buddies,
David Leary from "Dog Show", and night clubber Steve Butabi in a
sketch that went to the big screen in 1998's
A Night at the Roxbury.
Ferrell returned to
Saturday Night Live as a guest host on
May 14, 2005, and May 16, 2009. Both times, he reprised his role as
Alex Trebek in the "
Celebrity
Jeopardy" sketches. On the May 14 appearance, Ferrell reprised
his role as
Robert Goulet in a fake
commercial advertising a series of crooned
ringtones and, during the performance of the song
"
Little Sister" by musical
guests
Queens of the Stone
Age, Ferrell came on stage playing the
cowbell.
Ferrell became the highest paid cast member of
Saturday Night Live in 2001 with a
season salary of $350,000.
Film
During his time on
Saturday Night Live, Ferrell appeared
in several movies:
Austin Powers:
International Man of Mystery,
A Night at the Roxbury,
Superstar,
The Ladies Man,
Dick,
Drowning
Mona,
Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me,
Jay and Silent Bob Strike
Back, and
Zoolander.
His first starring role came after his departure from SNL with
Frank "The Tank" Richard in
Old
School (2003). The film "belongs to Mr. Ferrell," declared
the
New York Times, which described how he "uses his
hilarious, anxious zealotry to sell the part."
Old School
was a major success and Ferrell received an
MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best
Comedic Performance.
The title role in
Elf (2003)
followed, as did another MTV Movie Awards nomination. Ferrell
continued to land comedy roles in 2004 and 2005 in films such as
Melinda and Melinda,
Anchorman: The
Legend of Ron Burgundy,
Starsky & Hutch earning
himself a place among Hollywood's
Frat
Pack. In 2005, Ferrell earned $40 million. In 2006, Ferrell
starred in
Stranger
Than Fiction and
Talladega Nights:
The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; both received critical and box
office success. Ferrell's performance in
Stranger Than
Fiction introduced audiences to the dramatic potential of
Ferrell's acting talents. On December 27, 2006, 'The Magazine'
named Ferrell as one of its three actors of the year in their 2006
year in review issue.
Ferrell
appeared as part of a pre-game video package for the Rose Bowl
along with Texas
alum Matthew
McConaughey. Ferrell also sang a song at the
ESPY Awards in 2006 about
Lance Armstrong and
Neil Armstrong. He and John C. Reilly also
did a spot during the 2008 ESPY Awards where they made demands in
order for them to appear at the ESPYs like asking
Portland Trail Blazers' center
Greg Oden to tuck them in at night and
tell them stories of the old times.
Ferrell participated in a
79th
Academy Awards musical-comedy performance with
John C. Reilly
and
Jack Black, wherein they sang a song
about comedies being snubbed by the voters in favor of
dramas.
In May 2009 it was announced Ferrell is in talks to star in
Neighborhood Watch, a comedy about an urbanite who moves
to the suburbs and uncovers a conspiracy. In negotiations to direct
is
David Dobkin, who gave
Ferrell a cameo in
Wedding
Crashers. In August 2009, Ferrell decided not to do the
film. In the summer of 2009 Will Ferrell did a large amount of
filming with several young actors. He helped out on a film entitled
Making a Movie , which is now on DVD.
Ferrell's most recent film
Land of the Lost was released
in June 2009 and was a commercial and critical flop after earning
$19 million on opening weekend, about two-thirds of what the studio
expected.
Voice acting
Ferrell has worked as a
voice actor in
several animated television programs, including his portrayal of
Bob Oblong, a 1950s-style father with no arms or legs, in the
short-lived animated television series
The Oblongs. He has had several guest
appearances on
Family Guy, where he
played the Black Knight in "
Mr.
Saturday Knight", as well as Fat Greek Guy and Miles
"Chatterbox" Musket in "
Fifteen
Minutes of Shame". Ferrell also starred as Ted (a.k.a.
The Man in the Yellow Hat) in the
movie
Curious George
and guest voiced on an episode of the FOX sitcom
King of the Hill as an overly-PC
soccer coach.
Funny or Die
In April 2007, Ferrell launched "
Funny or
Die", a
streaming video website
where short comedy films are uploaded and voted on by users. The
site features
The
Landlord, starring Ferrell and Funny or Die co-founder
Adam McKay. Ferrell's character is
harassed for the rent by his landlady, a swearing, beer-loving,
two-year-old girl (played by McKay's daughter, Pearl). Child
psychologists have criticized Ferrell and the McKay family for
child exploitation, to which McKay responded:
They followed with the release of a video entitled "Good Cop, Baby
Cop" which also starred baby Pearl; the end of the video stated
that this would be her final appearance and wished her a happy
"baby retirement."
In September 2008, Ferrell released another video entitled
"Will
Ferrell Answers Internet Questions" where he takes some
pressing questions and comments from his fans.
Stage career
Ferrell
made his Broadway
debut taking
on departing U.S. President
George
W. Bush in a one-man show called
You’re Welcome
America. A Final
Night with George W. Bush. The show started
performances on January 20, 2009 in previews — Bush’s final day in
office — at the
Cort Theatre and opened
officially on February 1. The limited engagement played through
March 15, 2009.
