Encouraged by his mother to do something he liked with his life, Will Ferrell left home in 1991 to try his luck in Los Angeles. Three decades later, he is the biggest comedy star in Hollywood with 59 features to his credit and several unexpected strings to his bow. Cinema Paradiso invites you to get to know everyone's favourite everyman.
Standing 6' 3", Will Farrell should cut an imposing figure. But he often uses his height to reinforce the awkwardness that many of his characters feel as their ordered existence spins out of control. His size also comes in handy when his pent-up emotions gush to the surface and mild-mannered innocence gives way to bellowing fury.
Although he often contributes to the scripts of his films, Ferrell is the master of improvisation, who uses repeat takes to refine scenes and find the best way to coax out their humour. He once jokingly put down acting with the line, 'Is it craft - or is it crap?' But Ferrell knows the truth of the old maxim, 'dying is easy, comedy is hard' and there was genuine pathos in the lyrics of the song he performed with Jack Black and John C. Reilly at the Academy Awards in 2007: 'A comedian at the Oscars/ Is the saddest man of all/ Your movies may make millions/ But your name they'll never call/I guess you don't like laughter/And a smile brings you down/A comedian at the Oscars is the saddest, bitterest, alcoholic clown.'
Unchained Melodies and Dual Yules
John William Ferrell was born in Irvine, California on 16 July 1967. Mother Betty was a teacher at the Old Mill elementary school and Santa Ana College, while father Roy was a keyboard player with The Righteous Brothers, who scored such huge hits as 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling' and 'Unchained Melody'.
As Roy was a freelance musician and was forever on the road, Will decided that he would like a nine to five job that brought in a steady wage and allowed him to carry a briefcase. His parents divorced when he was eight and he reassured younger brother Patrick that everything would be okay because they would now get to have two Christmasses.
While attending University High School, Ferrell was known more for his sporting prowess than his clowning. In addition to playing soccer and basketball, he was also the kicker for the American Football team. In third grade, however, he discovered he could make his classmates laugh and not only appeared in school talent shows, but he was also allowed to do sketches over the intercom with a friend.
Whereas many comics base their material on their tough upbringing, Ferrell found inspiration in the dull, master-planned conventionality of suburban Irvine and used his wit to stem the boredom. He similarly came to rely on pranks and the occasional streak around the campus to make life bearable while taking a degree in sports broadcasting at the University of Southern California.
Despite landing an internship at an Orange County TV station, Ferrell realised he wasn't a budding commentator. As he later admitted, 'I wanted to be Chevy Chase.' Paying jobs as a valet parker and a Wells Fargo bank teller proved no more satisfying. So, with the encouragement of both parents, Ferrell relocated to Los Angeles in 1991.
Get Off the Shed!
Arriving in LA to hone his comic skills, Ferrell took classes in stand-up and improvisation. He also started doing impersonations. In order to pay his fees and living expenses, he worked at an auction house and even spent a festive season as a shopping mall Santa.
After three years, he passed an audition for the celebrated improv group, The Groundlings. Among the films available from Cinema Paradiso produced by former members of the troupe are James Signorelli's Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988), David Mirkin's Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), Paul Feig's Bridesmaids and Alexander Payne's The Descendants (both 2011).
When not performing on stage, Ferrell took his first tentative steps on television after debuting with a walk on in Michael McDonald's A Bucket of Blood (1995), which was executive produced by Roger Corman, who had directed the original cult classic in 1959. He also compiled a showreel that caught the eye of Lorne Michaels, the legendary producer of Saturday Night Live (1975-), who was particularly impressed by a sketch in which Ferrell played a man barbecuing in his garden, who kept breaking off from chatting with his pals to bark 'Get off the shed!' at his kids.
