Will Ferrell’s out-there humor explodes in new film

By Kelli Henderson/entertainment editor

As Will Ferrell sat down at the table, an awkward silence came over the room as the group of star-stunned college reporters stared blankly at the comedian and his trademark curly locks.

Ferrell stopped in Dallas on his tour across the U.S. to get the word out about his new movie Casa de mi Padre.

The idea behind the low-budget film came from Ferrell channel-surfing one day and coming across the alternate universe of telenovelas. After hearing a rumor that someone was writing a telenovela for one of the big studios, he said he hurried to execute his idea first.

Because distributors and studios were hesitant on the idea, the film was given only $6 million and 24 days to shoot.

“When you have a limited amount for a budget, you don’t have to worry about sets looking good,” Ferrell said. “It just adds to the movie.”

He said it was something he had never seen before and thought if he could get a good cast behind it, the film would be something worth taking a risk on.

“I thought it could be one of those crossover things that appeals to Hispanics but also to an English-speaking audience,” he said. “The initial idea came from like, ‘It would be crazy-ass to put myself in a Spanish film.’”

He said it took six weeks prior to the first day of filming to learn his lines, the language and style. Nearly everyone in the cast and crew knew Spanish. Some, such as Genesis Rodriguez and Diego Luna, had even gotten their start in telenovelas.

“Everyone was an expert on the style,” Ferrell said. “I felt really lucky other than the fact that if they wanted to improvise though, I had no idea so they would change the lines constantly, and I would just listen and go … ‘Here’s my

line.’”

Because Ferrell did learn the language and learned to speak it quite well, he said that led to controversy about his character’s speech. His lines are in the usted form, which is very formal, unnatural at times. But he said that was the joke, and they intentionally made sure the translation stayed bad.

In the film, Ferrell’s character must save his family and ranch from a famous druglord, a story the United States and Mexico have both seen too many times in news stories. When the script was written, Ferrell said the initial intent was just to have a crazy story. But once writer Andrew Steele dug deeper into the story, they saw the chance to show something bigger.

“We really saw it as an opportunity to kind of show, as Americans, we understand the Mexicans’ perspective as well. It really is a two-way street,” he said. “I think we were able to be satirical in the middle of this crazy comedy, and I think that is really important, and it’s always fun when you can do that.”

Because this is one of the most out-there films he has done, Ferrell said Casa de mi Padre will more than likely be a hit on DVD and Blu-Ray. He said although it is “a telenovela meets bad Spanish Western,” he knows college students will give it two thumbs up.

“I just think it’s right up your guys’ alley,” he said. “You guys are the next generation in determining what is going to happen with our country and what our views are going to be. And you’re all deciding what your views are, and I think this is kind of a funny movie to kind of articulate all that.”

Matt Piedmont and Steele were the best choices for director and writer for the film, Ferrell said. Because they all started at Saturday Night Live together, they all seem to have the same way of thinking. He said there wasn’t one time in the movie where they disagreed or thought the others had bad ideas. They would feed off of each other and agree to make the ideas even crazier.

“That’s sort of the spirit of this movie, to be that adventurous and ambitious within the confines of a small budget,” he said. “Had we gone to a studio, they would’ve said things like ‘What? You can’t! First of all, way too many butts — and a mannequin? Why? Can we lose the mannequin?’ They would have tried to shape this in a way to make it one way or another for their needs, and we were totally just left alone.”

The comedian, writer and director were left alone to create a film that will surprise the audience in many ways. It has plot twists and spots where the cinematography is excellent, which Ferrell said was their point. They made conscious decisions on where they wanted to slow down and take their time and make the audience stop and think it actually is professionally made.

Fans of Ferrell look forward to the crazy movies he will do next, but not all critics may enjoy his work. Ferrell said he doesn’t care. He set out to make something no one has ever made before, and he has achieved that.

“I’ve been on a number of movies that were criticized at first, later celebrated,” he said. “We just did something we thought was funny, and we know we made an incredibly unique movie in a time that I think the audience is dying for that, and that’s all you can do. It kind of doesn’t matter what the critics say.”