COMEDY · COURAGE · COMPANY
Will Ferrell
The courage to
look ridiculous.
There is something generous about a performer who lets us see him try. There is something worth admiring in a friend who does the same.
By Rob Urban
The joke needs
someone to believe it.
A performer can announce that a situation is funny, or give us a person who takes it much too seriously. Will Ferrell has made an extraordinary amount of comedy out of the second possibility.
The character’s priorities remain intact long after everyone else would have abandoned them. A little dignity could be salvaged by admitting the absurdity. Ferrell frequently lets that opportunity pass. The character has something more pressing to do than protect the actor’s reputation.
That willingness is part of why I admire him. The audience gets a complete performance, with the embarrassment included. He does not require us to understand that a cooler person is hiding somewhere behind the costume.
It is tempting to call this fearlessness. Ferrell’s own account of finding his way into comedy is more useful than that. He has talked openly about fear, uncertainty and the encouragement that helped him keep trying. Knowing that makes the commitment more interesting. We are watching someone put the work ahead of the possibility of looking foolish.
A professor
asked him back.
At USC’s 2017 commencement, Ferrell recalled interrupting a friend’s literature class while dressed as a janitor. Professor Ronald Gottesman enjoyed the performance and invited him to return in character. USC’s account of the speech describes how that encouragement helped Ferrell imagine entertaining people who did not already know him.
That is a lovely detail to carry alongside the movie-star biography. Before an audience could recognize Will Ferrell, somebody had to be willing to watch an unfamiliar young man do something strange.
An invitation to come back can be surprisingly consequential. It tells a person that the first attempt was worth someone else’s time. The idea is allowed another outing. Confidence acquires a little evidence.
I like that Ferrell remembered the professor when he returned as the celebrated guest. A successful career can make its beginning look inevitable. Naming the person who encouraged an early experiment restores some of the uncertainty, and some of the gratitude, to the story.
A familiar face
learned among other faces.
The Groundlings lists Ferrell as an alumnus of its Los Angeles comedy company. His path to Saturday Night Live ran through a place where performers develop characters, work together and discover what an audience will actually receive.
That context matters when a comic personality becomes as recognizable as his. We tend to remember the person at the center of the scene. The scene also needs people who can receive the behavior, oppose it, misunderstand it or make its consequences visible.
Going all in is relational. A character who is disastrously certain of himself becomes clearer when someone else has to respond. A person can dominate a room because the surrounding performers give that domination shape. The reaction is part of the joke’s construction.
Ferrell’s scale can draw attention away from the precision. Yet a large choice still needs a particular desire behind it. Recognition, belonging, victory, respect: the audience needs to understand what is at stake for the person behaving so unreasonably. The ridiculous idea deserves structure. Once it has structure, it can travel much further than the first laugh.
Buddy believes
he belongs.
In Elf, a human raised at the North Pole travels to New York to find his father. That premise gives Ferrell’s Buddy an enormous distance to cross, socially as well as geographically. His understanding of the world arrives intact in a place that has made very different arrangements.
The comic contrast is immediate. The emotional value comes from how sincerely Buddy wants a place in other people’s lives. His enthusiasm is inconvenient, but it is also an offer. He approaches people as though delight might be something they would like to share.
There is a delicate balance in that performance. Too much knowingness would make the innocence feel like a con. A little contempt for Buddy would make it easier to laugh at him and harder to care what happens to him. Ferrell lets the desire to belong remain visible inside the comedy.
That is a generous thing to give an audience. We can enjoy the extravagance and still recognize an ordinary human wish. Most of us have entered a room with more hope than evidence that we would be welcome. Buddy simply has fewer methods for concealing it.
The costume is memorable. The openness gives it somewhere to live.
There is another way
to stay in the scene.
In Will & Harper, the commitment takes a quieter form. Ferrell travels across the United States with his longtime friend and comedy collaborator Harper Steele, who has come out as a trans woman. The film gives their friendship time, distance and conversation.
Director Josh Greenbaum describes Ferrell’s growing attention to listening in his account of making the documentary. He also acknowledges that celebrity and cameras affect the encounters. The film follows these particular friends, with their particular history and circumstances.
What moves me about that premise is the practical size of the gesture. A road trip means hours beside another person. There will be pauses. There will be questions that cannot be wrapped up before the next exit. Affection has to occupy time.
A person famous for making himself the center of attention can use that attention to bring us into a relationship, then let us care about the other person in it. Steele has her own voice, history, humor and reasons for wanting to travel. The friendship becomes meaningful because both people are present.
Being willing to look uncertain has value here too. A polished statement of support can be delivered from a comfortable distance. Listening asks you to remain close enough for the answer to change what you understand.
Humor can keep
the door open.
Greenbaum describes a conversational rhythm in which Ferrell and Steele move between jokes and serious questions. Their humor belongs to the relationship. It allows the film to be about people who enjoy each other, even as they talk about painful experiences.
I appreciate that room for ordinary pleasure. A person facing judgment still gets to be funny, impatient, curious and good company. Friendship contains all of that. Care becomes more convincing when it has space for the whole person.
Comedy often gives us permission to approach something we might otherwise keep at a distance. The laugh creates a small opening. What happens inside that opening depends on the attention and kindness of the people making the work.
Ferrell’s career offers many versions of commitment. Some are wonderfully excessive. This one includes staying beside a friend and allowing a conversation to take its own time. I admire the range of that willingness.
Let them see you try.
There is a protective advantage to appearing only mildly invested. If an idea fails, we can suggest we never cared much about it. Ferrell’s best comic work gives up that protection. The character cares enormously. The audience is allowed to see the effort, the need and the wonderfully disproportionate response.
For a writer, that is an encouraging example. A funny premise becomes more interesting when it has a person inside it. A strange choice becomes worth following when it reveals something. Commitment gives the reader enough to respond to, even when the response is a delighted disbelief that anyone would go that far.
And beyond performance, there is something admirable about being willing to stay visible while learning. Ferrell has given us characters who cannot recognize their own absurdity. He has also let us see a friend trying to understand more than he did before.
Both require the person in front of us to remain in the moment. That is where the laugh can happen. It is also where another person can feel that someone is still listening.
A few details about the work
Where did Will Ferrell develop his early comedy work?
Will Ferrell is an alumnus of The Groundlings in Los Angeles. He joined Saturday Night Live in 1995.
Who does Will Ferrell play in Elf?
Ferrell plays Buddy, a human raised as an elf at the North Pole who travels to New York to find his father.
What is Will & Harper about?
Will & Harper is a documentary directed by Josh Greenbaum about a cross-country road trip taken by Will Ferrell and his longtime friend Harper Steele after Steele came out as a trans woman.
Sources: The Groundlings; USC’s report of Ferrell’s 2017 commencement address; the IMAX synopsis of Elf; and Josh Greenbaum’s Netflix interview about Will & Harper. Checked September 2026. Critical observations are Rob Urban’s.
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