Ferrell joined the regular cast in 1995 and remained for seven years. During his stint, he impersonated such leading political figures as Al Gore, Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush, as well as well as Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro. He also excelled as singer Robert Goulet and game show host, Alex Trebek, as well as such original creations as night clubber Steve Butabi, talking horse Mister Ed's twin brother Ned, Dissing Your Dog host Dale Sturtevant and bogus Blue Öyster Cult member Gene Frenkle, who ruins the recording of 'Don't Fear the Reaper' by playing a cowbell.
Cinema Paradiso users can discover these characters on such compilations as Saturday Night Live: The Best of Mike Myers, Saturday Night Live: Christopher Walken, and Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell, Volumes 1 and 2. Also worth seeking out is Will Ferrell: The Legend Collection: The Best of Saturday Night Live, which contains his fabled impression of James Lipton, whose Inside the Actors Studio interviews with Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe and Al Pacino are all available to rent from Cinema Paradiso. What makes the skit so irresistible is that Ferrell plays both Lipton and himself in a deadpan masterclass that includes the interviewer claiming that the actor has 'the dull, lifeless eyes of a mannequin'.
In 2014, Ferrell was voted SNL's best all-time cast member. But, even though he had already amassed some big-screen experiences, his career was about to lift off in a new direction.
The Cameo Guy
While building a following on Saturday Night Live, Ferrell started taking movie roles. His debut came at the invitation of another SNL regular, Mike Myers, who cast him as Mustafa in Jay Roach's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997).
A quarter of a century on, the brownface make-up is deeply regrettable, but Ferrell still raises the odd chuckle as the indestructible henchman of Dr Evil (Myers), who had designed the cryogenic apparatus that had frozen the criminal mastermind in the 1960s. Unfortunately, his habit of telling the truth when asked a question three times makes Mustafa a target for Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) in the sequel, Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).
While contributing voiceovers to such popular animated shows as King of the Hill (1997-2008), Family Guy and SpongeBob SquarePants (both 1999-), Ferrell landed his first starring role in Jim Milio's Men Seeking Women (aka The Bet, 1997), which sees him compete to get a girlfriend with best pals Grant Shaud and Anthony Palermo, who had been born in the same hospital on the same day 33 years earlier. Striking out with women is also occupational hazard for dedicated clubbers Steve (Ferrell) and Doug Butabi (Chris Kattan) in John Fortenberry's A Night At the Roxbury (1998).
This SNL spin-off was slaughtered by the critics, with renowned critic Roger Ebert claiming that the characters are so lame that it would have been cruel to laugh at them. The head-bobbing to the Eurodance tracks is quite amusing, however, and it's fascinating to watch Ferrell working with material that he co-scripted and seems to know isn't as funny as it should be.
At least this misfire is available from Cinema Paradiso, as it's next to impossible to track down Joe Dietl and Michael Irpino's mockumentary, The Thin Pink Line (1998). Perhaps that's because Ferrell and co-stars of the calibre of Jason Priestley, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Mike Myers and Janeane Garafalo are just a bit embarrassed to be seen in a camped- up spoof of Errol Morris's landmark actuality, The Thin Blue Line (1988).
Molly Shannon was also involved in this farrago, but she went some way to atoning by dusting down her SNL character, Mary Katherine Gallagher, for Bruce McCulloch's Superstar (1999). Not only does Ferrell guest as Sky Corrigan, the boy Mary most wants to kiss in the whole wide world, but he also doubles as the chaste Catholic teen's vision of Jesus.
Ferrell had fun posturing as the school jock and he reunited with McCulloch in Andrew Fleming's Dick (1999) to play Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post journalists who had been essayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in Alan J. Pakula's multi-Oscar-nominated thriller, All the President's Men (1976). This comic take on the Watergate scandal charts the unlikely friendship between President Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya) and ditzy teens Betsy Jobs (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene Lorenzo (Michelle Williams).
