Will Ferrell:
‘Ignorance is a key part of comedy’
Will Ferrell knows exactly how to make us laugh. He’s back with Mark Wahlberg for his latest film, Daddy’s Home, and will soon return as Mugatu in Zoolander 2. Tim Adams meets him to see what’s behind the most expressive jowls in America
Tim Adams
Sunday 20 December 2015 11.30 GMT
| Will Ferrell: ‘He looks like he could have walked out of a pensions plan ad.’ Photograph: Pål Hansen for the Observer |
Half an hour before I interviewed Will Ferrell I made the mistake of watching a clip of him interviewing himself. In one of Ferrell’s manySaturday Night Live (SNL) incarnations he did a celebrated spoof of the long-running American arts show Inside the Actors Studio, in which James Lipton presents cerebral interrogations of Hollywood stars. Ferrell donned a bald wig and beard, sat with a pile of Lipton’s preferred blue notecards and went through a parody of the questions he might have asked: “What’s your favourite curse word?” he asked of himself. “If heaven exists what would you like to hear God say when you arrive?” And, of acting in general, and comedy in particular: “Is it craft – or is it crap?”