Will Ferrell may be quick with a joke, but before he began filming his NASCAR comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” he wasn’t much of a speed racer.
“You want to hear the saddest story about me and speed,” Ferrell said during a July interview with reporters at Chicago’s Four Seasons Hotel, a day before he served as grand marshal of the Nextel Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet. “I drive a Toyota Prius. I proudly drive a Toyota Prius, but I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket ever in my life until I got my Prius. And I got a speeding ticket in my Prius going 50 in a 35. So, that’s how I like to live it–on the edge, yes.”
Prior to roaring down the streets of Beverly Hills in a four-cylinder hybrid, the Southern California native knew little about NASCAR or its drivers. It wasn’t until he and Adam McKay, his writing partner and the director of Ferrell’s “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” visited a track in Fontana, Calif., that Ferrell became hooked on the sport.
“It’s kind of addictive a little bit,” Ferrell said. “It’s this epic event. I now find myself tuning in on Sunday to see who’s leading. It’s also influenced by the fact that we’ve met a lot of these people. I now know enough to really enjoy it as a sport.
“It’s like a mini-Super Bowl each weekend. It’s about the race, but it’s about everything else at the same time.”
After his first NASCAR experience, Ferrell and McKay realized that producing a film on the sport was a no-brainer.
“It took us like three years to sell ‘Anchorman,’ ” Ferrell said. “We thought we should pick something that everyone knows, that is sort of in the consciousness–something like NASCAR. That’s a great idea. So, that’s how it kind of happened.”
The race was on once they got full cooperation from NASCAR officials to use its brand logos and racetracks. NASCAR also approved the sponsors of the film’s fictional cars, including Ferrell’s No. 26 Wonder Bread/Powerade car.
“I think their allowing us to make this movie showed their confidence in their audience,” Ferrell told the Boston Globe. “They realized we weren’t making fun of the fans. NASCAR’s just a great setting for these outlandish characters.”
Ferrell’s character in “Talladega Nights,” which opens Friday, certainly is outlandish. Ricky Bobby is an overachieving but undereducated driver who loses his mojo when he gets beaten by another racer played by comic Sacha Baron Cohen. Losing is bad enough for the homophobic dimwit who autographs women’s breasts, but getting his butt kicked by a gay French guy is the kiss of death in the macho sport.
The film also stars Chicago natives John C. Reilly and Michael Clarke Duncan, as well as Gary Cole and Leslie Bibb.
A lot of the film was shot at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, where Ferrell, Cohen and Reilly enrolled in a “no-crash” course. They started off riding shotgun with real NASCAR racers, but eventually drove laps around the oval in stock cars. NASCAR drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and Jamie McMurray all appear as themselves in the movie.
Even though Ferrell learned new skills for “Talladega Nights,” Ricky Bobby is just an extension of some of Ferrell’s most popular past characters. Bobby, Ron Burgundy (“Anchorman”), Jack Wyatt (“Bewitched”), Phil Weston (“Kicking and Screaming”) and Frank Ricard (“Old School”) all have something in common.
“I love characters with unearned confidence,” Ferrell said. “It’s just a really funny thing to me because I love in life meeting people who think they’re so important.”
Perhaps that’s why Ferrell is so low-key and down-to-earth in person. No entourage, no attitude. For his Chicago interview, he wasn’t even lugging around a bottle of water.
“He’s really one of the sweetest guys,” said Bibb, who plays Farrell’s wife, Carley, in the film. “You know how some comedians are kind of unapproachable and weird and not sort of happy? … He’s the nicest guy. He’s so kind, so generous and so confident in himself that he wants everyone to be funny.”
Well, nice guys always remember their friends. Ferrell is about to reunite with at least two of his Frat Pack brothers–Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson–in “Old School 2.” The sequel to their 2003 hit comedy about a bunch of frat boys who won’t grow up is currently in production and scheduled to be released sometime next year.
According to Ferrell, however, the sequel trades beers for babes.
“It’s a porn film,” Ferrell said with a straight face. “It’s the most challenging role of my career.”
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