Ferrell ended the century flogging a bit of retro shtick in Donal Lardner Ward's The Suburbans (1999), in which he plays Gil, the bassist of the eponymous band of 80s one-hit wonders that is persuaded to reunite for a reality TV show by ambitious record executive Jennifer Love Hewitt. And he started the new millennium guesting in another SNL spin-off, Reginald Hudlin's The Ladies Man (2000), as radio sexpert Leon Phelps (Tim Meadows) is pursued by Lance DeLune (Ferrell), the leader of the Victims of the Smiling Ass, a help group for those who have been cuckolded by Phelps.
Remaining in guest star mode, Ferrell crops up as Cubby the funeral director in Nick Gomez's Drowning Mona (2000), which sees Verplank police chief Wayne Rash (Danny DeVito) discover which of her many enemies (including Neve Campbell and Jamie Lee Curtis) would have wanted to kill the universally detested Mona Dearly (Bette Midler). However, Ferrell would make a much bigger splash as Jacobim Mugatu in Ben Stiller's Zoolander (2001).
Having changed his name from Jacob Moogbern, the inventor of the piano key necktie tries to brainwash model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) into assassinating the prime minister of Malaysia, who is threatening to ruin his fashion empire by clamping down on child labour. He proves just as maniacal on escaping from prison in a bid to wreak his revenge while seeking the secret to eternal youth in Stiller's Zoolander 2 (2016).
Ferrell is on equally demented form as Federal Wildlife Marshall Willenholly in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), as he accuses the slacker duo of an act of terrorism after the Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers breaks into an animal experimentation laboratory. However, Ferrell is considerably calmer as Michael, the travel agent who accidentally books macho buddies Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Horatio Sanz on a gay cruise in Boat Trip.
He went some way to making amends for this fey caricature by appearing as President George W. Bush in The Concert For New York City (2002). As Bradley Kaplan and Albert Maysles reveal in The Love We Make (2011), this all-star event was masterminded by ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who had been in New York on 9 September 2001 and wanted to do something to raise funds for those who had lost loved ones in the attacks on the Twin Towers.
Immune to Inhibitions
Feeling ready to launch himself as a feature lead, Ferrell left Saturday Night Live in 2002. He still felt something of a fraud, as he didn't have the demons that drive so many comedians on to greatness. But, as he told the New York Times, he was 'immune to inhibitions' and this enabled him to emulate heroes like Steve Martin by seeming to be a wild and crazy guy.
As interviewer Lynn Hirschberg succinctly put it in 2006, Ferrell had captured the 'prevailing spirit of cheerful mediocrity in America' by perfecting 'a version of the likable, suburban-born-and-bred, not-too-smart guy who likes to hang out with his friends, doesn't particularly want to grow up (even if he's married) and is happily oblivious to his own ridiculousness'. In other words, he became the everyman's champion by offering post-9/11 audiences a reassuring sense that everything was going to be okay.
The first film to establish Ferrell as star material was Todd Phillips's Old School (2003), in which he played Frank 'The Tank' Richard, who seeks to relive his college days by forming a fraternity with pals Mitch 'The Godfather' Martin (Luke Wilson) and Bernard 'Beanie' Campbell (Vince Vaughn). However, the dean of Harrison University, Gordon 'Cheese' Pritchard (Jeremy Piven) is bent on stopping them. For all the wacky antics, however, what makes this romp so memorable is Ferrell's poignantly discordant graveside rendition of the Kansas hit, 'Dust in the Wind'.
Having garnered an MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Comedic Performance, Ferrell repeated the feat by etching himself into festive folklore as Santa's giant helper, Buddy, in Jon Favreau's Elf (2003). Shocked to discover that he's not a native of the North Pole, this green-clad 'cotton-headed ninny nuggins' heads to New York to meet his father, children's book publisher Walter Hobbs (James Caan). Turning his trademark manic manchild into an endearing innocent, Ferrell got big laughs by playing it straight and he further sought to test his dramatic mettle in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004).
