The Movie that Will Ferrell Thought Would End His Career

Will Ferrell’s new Netflix series The Hawk debuts on Thursday, which means he’s making the press rounds. You can watch him on Hot Ones on Netflix with Fortune Feimster and Jimmy Tatro — they do not fare well, if being able to carry on a conversation while consuming hot sauce is a barometer for success. But Ferrell also made an appearance on this week’s Good Hang with Amy Poehler, where he discussed his SNL days, his wife of 25 years, Swedish stereotypes (she’s Swedish), showered Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, and Chris Parnell (among others) with compliments, and joked about the terrible Blades of Glory Rotten Tomatoes score (it was 7, but has since climbed all the way up to 20 percent!). There’s also a nice section on his fantastic documentary Will & Harper.

But he also spoke of his time immediately after SNL. When he left, he had no job. Zoolander had come out (in 2001, not a great year for comedy) and had not yet found an audience. Old School was finished but had been delayed. So, basically, he thought his post-SNL career rested on one film, and it didn’t sound like he had a lot of confidence in it.

“I’m coming off of SNL. I’m known for a PG-13 pushing R brand of humor. And, I’m sitting here in my trailer in my elf tights looking in the mirror going, ‘What have you done?’”

“We shoot the New York stuff first [that includes the ending], and I don’t even know who this character is. I’m walking around in yellow tights going ‘Oh my god. This could be it. That guy was so funny, but then he made this movie where he played a giant elf. Oh [that poor guy].’”

“I just remember thinking, ‘This is either going to be a huge home run or a complete strikeout.’”

The movie, of course, is Elf, and obviously, it was a complete strikeout that no one has ever heard of. End of story. Who is Will Ferrell again?

It’s a good thing that Elf did well, because the movie after that was Starsky & Hutcy and that one might have actually killed his career.

I should also note that at the end of the episode, Ferrell and Poehler go long on an SNL sketch that Ferrell loved but that didn’t make it onto the show because it bombed at table read. It’s a funny idea, but Ferrell actually ran it on Late Night with Seth Meyers’ Second Chance Theater and, you know what? Lorne was smart to cut it. The problem isn’t that people don’t know who Gabe Kaplan is. The problem is that the idea runs out of steam in about 30 seconds.