Will Ferrell, the sexy beast of comedic blockbusters, is seriously funny but can he eventually go from being funny to serious?
In the future, John William Ferrell may pull a Larry-to-Laurence (as in Fishburne) name change as his acting chops evolve but until then he’ll continue to captivate audience through sheer “Will” power.
That statement would have a lot more punch and less "cornpone" if it was delivered in an understated manner, with a deadpan visage and no signs of irony or whimsy. Add to that a stern “wait for it” face that makes you feel awkward to the point of cracking a smile and you get most of the ingredients to a recipe for box office molten gold.
We’ve all seen Will Ferrell streaking naked, donning too-tight swim trunks, playing the flute and telling female co-stars to return to their home on “whore island”. And we have all nearly choked on popcorn and assorted toffee laughing at the seemingly effortless comedy performances that were really just damn good treatments of quirky characters who would take themselves quite seriously if they were real people.
Consider Blades of Glory protagonist Chazz Michael Michaels, Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Stranger than Fiction’s Harold Crick, all solemn portrayals of occasionally funny people rather than the other way around. Case in point, if someone were to say they didn’t die laughing when Ron Burgundy told his male cohorts in Anchorman that he would woo Christina Applegate’s Veronica Corningstone by giving her “tickets to the gun show,” (flexing his biceps without so much as a smile) that person is a candidate for a DNA test to determine their relationship to the human race. Moreover, movie-stealing turns as Big Earl in Starsky & Hutch, Franz Liebkind in The Producers, Cubby the Funeral Director in Drowning Mona and his other Chazz (Reinhold) in Wedding Crashers are, in this columnist’s words, “legend-to-the-dary.”
Ferrell is a crowd favorite because he’s an effective hybrid of what every movie star should be. He is a burgeoning “brand actor,” the antithesis of a Philip Seymour Hoffman on the drama side and Sacha Baron Cohen on the comedy side. Much like Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Will Smith, we know it’s him in every single performance regardless of any thought of a degree of talent. Regardless of the nuances of the individual characters on screen, the mannerisms, cadence of language, use of facial expressions and accent usually remain the same and that’s what makes us comfortable. Ferrell doesn’t have in his repertoire the over-the-top hijinks, physical mastery and improvisation of Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy. Nor does he possess the pithy, manic fury of Adam Sandler. Further, his ability to filter the shamelessness of his characters falls just short of Cohen. Yet stangely he still manages to infuse all these traits in his technique and this will give him the fuel he needs to leave all of the aforementioned box office comedy stalwarts in the dust.
His upcoming project is Semi Pro and is slated for release next year. The flick also stars Andre 3000 from OutKast, fellow straight-laugher-man Will Arnett, and Woody Harrelson. Ferrell’s character Jackie Moon is a 1970s baller with a wicked -- not jump shot -- set shot. Moon is the owner-coach-player of the American Basketball's Association's Flint Michigan Tropics who are trying to merge with the NBA. The tagline is “Let’s get Tropical.” Let’s see, tight shorts, curly white-man afro, long socks, possibly a headband. All this, pulled off without a goofy smile on his face, equals two words: cha-ching!
Is that the male cheerleader dude?
Notwithstanding the current affinity toward master John William, the certainty that nothing lasts forever has to be running through the minds of his handlers as well as the man himself. You see, people love formulas – in Ferrell’s case as of late, sports movies – that is until writers, cultural critics and snooty essayists start to label a project, a star or a method of presentation formulaic. Then based on our culture’s natural tendency toward schadenfreude, Ferrell starts to become a parody of himself. Following this will be some young hack on Saturday Night Live pretending to be Ferrell pretending to be, say, Buddy from Elf.
While this is the highest form of flattery, it can also be the sign of a period when starpower can plummet like a penny stock.Thus the logical choice is to go the Tom Hanks/Jim Carrey route. In other words, "I’m no longer a frat boy or an ice skater but now I’m an Armenian shop stewart coping with the gut wrenching task of living in Turkey at the turn of the 20th century." There’s also the Greg Kinnear approach: hapless and naïve white businessman who happens to be a master of the corporate universe but constantly grapples with crises of conscience.
These are the only real alternatives. Because while a guy like Dane Cook could easily morph into an action star and Cohen can end up an indie drama darling along the lines of an Adrien Brody, there’s a litmited window for Ferrell. But even choosing the Hanks/Carrey/Kinnear modus operandi presents an inherent caution sign on the road to artistic self-realization and thespian diversification. Who can look at Will Ferrell without laughing their ass off? At this juncture in his career where he’s at the peak of stardom and the cusp of super-uber-duper stardom, his gift could inexplicably and then later inexorably be his curse. He could probably do pretty well as a drug-addled cop on the edge but somone without refinement, who doesn’t know the difference between a movie and a film is going to scream at the screen, “Man that’s Mustafa from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” Then his dimwit girlfriend will no doubt argue that it isn’t Mustafa but Frank “The Tank” Ricard from Old School. By the time James Lipton interrupts the conversation and corrects them both explaining that the man on the screen is in fact Hobie from Woody Allen’s comic tragedy Melinda and Melinda, anyone willing to give old John William a chance to change will be too exhausted to sit through it.
So, if Ferrell wants to truly be taken seriously in the long run, perhaps it will take a string of flops, a drunk driving conviction or a long hiatus to get the viewing public to actually recognize his range as an actor. One suggested move to temper the shock of the sudden jaunt from Ricky Bobby to Bill the disillusioned investment banker would be to give it to the public piecemeal. Not piecemeal like one Stranger than Fiction per five Blades but piecemeal as in a few small cameos in deadly serious films. This would help him three-fold.
One: By keeping his name out there and cementing his humility and the current perception that it’s about the work for him.
Two: By giving him a chance learn something valuable by getting his buns handed to him in a scene by a Dustin Hoffman, a Gene Hackman or a Ryan Gosling.
Three: By giving an otherwise drab drama pic some comedic relief and increasing its commercial viability.
That’s the ticket: big star, small roles until small roles create an even bigger star. In the meantime he can continue to make us laugh by sheer power of “Will.” That’s sheer power of “Will!” You know you want to laugh.