Inheriting the role of Hobie after the producers were refused insurance on Robert Downey, Jr., Ferrell channels Allen's patented anguish, as a married actor whose career struggles drive him into the orbit of Melinda Robicheaux (Radha Mitchell) just as she falls for composer Ellis Moonsong (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Hobie feels out of place in his world, but there was nothing insecure about Ferrell's next character in a project that was to reunite him with SNL writer-turned-director, Adam McKay.
It's the mid-1970s and, at the start of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), all seems fine for the regulars at KVWN Channel 4 in San Diego. However, station chief Ed Harken (Fred Willard) has bad news, as newsreader Ron (Ferrell), chief reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner) and weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) have been ordered to work with new anchor, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate).
Blending bombast, bluster, bravado and buffoonery in one moustachioed bundle, Ferrell clearly recognised that he had found the role of a lifetime. He and McKay concocted Wake-Up, Ron Burgundy from out-takes to show how Ron seeks to put one over on Veronica by taking down a terrorist group called The Alarm Clock.
This gleeful spin-off is available from Cinema Paradiso, as is the sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), which takes the story to 1979, as Ron returns to San Diego having been fired from the New York station that has promoted wife Veronica to the prestigious night beat. Forced to work for the hissable Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) at GNN, Ron reassembles the old gang in a bid to hold his crumbling life together.
By now, Ferrell was deemed to be a leading light in the 'Frat Pack' that had come to dominate Hollywood comedy. Fellow members included Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Steve Carell, Vince Vaughn and brothers Owen and Luke Wilson. And, in the true fraternal spirit, Ferrell took cameos in a number of Packer pictures.
As jailbird Big Earl, he makes some unusual demands involving belly buttons and dragons before giving Bay City cops David Starsky (Ben Stiller) and Ken Hutchinson (Owen Wilson) the information they need in Todd Phillips's Starsky & Hutch (2004). The name Chazz Reinhold is spoken frequently and with reverence in David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers (2005). But, when divorce mediators John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) seek the advice of the ultimate uninvited guest, he turns out to be a mummy's boy who haunts funerals in the hope of preying upon vulnerable women.
With five Wilsons to squeeze into the action, Ferrell is more peripheral to Andrew and Luke Wilson's The Wendell Baker Story (2005), as he plays Dave Bix, the grasping grocery store owner who is married to Doreen (Eva Mendes), the beloved of the eponymous small-time crook (Luke Wilson), who works at the Shady Grove retirement hotel. Ferrell's more prominent in Susan Straman's The Producers (2005), however, in taking over the role of Franz Liebkind that had been originated by Kenneth Mars in the 1967 Mel Brooks's comedy that had inspired his Tony-winning Broadway musical.
If you thought 'Springtime For Hitler' was the showstopper, then rent this darkly comic gem again from Cinema Paradiso and watch Ferrell sock over 'Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop'. No wonder he landed a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical or Comedy. That said, not all of his flits back to the Swinging Sixties paid off in 2005, as Nora Ephron's Bewitched struggled to recreate the magic of William Asher's wonderfully witchy sitcom (1964-72) of the same name, which had starred Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.
In truth, Ferrell was miscast as Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell), the narcissistic actor who lands the role of Darrin in a remake of Bewitched and insists upon the casting of unknown Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) as Samantha, so that he can upstage her. What he doesn't know, however, is that Isabel herself is actually witch.
There was little on-screen spark between Ferrell and Kidman and he found himself equally at odds with Robert Duvall in Jesse Dylan's Kicking and Screaming (2005). Given that it was directed by the son of musical legend Bob Dylan, the insights into father-son relationships should have been intriguing. But antipathy reigns, as put-upon soccer coach Phil Weston (Ferrell) gets to take on his ultra-competitive dad, Buck (Duvall), when The Tigers go up against The Gladiators in a little league tournament.
