Will Ferrell
(born July 16, 1967, Irvine, California, U.S.) is an American
comedy
actor, writer, and producer known for his impersonations and for his portrayal of dim-witted but endearing characters.
Ferrell grew up in suburban
Irvine
,
California
, where he played varsity football and drew laughs for reading the
high school’s
morning announcements in a variety of voices. He later studied sports journalism at the
University of Southern California
in
Los Angeles
. After graduating in 1990, he worked as a sports broadcaster on local cable before studying
acting
and comedy. After a year of training with the Los Angeles improv comedy group
the Groundlings
, he became a member of the company, and in 1995 he was invited to join the television sketch show
Saturday Night Live
(
SNL
).
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With his manic energy, outlandish gags, and energetic commitment even to a failing joke, Ferrell became a fixture on
SNL
. He was well known for his impersonations, notably of
game show
host
Alex Trebek
, sportscaster
Harry Caray
, and U.S. Pres.
George W. Bush
. While on
SNL
, Ferrell also appeared in such feature films as the
James Bond
parody
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
(1997);
Dick
(1999), a
satire
of the
Watergate scandal
; and
Zoolander
(2001; he later appeared in its
2016 sequel
as well), a fashion-industry send-up.
In 2002 Ferrell left
SNL
to focus on a film career, often
collaborating
with
Adam McKay
, a writer and director he had met on
SNL
. The following year Ferrell was one of the stars in
Old School
, and he took the lead role in
Elf
(2003), playing a charmingly naive human raised in
Santa
’s village who ventures to
New York City
. Both films were box office successes. He then starred in a string of hit comedies, notably
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
(2004) and the
NASCAR
spoof
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
(2006), both of which he cowrote with McKay. In 2005 Ferrell portrayed a Nazi playwright in the
musical comedy
The Producers
, and he played equally outlandish characters in the sports comedies
Blades of Glory
(2007) and
Semi-Pro
(2008).
His subsequent film roles included a bumbling scientist in the adventure comedy
Land of the Lost
(2009) and an alien supervillain in the animated
Megamind
(2010). Although most of Ferrell’s film work was broadly comic in tone, he occasionally took on more serious roles, including a methodical
Internal Revenue Service
agent in
Stranger than Fiction
(2006) and an alcoholic selling his possessions in
Everything Must Go
(2010), an
adaptation
of a
Raymond Carver
short story
.
In 2006 Ferrell and McKay launched Gary Sanchez Productions. Through that company they produced several other movies in which Ferrell starred, including the farcical
Step Brothers
(2008), which they cowrote; the buddy-movie parody
The Other Guys
(2010);
Casa de mi padre
(2012; “My Father’s House”), a Spanish-language send-up of Mexican
telenovelas
; the political satire
The Campaign
(2012); and
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
(2013). The production company was also behind
Funny or Die
(funnyordie.com), a
Web site
that first garnered notice with a short video of Ferrell being intimidated by his landlady, a beer-swigging potty-mouthed toddler.
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Ferrell voiced a tyrannical businessman in
The LEGO Movie
(2014), a computer-animated film that used renderings of plastic
LEGO
toys as the characters and set pieces. He also lent his voice to the sequel,
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
(2019). In the racially charged satire
Get Hard
(2015), Ferrell played a hedge-fund manager who, after being framed for
insider trading
, looks to a black employee (
Kevin Hart
) for assistance on learning how to survive in prison. He played a hapless stepfather whose relationship with his stepchildren is challenged by the arrival of their father (
Mark Wahlberg
) in
Daddy’s Home
(2015). In 2017 he
reprised
the role in
Daddy’s Home 2
and also starred with
Amy Poehler
in
The House
, about a suburban couple who run an illegal casino in order to pay for their daughter’s college tuition. In
Holmes & Watson
(2018), Ferrell assumed the role of
Sherlock Holmes
for the comedic take on
Arthur Conan Doyle
’s classic tales. His film credits from 2020 included
Downhill
, a dramedy about a struggling couple on a family vacation, and
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
, in which he starred as an aspiring Icelandic musician. He later appeared with
Ryan Reynolds
in
Spirited
(2022), a musical comedy inspired by
Charles Dickens
’s
A Christmas Carol
. He then played the head of the toy company Mattel in
Greta Gerwig
’s
Barbie
(2023).
In 2009 Ferrell made his
Broadway
debut
in the one-man play
You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush
, which he wrote. The play featured Ferrell’s Bush giving some imaginative reminiscences and defenses of his administration. It earned a
Tony Award
nomination for special theatrical event and was broadcast on the cable channel
HBO
at the end of the stage production’s run in March 2009. Ferrell periodically returned to the small screen for guest appearances, notably on several episodes of the sitcoms
30 Rock
(in 2010 and 2012) and
The Office
(in 2011). He was also featured in the comic miniseries
The Spoils of Babylon
(2014) and
The Spoils Before Dying
(2015) as a bloviating author and director. In
The Shrink Next Door
(2021), a miniseries based on a podcast, Ferrell played an insecure man who becomes a patient of a
manipulative
psychiatrist (
Paul Rudd
).
In 2011 he received the
Mark Twain
Prize for American Humor.