Will Ferrell

Info

Full Name: John William Ferrell
Date of birth: July 16, 1967 (59 years old)
Location: Irvine, California
Country: USA

Will Ferrell has been active for 2026 years, participating in 64 movies that average a 5.6/10 score.

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Tráiler en VOSE de 'Harry Potter' T1

Biography

He was born in Irvine, California, on 16 July 1967, and the first thing he saw of show business was his father packing for tour. Roy Ferrell played saxophone and keyboards for the Righteous Brothers, a job with no steady wage that shaped the household. His parents divorced when he was eight. He studied sports information at the University of Southern California, planning to commentate on games rather than perform.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1991 and joined the improv troupe The Groundlings, the training ground for several generations of American comics. There he met Chris Kattan and the pair built the Butabi brothers, two nightclub bores who nodded their heads to 'What Is Love'. NBC hired him for 'Saturday Night Live' in 1995.

Seven seasons on 'Saturday Night Live'

He stayed until 2002 and left as the most imitated comic of his generation. He played George W. Bush through the whole 2000 campaign, Alex Trebek in the celebrity 'Jeopardy!' sketches, the baseball commentator Harry Caray and the singer Robert Goulet. The cowbell sketch is his too, with Christopher Walken demanding "more cowbell" at a Blue Öyster Cult recording session, still one of the show's most quoted five minutes.

By 2001 he was the highest paid member of the cast, on 350,000 dollars a season. He was already making films alongside it: Mustafa, the henchman who can't keep a secret, in 'Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery' and 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' for Mike Myers; the Butabis on the big screen in 'A Night at the Roxbury', which he co-wrote; and the designer Mugatu in Ben Stiller's 'Zoolander'.

Buddy the elf and Ron Burgundy

2003 changed everything. First came 'Old School', with Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson, where his character ends up streaking down a suburban street. Then 'Elf', the story of a human raised among Santa's elves, directed by Jon Favreau with Zooey Deschanel, James Caan and Bob Newhart. It has become a fixture of December television.

The following year brought 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy', written with Adam McKay, his old head writer at 'Saturday Night Live'. Ron Burgundy, the moustachioed 1970s newsreader with no idea how awful he is, remains his most quoted creation. Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate filled out the newsroom.

He and McKay made four more together: 'Talladega Nights' (2006), about an idiot NASCAR driver; 'Step Brothers' (2008), two grown men still living with their parents; the cop comedy 'The Other Guys' (2010), with Mark Wahlberg; and 'Anchorman: The Legend Continues' (2013). Three of them co-starred John C. Reilly, his most frequent double act.

Away from McKay he kept the comedies coming: 'Starsky & Hutch' (2004), 'Wedding Crashers' (2005), 'Blades of Glory' (2007) with Jon Heder, 'Land of the Lost' (2009), 'The Campaign' (2012) opposite Zach Galifianakis, 'Get Hard' (2015) with Kevin Hart and 'Daddy's Home' (2015) with its sequel.

Not all of it landed. 'Holmes & Watson' (2018), another outing with Reilly, took a critical hammering that people still bring up. Back in 2007 he and McKay had also launched the video site Funny or Die, which opened with a short in which the director's small daughter turned up to collect the rent.

The parts nobody expected

He kept slipping other kinds of role between the slapstick. Woody Allen cast him in 'Melinda and Melinda' (2004). He played the pigeon-keeping Nazi playwright in 'The Producers' (2005), the film of Mel Brooks's musical with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Uma Thurman. That same year he was the husband of the witch in 'Bewitched', with Nicole Kidman, directed by Nora Ephron.

His best dramatic work is still 'Stranger Than Fiction' (2006), directed by Marc Forster: a grey tax inspector who starts hearing the voice of the novelist writing him, with Emma Thompson as the blocked author, plus Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dustin Hoffman. It brought him a Golden Globe nomination, his second after 'The Producers'.

In 2009 he took a ninety minute George W. Bush monologue to Broadway, 'You're Welcome America', and came away with a Tony nomination. Three years later he made the oddest film of his career, 'Casa de mi Padre' (2012), a Mexican soap opera parody shot entirely in Spanish with Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna. Ferrell doesn't speak Spanish and learned the script phonetically.

The last decade has been split between animation and supporting parts. He was President Business in 'The LEGO Movie' (2014) and its sequel, voiced 'Megamind' (2010) and turned up in 'Despicable Me 4' (2024). He also remade 'Force Majeure' with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as 'Downhill' (2020).

Three recent titles travelled furthest. 'Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga' (2020), which he co-wrote and led with Rachel McAdams, Pierce Brosnan and Dan Stevens; the Christmas musical 'Spirited' (2022), with Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer; and the Mattel chief executive in 'Barbie' (2023), for Greta Gerwig.

Producer, football investor and the road trip with Harper

His least visible work is as a producer. Gary Sanchez Productions, the company he ran with McKay, closed in 2019 when the two dissolved the partnership; since 2020 he has run Gloria Sanchez with Jessica Elbaum. Between them they made 'Booksmart', 'Hustlers', 'Vice', 'The Menu', 'Theater Camp' and the series 'Dead to Me'. He is also an executive producer on 'Succession', which has won him several Emmys for best drama series.

In 2024 Netflix released 'Will & Harper', Josh Greenbaum's documentary about his drive across the United States with Harper Steele, a 'Saturday Night Live' writer and his friend since 1995, who had come out as a trans woman two years earlier. Seventeen days on the road, New York to Los Angeles, to find out what happened when she walked into the dive bars they used to visit together. The film collected five Emmy nominations.

The football came later but it stuck. He has been a co-owner of Los Angeles FC since the club was founded, and in 2024 he took a minority stake in 49ers Enterprises, the group that owns Leeds United. He has been to Elland Road as a supporter, and in March 2026 he was named an ambassador for the Los Angeles World Cup host committee.

He married the Swedish actress and art auctioneer Viveca Paulin on 12 August 2000, after meeting her in an acting class. They have three sons: Magnus, born in 2004, Mattias in 2006 and Axel in 2010.

Since his university days he has worked with Cancer for College, the scholarship charity set up by one of his fraternity brothers, raising money through everything from benefit dinners to a sun cream line. In April 2018 he walked away from a crash on the Interstate 5 in California in which the SUV he was travelling in overturned.

2026 brought him back to television with 'The Hawk', the ten episode Netflix series he created with Harper Steele and Chris Henchy, playing a fading golfer chasing a US Open title. Molly Shannon, another 'Saturday Night Live' alumnus, plays his ex-wife. It landed on 16 July to mixed reviews.

Two months before that, on 16 May, he had hosted the season 51 finale of 'Saturday Night Live' with Paul McCartney as musical guest, his sixth time back in the job and a record among former cast members matched only by Chevy Chase and Tina Fey. Still to come are the action comedy 'Judgment Day', directed by Nicholas Stoller with Zac Efron and Regina Hall, and 'Tough Guys' with Ryan Gosling.

At 59 he's doing what he did at twenty-eight in Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center: putting on a ridiculous costume and keeping a straight face longer than anybody else in the room.