The theme is fathers and daughters in Adam Rapp's Happy Endings (aka Winter Passing, 2005), which follows struggling actress Reese Holdin (Zooey Deschanel) from New York to Michigan, where she hopes to persuade her reclusive writer father, Don (Ed Harris), to let her publish his love letters to her mother. On arriving home, however, she finds Don residing in the garage, while the house is occupied by 23 year-old ex-student Shelly (Amelia Warner) and an aspiring Christian musician named Corbit (Ferrell).
If none of these features took the box office by storm, they still did steady business and kept Farrell in the comedy vanguard. But he felt the need to show that he could do more than raise belly laughs and sought the role of Harold Crick in Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction (2006). Dialling down the wattage of his screen persona, he excels as the tax auditor whose hesitant romance with free-spirited baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is disrupted by the fact he keeps hearing author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) narrating his life.
Having secured a second Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actor, Ferrell resumed normal service with Adam McKay's Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006). Praying to his own version of the Baby Jesus, he gives this NASCAR comedy the full throttle, as Ricky (Ferrell) forges an unbreakable partnership with best bud Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly), until it shears under the strain placed upon it by Dennit Racing's decision to recruit gay French driver, Jean Girad (Sacha Baron Cohen).
Considering his popularity with younger audiences, it's surprising that Ferrell had steered clear of kidpix to this point. In 2006, however, he signed up to Matthew O'Callaghan's Curious George to play tour guide Tim Shackleford (aka The Man in the Yellow Hat), who makes for Africa to fetch a giant African icon that might help save the museum owned by Mr Bloomsberry (Dick Van Dyke), which is losing so much money that son Junior (David Cross) wants to turn it into a parking lot.
Around this time, Ferrell formed the Funny or Die streaming site with Adam McKay and raised eyebrows when teaming the comedian with the director's two year-old daughter, Pearl, in The Landlord (2007). Ferrell also ventured into producing by taking an exec credit on Akiva Shaffer's Hot Rod (2007). He has largely concentrated on comedies and Cinema Paradiso users can check out his producorial efforts on Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland's The Virginity Hit (2010), Leslye Headland's Bachelorette (2012) and Sleeping With Other People (2015), Tommy Wirkola's Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Ben Falcone's Tammy (2014) and The Boss (2016), Shira Piven's Welcome to Me (2014), Adam McKay's Vice (2018), Olivia Wilde's Booksmart, Lorene Scafaria's Hustlers (both 2019) and Josh Greenbaum's Barb and Star Go to Vista Del (2021).
Nine Out of Ten Actors Would Not Do That
As the noughties wore on, the Ferrell formula kept adding up to commercial success. In Josh Gordon and Will Speck's Blades of Glory (2007), he refined the doltish competitive machismo of Ricky Bobby in playing figure skating champion Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell), whose feud with Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) results in them being banned from the World Winter Sport Games. But a loophole in the rules allows them to compete in the pairs event, where they hope the perilous Iron Lotus routine will give them victory over Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler)
Ferrell remained in a sporting frame of mind in Kent Alterman's Semi-Pro (2008), a basketball comedy set in 1976 that sees crooner Jackie Moon (Ferrell) use the profits from his sole hit, 'Love Me Sexy', to buy the Flint Tropics. When the team is faced with extinction, however, he trades the clubhouse washing-machine for washed-up Boston Celtics point guard Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson) in the hope of going on a winning streak.
The competitive edge is even stronger in Adam McKay's Step Brothers (2008), as infantile fortysomethings Brennan Huff (Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) are forced to get along after their respective divorcée mother Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) and widower father Robert (Richard Jenkins) get married. Full of boneheaded slapstick that is played to the hilt by Ferrell and Reilly, this may be lowbrow. But, with Judd Apatow serving as a producer, it's often very funny, even when you know the gags are beyond juvenile.
Yet, even the biggest stars have their off days and Ferrell was left floundering as Rick Marshall, the palaeontologist who slips through a time warp and comes face to face with some unfriendly dinosaurs in Brad Silberling's Land of the Lost (2009). In addition to winning the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, the picture also picked up another eight awards, including Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple for Ferrell.
