As a promotion for "Semi-Pro," Will Ferrell used his comedy Web site Funnyor Die.com to start a tour for a few colleges and other arenas. Ferrell had Will Arnett join the tour as an announcer for a week, and the two of them sat down with the Daily and a few other college reporters at the Boston College stop of the tour.
Question: So, why the '70s theme? You've got a lot of films with the '70s theme. Why do you find so much comedy in the '70s?
Will Ferrell: So it's more of a byproduct of the fact that the movie is about the ABA and that league was in the '70s. Even though the '70s are intrinsically funny, I think, just because it's so foreign to us now, that people actually looked, dressed, had different attitudes - that we just don't have any of that any more. So I think that that's just funny to comment on.
Q: What challenges or advantages do you find in long form comedy, like Semi-Pro, that you don't find in short form, like the stuff you do on FunnyOrDie.com?
WF: That's a really good, yeah, a really good question. That was one I was not prepared for at all. Uh... sh-t! Well, you know, the stuff for FunnyOrDie.com is just so disposable; we don't think about it too much. We just kind of film it, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's pulled off the site, and there's a no-harm, no-foul kind of feel to it. And movies, you have to hopefully sustain someone's interest for 90 minutes, and we try to hedge our bets by shooting as many options, by improvising a lot, so that when you're in the editing room, you aren't nailed down to the actual script. And you try to take advantage of the cast, and that's why you cast people like Will Arnett, and uh...
Will Arnett: And by the way, the operative term there is "take advantage of."
WF: Yeah, but that's why we try to have this great ensemble of people who are comfortable with improvising and hopefully that leads to a great product in the end.
Q: How do you guys keep the sports comedy fresh, especially one about the failing team that needs to make a comeback? Because that's been done many times.
WF: Well, Arnett, you took me aside and said, "This is not fresh."
WA: The first day I walked onto the set, it stunk.
WF: It literally was not fresh in the building.
WA: I said, "It smells like 'Major League' in here."
WF: With a touch of "Tin Cup."
WA: Everyone loves the come-from-behind kind of underdog story. And sports is full of that, right?
WF: And I think it's - well, obviously, it's in that story line, but I think there is a guilty pleasure in the story. And I think there is a little, I mean the thing that is, I guess our little comment on it, is that this is about the game for fourth place. It's not...
WA: It's not to win at all.
WF: It's not to win at all; this game is literally for fourth place. And they find out that it won't matter anyway, and they still play the game. So there's a little bit of a twist there.
Question: Why Flint [Michigan]? Is Flint inherently funny?
WF: Unfortunately to the people in Flint, yes, it is. I think that it is, and that it was a great backdrop for this team. Obviously, they play against the Tropics, who probably were, you'd have to assume, first from Florida or somewhere, and they moved to Flint. It was also very characteristic of the type of the markets they had in the ABA because they had teams in some of the major markets, but they also had teams like the Kentucky Colonels, the Virginia Squires, like, what? Like what, like where ... like before the proliferation of, of now we have like 32 teams of baseball and teams are in markets that, it's expanded a lot, but then they really, they were these really obscure places, it made kind of comedic sense.
Question: Was that your own hair?
WF: That was. That was six months of focusing on hair growth. And I did it. A lot of people said it couldn't be done.
Question: Was there a time when, early in your career, either of you just completely bombed on stage? And what was that like?
WF: I tried standup for about a year and ended up going into sketch, but the first time I actually got up in front of a crowd I had, like, guys playing pool in the background, a hockey game on back in the corner, maybe 10 people. I spoke so fast, and all the moisture left my mouth so that my upper lip was sticking to my teeth. I kept having to do this all the time [runs tongue across teeth], and my mom was in the audience. And I'm like, "How do you think it went?" and she said, "It was good, but you have a bad tic. You keep doing this [another imitation]." I was like, "Oh, no, it was because I had no moisture in my mouth." So that happened to me.
WA: He had surgery to correct that -
WF: I had surgery to correct that. I had my lip replaced. This is Teflon. It's a Teflon material. It's actually bulletproof, so if I were ever shot in this region, I'd be fine.
Q: So [Will Arnett], what's all this about an "Arrested Development" movie?
WF: Ooh, juicy!
WA: [picks up several recorders like microphones] Umm, you know there's been... [laughs and puts them down]. Yeah, we've been talking about it over the last couple of months. We haven't been on the air for two years, so I think for the first year we didn't really talk about much of anything. We didn't talk to each other; nobody got along. And then in the last six months, people started talking about it. I just think it's a matter of [series creator] Mitch Hurwitz getting an idea that he's comfortable with or getting a script that he feels like he's ready to shoot, but it is something we are talking about doing, yeah.
Q: When "Stranger Than Fiction" [(2006)] came out, people were afraid that you [Ferrell] were done with zany characters. Are you planning on going back to those more subtle characters any time soon?
WF: Uh, yeah. I would like to do more of that; I haven't really had any more offers. So, uh, apparently, that's what they think of me, so.
Q: What about Woody Allen?
WF: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty cool. That stuff is fun to do. And I'd love to do more of it, but there's no imminent plans for future projects like that.
Q: You did a Roger Corman movie earlier, right?
WF: Yeah, yeah. When I was at [L.A. improv troupe] The Groundlings, this guy, if you watch "Mad TV" at all, this guy Mike McDonald was on TV. He had a directing deal when he was still at The Groundlings, and he cast a bunch of us in this film ["A Bucket Of Blood" (1995)], and the star of it was Anthony Michael Hall. That was actually the last time I had this huge fro; I was like this weird art guy at this gallery.
Q: I want to ask about your Heidi Klum photo shoot with Sports Illustrated. Whose idea was that?
WF: That was ... uh, I don't know if that was Sports Illustrated coming to New Line or if New Line in conjunction with the promotion of the movie had that idea; I'm not sure. But it was the studio and the magazine kind of working together. But I think Jackie Moon is the first male ever to be in a "Swimsuit Edition."
