Renowned funnyman Will Ferrell spoke to college press via phone about his new film, "Casa de mi Padre," a hilarious foray into the Spanish soap opera genre.
The Tufts Daily: Was the decision always to make the film in Spanish?
Will Ferrell: Yeah. This whole film came from a random idea five, six years ago. For some reason, it struck me that it could be pretty interesting to put myself in a Spanish language film. I felt like you hadn't seen an American comedian commit to a foreign language movie and be the only "gringo" in an entirely Hispanic cast.
TD: Is it harder to come across as funny when you're speaking a different language?
WF: We wrote the script in English first, and then it was translated. So, I always had an exact comprehension of what I was saying. And, once you know what you're saying, you can put the right emphasis in the right places. Plus, the whole telenovela style is so over the top that it was fairly easy to mimic. I just knew that the more dramatic I could be, that would probably play funny.
Q: What was it like bringing in friends from "Saturday Night Live" for this movie?
WF: It was great. We were always professionally trying to look for opportunities to work with old friends and people who have gone on and are working in other parts of the business. When I came up with this movie idea, it fit perfectly to work with [writer] Andrew Steele, who used to be a head writer on the show and now is our creative director for "Funny or Die," and Matt Piedmont, who directed ["Casa de mi Padre,"] is also a buddy of ours. [He] was a writer who then went on to direct a bunch of commercials and shorts. To get to work together, be friends and share the same shorthand is always the best situation.
Q: Did you get to improvise in this movie, even though it was in Spanish?
WF: Not so much. The main challenge for me, since I'm not fluent in Spanish, was to make sure I got the accent right. I didn't want the joke of this movie to be that I speak Spanish poorly, so I was really focused on having as good a pronunciation as I possibly could. And, of course, memorizing in a foreign language is a whole other aspect as well.
Q: Are you a fan and constant viewer of telenovelas?
WF: I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan. I only watch them every weekday from 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. So, I'm not a crazy person about it. [Laughs] No, I keep getting asked, "What are your favorite telenovelas?" And I sheepishly say, "I really don't know any of them." I basically got this idea from something I'm sure we all have done, when you're flipping through the channels and you stop for a second and you're like, "What's going on here? What is this show? Oh, it's a Spanish soap opera. Okay, that's pretty intriguing."
Q: What was it like to work with Nick Offerman [of "Parks and Recreation"]?
WF: Well, I've known Nick for a long time and we're huge fans of his. [Adam McKay and I] were kind of going through the list, trying to cast it and we were going after Chris Cooper. But people like that we're like, "What? No! This is crazy!" Then, we started thinking, "Well, what about Nick? He could play that guy perfectly!" He, of course, was fantastic. I just love how he commits to everything. He had a harder job than I did, to not only memorize in Spanish, but to memorize in bad Spanish.
Q: With this being your first Spanish film, do you see this as an experience you would want to repeat?
WF: It would be hysterical to me if this movie became a little cult hit and we made a sequel or a series of them! That would be really fun. But, you know, there are a billion Chinese. That's the next market to conquer.