On the plus side, in order to promote the film, Ferrell got to venture into the Arctic wilderness ('nine out of ten actors would not do that') for a 48-hour survivalist challenge. Cinema Paradiso users can find the expedition on the Season 4 disc of Bear Grylls: Born Survivor series. Indeed, this was a busy period on television for Ferrell, as he also guested as Ashley Schaeffer in the sports comedy, Eastbound & Down (2009-13), as Shane Hunter in 30 Rock (2006-13), and as Deangelo Vickers in The Office: An American Workplace (2005-13).
Most impressively, he allowed Marty Callner to make You're Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush (20009), a special record of the Tony-nominated Broadway show that had been directed by Adam McKay. Ferrell drew a Primetime Emmy nomination for his script, but always regretted that he had made Bush seem genial enough to re-elect.
Back on the big screen, Ferrell essayed another American president, as he contributed an indelible cameo to Neal Brennan's The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard (2009). The storyline sees hard-partying salesman Jeremy Piven attempt to sell a record number of cars in a weekend. But the talking point was Ferrell's sky dive in a stovepipe hat with a bag full of sex toys on his back rather than a parachute.
As Unspecial As I Am
Ferrell has made five features with Adam McKay, but they didn't share the writing duties on The Other Guys (2010), which offers a masterclass in sustaining not one, but three running gags. Overshadowed by NYPD detectives Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) and Danson (Dwayne Johnson), desk jockeys Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) set out to impress Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton) by snaring crooked businessman Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan). With Ferrell still in the shadow of his past (as a pimp named Gator), this is a gleeful meld of slapstick, improv and policier pastiche that often sees Ferrell playing straight man to Wahlberg's loose cannon.
There's more movie parody on offer in Tom McGrath's Megamind (2010), an animated adventure set in a Metro City that had become boring for its resident dome-headed blue alien supervillain since the death of Metro Man (Brad Pitt). However, things liven up when Hal Stewart (Jonah Hill), the cameraman who toddles after ace news reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey), decides to use his newly acquired superpowers for evil.
Having replaced an indisposed Robert Downey, Jr., Ferrell revels in playing such a goofball character and he reprised the role in the short, Megamind: The Button of Doom (2012). Cinema Paradiso users can find this treat among the extras on both the DVD and Blu-ray releases. Beat that streaming platforms!
By contrast, Ferrell's next assignment saw him take on his most dramatic role to date. Adapted from the Raymond Carver story, 'Why Don't You Dance', Dan Rush's feature bow, Everything Must Go (2010). casts Ferrell as Nick Porter, a reformed alcoholic salesman from Scottsdale, Arizona, who loses his job and his wife on the same day for falling off the wagon. Locked out of his house, he settles down on the front lawn to sell his possessions so he can move on. The critics were split over the Ferrell's change of pace, but shrewd comparisons were made with Jack Lemmon's performance in Blake Edwards's Days of Wine and Roses (1962).
Following a year out of the limelight, Ferrell returned speaking Spanish as Mexican rancher Armando Alvarez in Matt Piedmont's Casa de mi Padre (2012). This lampoon of the telenovela style co-stars Diego Luna as the younger brother who falls foul of drug lord Gael Garcia Bernal. Funny in places, this subtitled curio only really attracted attention when Christina Aguilera's theme tune was Oscar-nominated for Best Song.
A cameo as S'Wallow Valley Shopping Mall manager Damien Dweebs followed in Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012), which charts the efforts of the hapless duo to pay back the money they have frittered while making a short film with a Johnny Depp lookalike. The same year also saw the release of another of Ferrell's Marmite movies, as opinions were divided over the quality of the satire in Jay Roach's The Campaign.
What's not in doubt, however, is the calibre of Ferrell's performance as Cam Brady, who expects to run unopposed for a congressional seat in North Carolina before corrupt businessmen Glenn and Wade Motch (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) persuade small-town tourism director Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) to add his name to the ballot.
