"The first family car was a Chevy Impala that I remember my mom made a u-turn once and made my brother flew out the backdoor into the street. It was very exciting as a little kid to see your little brother go fly," he says.
The 6’3" actor-comedian met with The STAR during the recent junket for Columbia Pictures’ wild and wacky comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
The movie, set in the fascinating yet unfamiliar world of Nascar racing, stars Ferrell as Ricky Bobby, a racing champion who as a boy learned from his racing-stricken yet rarely-seen dad that in life as in racing if he "ain’t first, he’s last", thus fuelling in Ricky a drive to always go fast and be always the first at the end of every race until a challenger from France comes along and starts getting in his way.
Featuring an ensemble of immensely gifted comedians, the film also stars former Elite Model winner Leslie Bibb, who counts Oprah Winfrey as her discoverer, and Oscar-nominated actor John C. Reilly, who, in 2002, starred in four of that year’s best films Chicago, Gangs of New York, The Hours and Far from Heaven.
In the interview room, the lanky actor was in a bubbly mood and was punctuating some of his stories with bogus but incredibly witty references.
When asked about the almost sexual connection men have with their cars, the actor quipped: "All cars are designed by men so… there you go. Yeah, Henry Ford – he was wild in the sack from what I read."
"Where did you read that?" we asked.
"What? Oh I just made it up," he revealed.
Nothing is really unexpected from the actor who is considered to be one of the prime movers of a new brand of American comedy. Called the Frat Pack, the group also includes Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Steve Carrell and Vince Vaughn. They are so-called because of their several collaborations on TV and movies that started in 2001’s Zoolander, in which Stiller, Wilson and Vaughn also starred in.
"A lot of us truly think each other funny and still weave in and out of each other’s projects," he says. "I think why were drawn to each other is the shared kind of collective sensibility that we all, more or less, think the same types of things that are funny. It’s flattering that people are talking about this as leading a new brand of comedy: middle late-30s adult humor and at the same time petulance and undercurrents of silly boys that opens it up to girls to laugh at."
Ferrell hit mainstream prominence in the fall of 2003 when his first solo movie Elf took the top box-office spot for several weeks and grossing over $100-M in American box-office. His follow-up, Ron Burgundy, also took in top box-office dollars, earning the actor a real shot at Hollywood stardom. He has since then starred in Bewitched, Kicking and Screaming and The Producers.
But stardom came after a long wait.
The actor ventured into show business in 1989 when he joined the famed improvisational comedy group The Groundlings after graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in Sports Broadcasting.
It won’t be after six years when his talent would be finally noticed.
"My dad told me once, ‘Just know that it has a lot to do with luck. If it is based solely on talent, I won’t worry about you because I think you’re so talented. But just know that there’s luck involved,’" he recalls. "And for some reason that took the pressure off, it didn’t lead me to a place like ‘oh, I should never try then.’"
He was touring various comedy clubs for six years when an opportunity to work as a regular cast member of the long-running late-night NBC live comedy show, Saturday Night Live came his way.
"I knew I had a good show the night they (the show producers) were there and the next day I got a call for an audition and it just kind of kept going from there."
He got the job all right and he stayed on the show for seven years. Interestingly however, to get into the show, he edged out another aspiring comedian who would later rise into prominence albeit a decade later. That comedian was Steve Carrell.
Currently, the actor is filming Blades of Glory with Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder. He is also set to star in one of the year’s highly anticipated films Stranger than Fiction with Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman.
The latter film is a huge departure for the actor who has cultivated a career portraying idiosyncratic, crazy characters that go into situations that are so stupid they’re funny.
"There’s definitely expectations that I’m gonna do something crazy," he says. "I kinda gather myself and if I feel like having fun, I will. If not I’ll just be ‘how you doin?’ and then they’re definitely disappointed and they hate me, hate me for it. It’s like you can tell there’s anticipation and then I just keep on going."
In Talladega Nights however, the actor doesn’t disappoint. There’s a particular sequence that will surely elicit the biggest reaction: mixed reaction, that is, from the crowd.
That scene in question is a kiss near the end of the movie. "It’s not kind of big a deal, we just kind of go for it. I think it’s more secondary that we are gonna kiss, it’s more the excitement that ‘oh, this could be really funny.’"
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby opens today in select theaters. As for that kiss, here is Ferrell’s last take on that scene.
"It’s one of those explosive moments where reactions can go either crazy or dead silence, that’s our goal – to try to push that."