In this article: Ferrell's faves

COVER STORY

Will Ferrell raises his game

In a one-on-one exclusive, the "Semi-Pro" star talks about hoop dreams, fatherly advice and his doubts about success.

By Jeffrey Ressner

"There's still part of me that goes from movie to movie wondering when the whole thing is going to fall apart."

Beyond talents for shifting their body shapes and slipping into new personas, several celebs actually claim they are imbued with superpowers. John Travolta says he can help heal people using different "assist" programs. Ashley Olsen feels she shares a telepathic bond with sister Mary-Kate. Movie stars are special, darn it! After all, why should we waste our time worshiping an average Joe?

But whenever magazines profile Will Ferrell, they learn that, well, he's a fairly normal guy. Accordingly, many writers have walked away dispirited. "The interview from hell," they are wont to tag their time with the comic. "Fairly dull," wrote one Southern reporter, crestfallen from his experience. Even Ferrell himself warns us, "If you're coming into this interview expecting Robin Williams, you'll be sorely disappointed."

No problem, Will -- I wasn't disappointed in the least. Quite the contrary. I felt good talking to a smart, engaging and, yes, funny man. After all, this interview was conducted immediately after an hour-long photo session in which, for one setup, a gleeful Ferrell was tightly bound with ropes, gagged with duct tape, swathed in a chamois bathrobe and seemed game for any dopey pose or high jinks. As in his hit films, in which he has streaked bare-bottomed through the streets of a college town ("Old School") and even French-kissed a Frenchman ("Talladega Nights"), this dude will do just about anything for a laugh.

Anything, that is, except act the fool during interviews. "Yeah, yeah," he says, after the exhausting photo shoot. "I'm not 'on,' and I think a lot of people who meet me in person are just waiting for something to happen. But I'm not usually running around or banging against the walls. If I feel like being funny, I'm funny. If I'm sitting around with a bunch of my funny friends, we all let it rip."

One place he's also likely to "let it rip" is on a basketball court. Put simply: Will Ferrell is a b-ball fanatic. His Feb. 29 comedy, "Semi-Pro," is about a team of dribbling misfits based on the '70s colorful American Basketball Association, which was later acquired by the NBA. Most Sundays, the 40-year-old Ferrell shoots hoops with the Cavaliers, one of 16 teams in the NBA Entertainment League. It's a hobby that gives him a chance to beat up on the likes of Justin Timberlake and Adam Sandler. "It's a highly competitive, very for-real atmosphere, with referees and actors trying to rig their teams with ringers," says Ferrell, who jokes that he's the worst player on his team, which also has on its roster Donald Faison, Josh Duhamel and Sacha Baron Cohen. (Ferrell insists, however, that we refer to him as a power forward -- "and definitely underline the word POWER.")

As a kid, Ferrell played street ball in Irvine, Calif., a bland white-bread-and-mayonnaise town in Orange County. By the third grade, he was avidly combing the sports pages and reveling in every televised Lakers game. Throughout high school and college, he considered a career in sportscasting as a fallback, in case the comedy thing didn't pan out.

There's no Ferrell showbiz dynasty, but entertaining people seems to run in his family's DNA. His dad was a sax and keyboard man for the Righteous Brothers who occasionally delivered nutty announcements from the stage between songs. When young Will was 8, his folks split, but he and his dad have always been close (the two went on a trip to Ireland last month), and Ferrell Sr. offered words of wisdom that his son holds dear to this day.

"Right after college, I wanted to move to L.A. and give comedy a shot, so I asked his advice," Ferrell recalls. "He said, 'If success was based on talent only, I wouldn't worry about you -- but it's not.' Now, some might feel those words weren't encouraging, but I found them strangely comforting because they helped me realize I'm not in control; I've just got to have fun and be as prepared as I can be. It took the pressure off of having to sweat it out."

Speaking of sweat, Ferrell steams up nearly every frame of "Semi-Pro." Between shots, he played his fellow cast members in head-to-head competition. Even auditions were hoop-heavy. Co-star Woody Harrelson remembers his initial meeting for the project: "Will and friends were playing basketball at a church, and I got there late, so I didn't bring my [gym clothes] or anything. Somebody lent me shoes, but I didn't have any shorts, so I decided to play in my underwear. Will took off his pants in solidarity and started playing in his underwear, too. That was the first time I met him, and it was kind of cool." And, Harrelson notes, Ferrell has a killer skyhook that would make Kareem Abdul-Jabbar proud.

Also intriguing, and potentially more lucrative than a pro athlete's salary, is Ferrell's involvement with Funnyordie.com, a YouTube rival that netcasts comedy shorts. The site's first offering featured a broke and hapless Ferrell being admonished by his landlord, Pearl -- a foul-mouthed, beer-swilling 2-year-old. It received more than 50 million views and, for better or worse, set the bar impossibly high. Unfortunately, Ferrell says Pearl has "retired" from acting.

"No one could have predicted that kind of play," Ferrell says. "Now we're back in the zone of what we originally thought of the site: performing strongly, getting 3 million or more hits a month, creating a steady audience. It's a work in progress." Partner and longtime pal Adam McKay, a former head writer on "Saturday Night Live" who met Ferrell on the show, says the landlord clip was "a crazy, crazy accident."

There are other projects in the works: a comedy with John C. Reilly called "Step Brothers" and perhaps a one-man stage show in New York about a fictional presidential candidate that would feature Ferrell mocking this year's campaign frenzy; he hopes to show phony political ads and even take questions from the audience. Fairly liberal in his own politics (especially for someone raised in conservative O.C.), he nonetheless has a special place in his heart for President Bush: Ferrell's spot-on Dubya impression initially got him noticed on "SNL." "I'll always owe him a debt of gratitude for, um, being the way he is," Ferrell says.

He also would love to pursue more dramatic roles, like he did when he played the IRS auditor in 2006's Stranger than Fiction. "It didn't open the floodgates, so to speak. But I would love to do more stuff in that vein." And supporting roles are not out of the question. "Who wouldn't want to take a part in a Coen brothers movie in that kind of capacity? I would jump at the chance [to work with them]. They haven't called," he says, with a sigh. "Maybe this interview will give them the impetus."

Off camera, Ferrell's life with his wife, auctioneer Viveca Paulin, and their two sons seems -- that dreaded word again -- normal. "Semi-Pro" co-star Andre Benjamin refers to him as "The Civilian." Sure, he's a bit neurotic, but that goes with the territory. "I'm still wondering when the point is that you're going to feel you're kind of OK," Ferrell says. "There's still part of me that goes from movie to movie wondering just when the whole thing is going to fall apart. I'm willing to go places and try things that could easily backfire, but you have to do that in order to explore those nooks and crannies. I don't see feeling creative and being confident going hand in hand."

Sounds normal to us.

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Ferrell's faves

Rather than ask Will Ferrell about his influences, we decided to play a quick round of word association, throwing him a rapid-fire list of names and asking for his first impressions. As you'll see, Ferrell is a comic who appreciates laughing at his rivals.

Chris Rock: "One of the funniest people of all time, bar none."
Jerry Seinfeld: "Same as Chris, but not as funny. Wink, wink."
Seth Rogen: "A three-headed monster -- writer, actor, master improviser. Of this whole new wave of guys coming up, he's intimidating."
Jon Stewart: "It's [The Daily Show] where I go for true news."