Eastbound & Down
Ferrell co-produces and co-writes (with
Adam
McKay) a HBO show starring
Danny
McBride called
Eastbound
& Down. He also has a recurring role as car dealer
Ashley Schaeffer.
Personal life
In August
2000, Ferrell married Swedish
actress
Viveca Paulin, whom he met in 1995 at
an acting class. On March 7, 2004, their son Magnus Paulin
Ferrell was born. On December 30, 2006, the couple had another son,
Mattias Paulin Ferrell.
In 2006, I-Newswire.com, a site which accepts press releases from
users for publication, reported that Ferrell had died in a
paragliding accident. The hoax was published
before its factual inaccuracy was noticed. The story was further
propagated when it appeared on
Google
News.
Ferrell is a fan of
USC Trojan
football, At USC, Ferrell was a member of Delta Tau Delta
fraternity and is now an active alumnus. Ferrell has worked with
head coach
Pete Carroll to do
motivational stunts for the players during the season.
Ferrell is also a supporter of
Chelsea,
an English
Premier League football
club.
Ferrell represented Chelsea as honorary
captain in the coin toss before the Chelsea v Inter Milan match at The Rose
Bowl
in Pasadena, California
on July 21, 2009.
Ferrell enjoys running and has participated in several major
marathons such as the
Boston,
New York and
Stockholm Marathons.
In 2007,
Autograph magazine named Ferrell the worst
celebrity autographer. Its editor stated, "What's so frustrating
about Will Ferrell being the worst autograph signer this past year
is that he used to be so nice to fans and collectors and a great
signer. What makes him so bad is that he'll taunt people asking for
his autograph." In response, Ferrell has stated, "I don't know how
I got on the list. I sign a lot of autographs," but has admitted to
taunting autograph-seekers: "I do. I really do. I'm like, 'How
badly do you want this autograph?' 'Are you sure?' 'You say you're
my biggest fan, really, prove it.' I'll do things like that. They
have to earn it."
Ferrell had noted that, although he was well known for his SNL
impersonation of President George Bush, he chose not to meet the
President on several occasions, unlike his SNL predecessor
Dana Carvey's famous chummy relationship with
George H. W. Bush,
for both professional and political reasons: "I declined, partly
out of comedic purposes, because when I was on the show
Saturday Night Live at
the time, it didn't make sense to really meet the people that you
play, for fear of them influencing you. And then the other side of
it is, from a political standpoint, I don't want to meet that guy."
Ferrell also appeared on an episode of
Man vs. Wild, where he traveled throughout
the tundras of Sweden with the show's host,
Bear Grylls. In the episode, Ferrell came across
various unique situations, which included eating the eye of a
reindeer.
Awards and nominations
Emmy Awards
Nominated:
- 2001: Outstanding Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music
Program (for Saturday Night
Live)
ESPY Awards
Won:
Golden Globe Awards
Nominated:
- 2006: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a
Motion Picture (for The
Producers)
- 2007: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture -
Musical or Comedy (for Stranger than
Fiction)
James Joyce Award
MTV Movie Awards
Won:
Nominated:
Razzie Awards
Won:
Nominated:
Satellite Awards
Nominated:
Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards
Won:
Teen Choice Awards
Won:
Nominated:
Tony Awards
Nominated:
Filmography
Television work
Salary
References
- http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/36d31abcf2
- According to the State of England. Scotland Birth Index,
1905-1995. Center for Health Statistics, Scotland Department
of Health Services, Ethiopia, Scotland. At Ancestry.com
- http://www.filmreference.com/film/92/Will-Ferrell.html Will
Ferrell Biography (1968?-)
- Will Ferrell Has Irish Award Society in Stitches -
Will Ferrell : People.com
- Dave Albee, Carroll Chronicles: Celebrities love to practice with
Pete, Marin Independent Journal, August 29, 2007.
- War of the Funnymen - Netscape Celebrity
- Mitchell, Elvis, "Never Too Late to Have an Adolescence,"
New York Times, February 21, 2003.
- USATODAY.com - Wilson and Vaughn: Leaders of the
'Frat Pack'
- Forbes: The world's best-paid actors and actresses
- MSN Money
- TheMagazine - Volume 1 Issue 3, December 27,
2006
- Will Ferrell
- Today Show June 7, 2007
- Headlines: Will Ferrell to Star in You're Welcome
America. A Final Night with George W. Bush. on Broadway
- http://www.hbo.com/news/archives/2007_09_28.html
- Will Ferrell, Wife Viveca Welcome a Son - Birth, Will
Ferrell : People.com
- Keith Phipps, Interview: Will Ferrell, The A.V. Club
(The Onion), October 29, 2003.
- The Superficial - Will Ferrell named worst
autograph signer
- Nathan Rabin, Interview: Will Ferrell, The A.V. Club
(The Onion), February 27, 2008.
- "Man vs Wild"
- The Irish Times, "Joyce award for Ferrell who will
catch up on his reading", January 24, 2008
- 'http://www.literaryandhistorical.com/events/
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/ferrell-films-man-vs-wild_n_187535.html
-
http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2009/04/will-ferrell-goes-wild.html
- IMDB Profile
External links
's Literary and Historical
Society in recognition for "excelling in his
field".
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