I’m either a mid-level A-lister or a top-tier B-list actor,” remarked Will Ferrell in a recent interview with The New York Times. It’s a frank assessment from a man who was, for years, one of the most bankable stars on the planet. Comedy hits such as Elf (2003), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), and Blades of Glory (2007) have helped catapult the comedian to an astonishing $3,782,507,198 (£2.85bn) in career ticket sales in North America alone (according to Box Office Mojo).
But it wasn’t just that Ferrell was popular with the public: he was, and is, revered by his peers. “I don’t think anybody has ever made me laugh harder than Will Ferrell,” chat show host Conan O’Brien said of him. “As far as I am concerned, Will Ferrell is the funniest guy alive,” comedian Marc Maron agreed on his WTF podcast. “I will go to any Will Ferrell movie because I know, at some point, I will get an insanely deep, tremendous laugh.”
It’s true – or at least it used to be true, when there was still a decent supply of Ferrell movies in circulation in cinemas. His films, even the duds, always yielded moments of sheer comic rapture. Who could forget the wonderful bathos when he goes blind after playing his flute on the ice in Anchorman 2 (2013) – or that sublime scene in Daddy’s Home (2015) when he loses control of Mark Wahlberg’s motorbike and rampages straight through the house?
This was years ago, however, during Ferrell’s peak. Now, his place in the industry is less fixed. Hollywood is a town where comedians no longer hold the sway they once did. Ferrell has diversified his work, via a side hustle as a producer (he has won Emmy awards for Succession and Quiz Lady and was part of the team behind Todd Haynes’s Oscar-nominated melodrama May December). But these have been tougher-than-usual times for one of Hollywood’s most redoubtable funnymen.
Like his fellow Saturday Night Live alumni Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy, Ferrell is now as likely to turn up on the small screen on Netflix as in your local cinema. His latest film, Will & Harper (currently on limited release), isn’t a comedy but a documentary, focusing on Ferrell’s longstanding friendship with his former Saturday Night Live colleague Harper Steele. (The film also explores Steele’s life and coming out as a trans woman.) It’s a far cry from Ferrell’s mass-market comedy fare: the afternoon I went to see it in a cinema in north London earlier this week, I was the only spectator in the entire auditorium.
Will & Harper is no yuk-fest, but there is something infectiously funny about Ferrell just being himself. He was never quite the sort of actor to disappear into his roles: whether he’s playing the louche but strangely innocent news presenter in Anchorman, or the oversized manchild in the green tights raised by Santa’s little helpers in Elf, it’s always clear just who you’re watching.
Nobody could match Ferrell’s deadpan timing or his surreal imagination. He co-wrote much of his best work with his regular collaborator Adam McKay, and seemed to have an uncanny knack for the outlandish. Put him in a compound with grizzly bears, kick his pet dog off a bridge, or stick him in the middle of a vicious street fight with machete-wielding newscasters and he’d always find the sharpest comic edge.
He wasn’t above smutty jokes involving erections and breasts, but always performed them with a beatific expression that somehow atoned for their crudity. Ferrell was a gentle and offbeat screen presence who never came across as objectionable. He could do bawdy slapstick, dry irony and dreamy wistfulness. It was little wonder his movies were raking in millions.
Ferrell’s work transcended national boundaries. He gleefully embraced foreign cultures, making movies about quintessentially British figures like Sherlock Holmes, starring in a bizarre film celebrating the Eurovision Song Contest, and, perhaps most eccentric of all, making a feature, Casa de mi Padre, that was shot entirely in Spanish.
But Ferrell is growing older, and Hollywood seemingly no longer has much use for funnymen like him. Look through current box office charts and you’ll find plenty of hits in which actors give comic performances: Michael Keaton in the Beetlejuice sequel; Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine, and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the latest Bad Boys. However, gone are the days when it seemed as if Hollywood had been taken over by the comedy mavericks – performers such as John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Candy.
Ferrell is one of the last of those pure-blooded comedy stars, and even he is struggling in a Hollywood ecosystem dominated by bloated franchises and superhero movies. True, Greta Gerwig’s comedy Barbie, in which Ferrell had a cameo as the CEO of toy manufacturer Mattel, was a runaway hit last year, but this was an exceptional case – and no one would describe it as a “Will Ferrell film”.
To some extent, the disappearance of the studio comedy – Ferrell’s bread and butter – is simply a symptom of a larger problematic trend: the decline of the mid-budget feature. Studios now spend their money on huge tentpole blockbusters, or cheap, tiny independent films, with little scope for what comes in between. It’s not that films like Anchorman and Blades of Glory are being made without Ferrell’s involvement – they’re not getting made at all.
Hollywood has a long tradition of spitting out its biggest comedians. Charlie Chaplin was rejected because of his left-wing political beliefs. Buster Keaton, even more stony-faced than Ferrell, endured alcoholism, divorce, and such indifference from his studio bosses that when he appeared in a bit part in Sunset Boulevard, many people seemed to have forgotten who he was. By the end of his career, Jerry Lewis was almost more famous for his charity telethons than for his films.
At least Ferrell is still doing good work. Will & Harper may not have brought out the crowds in Hackney, but it is admirable and very moving, a documentary in which Ferrell accompanies his close friend Steele on an epic road trip across America. Steele was head writer at Saturday Night Live, hired by the show at around the same time that Ferrell himself turned up to work there nearly 30 years ago. They’ve been best pals ever since. Harper, a “lovable curmudgeon”, transitioned after the pandemic. Trying to make sense of their changing relationship, Ferrell proposed that they should travel cross-country together to figure out “what it all means”. In the film, they visit everywhere from Texas bars to lavish Vegas night spots. They bask in the majesty of the Grand Canyon, drink “s***ty” beer in supermarket car parks, and watch basketball together.
The film’s main focus is on Harper, but, along the way, there are some revealing insights into her travelling companion, too. Ferrell is as staunch and supportive a friend as you can imagine. He is clearly shocked to discover the loneliness and despair his old friend used to feel before coming out as trans.
If he has fallen from grace, Ferrell doesn’t seem remotely bothered. One of his most admirable qualities is his lack of self-pity. “I’ve always loved making other people laugh. I’ve never had the need to make you like me,” he once said.
If his movies are no longer the commercial beanfeasts they once were, it’s hardly his fault. To misquote Gloria Swanson, Ferrell is still big – it’s the Hollywood comedies that got small.
‘Will & Harper’ is on limited cinematic release now and streams on Netflix from 27 September