Having cameo'd uncredited as Kevin the mattress salesman alongside Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in Shawn Levy's The Internship (2013), Ferrell featured as author Eric Jonrosh in Matt Piedmont's six-part spoof of overblown literary adaptations, The Spoils of Babylon (2014). He played another writer in his first lead in a TV-movie drama, as he and wife Kristen Wiig have problems with surrogate mother Jessica Lowndes in Rachel Lee Goldenberg's A Deadly Adoption (2015).
In between times, Ferrell combined playing The Man Upstairs in the live-action segments of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's The Lego Movie (2014) with voicing Lord Business, the hissable boss of the Octan Corporation, who threatens to use robots to bring Bricksburg under his control. He would reprise the role in Mike Mitchell's The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), but had less to do and fewer killer lines like,'as unspecial as I am, you are a thousand, billion times more unspecial than me'.
While Ferrell's voiceover work continued to find favour, questions were increasingly being asked about the quality of his starring vehicles. He co-wrote Etan Cohen's Get Hard (2015), in which he plays James King, a rich hedge fund manager who hires car washer Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) to give him a crash course in prison etiquette after he's wrongfully sent to San Quentin for embezzlement. Yet, while the jokes about class, race, chauvinism and gay panic are knowingly pointed, they still induce more squirms than smirks.
Echoes of Step Brothers reverberate around Sean Anders's Daddy's Home (2015), as radio executive Brad Whitaker (Ferrell) has to compete with estranged dad Dusty Mayron (Mark Wahlberg) when he tries to become a good stepfather to the children of his new wife, Sara (Linda Cardellini). Once again, Ferrell seems to stooge for Wahlberg, while quietly stealing scenes. However, he had serious competition in Daddy's Home 2 (2017), as goodwill to all goes begging over the Christmas holidays, as Brad and Dusty are visited by their respective fathers, Don (John Lithgow) and Kurt (Mel Gibson).
More awkward domesticity abounds in Andrew J. Cohen's The House (2017), as Scott (Ferrell) and Kate Johansen (Amy Poehler) realise that the only way they'll be able to send their daughter to Bucknell University is by opening a casino in their home. What could possibly go wrong? However, the lukewarm reviews seemed positively glowing compared to those hurled at Etan Cohen's Holmes & Watson (2018), despite it reuniting Ferrell and John C. Reilly as the occupants of 221B Baker Street, who have called in to investigate a murder at Buckingham Palace.
Cohen and Reilly won their categories at the Razzies, while the film took the Worst Picture and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel double. Ferrell was spared such ignominy, however, as President Donald Trump landed Worst Actor for his appearances in Dinesh D'Souza's Death of a Nation and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 (both 2018).
Having paired up with Colin Quinn as an uncredited pair of vagrants to contrast the downward spiralling of bourgeois couple Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek in Fred Wolf's Drunk Parents, Ferrell guested as himself in Scott Aukerman's feature spin-off of the web series, Between Two Ferns: The Movie (both 2019). The same year, he also cropped up singing 'Mickey's Monkey' as film producer Rondell in James Franco's Zeroville (2019), a dystopic reverie on late 60s Hollywood that was perhaps fortunate only to rack up three nominations at the Golden Raspberries.
Subsequently, Ferrell has teamed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Downhill, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's remake of Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure (2014); shown up in a Miami restaurant in Chris Henchy's reality caper, Impractical Jokers: The Movie; and enjoyed the novelty of introducing the Oscar-nominated song, 'Husavik' in playing Icelandic singer Lars Erickssong opposite Rachel McAdams's Sigrit Ericksdóttir in David Dobkin's Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (all 2020).
He's currently acting in and producing Spirited, Sean Anders and John Morris's musical retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. In truth, he's in need of a hit. But, while they wait, Cinema Paradiso users can take their pick of Will Ferrell pictures past and present.
