“Sorry I got this”: the 1995 role that gave Will Ferrell a “guilty conscience”
Even Will Ferrell can have imposter syndrome.
Even though Saturday Night Live is still a popular program that generates a tremendous amount of attention and discourse, it is not producing comedy stars in the same way that it did decades ago.
In its earliest days, Saturday Night Live was a factory that initiated several of the biggest actors in the business into the industry and offered them a platform to test their abilities. While original cast members like Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, and John Belushi turned SNL into the sensation that it still is today, the show would also launch icons like Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, and Dan Carvey in the next few decades.
Although there were many figures within the late 1990s who would go on to have significant careers in the aftermath, few cast members took over Saturday Night Live quite like Will Ferrell. Ferrell was so obviously a comedic genius that the show couldn’t help but give him the best opportunities imaginable. Within a very short run, Ferrell developed some of SNL’s most iconic characters.
Ferrell’s ascension came at an alarming rate when compared to other Saturday Night Live luminaries, as he had only been appearing with the Groundlings comedy troupe for three years before he landed an audition for Lorne Michaels. Ferrell, though, later admitted that he felt somewhat guilty for getting a major gig when many of his contemporaries never got their shot.
“I got SNL with a bit of a guilty conscience,” Ferrell commented. “There were people who had been at the Groundlings for six or seven years and became my teachers; for me to then get picked for SNL after three years, I was, like, ‘Um, sorry I got this.’ I felt like a mouse who found this hunk of cheese that nobody else got.”
While Ferrell might have regretted blowing past his role at Groundlings so quickly, he certainly didn’t forget his collaborators. One of Ferrell’s foremost collaborators at Groundlings was Adam McKay, the filmmaker responsible for making some of his greatest hits. McKay directed five films that Ferrell starred in; later, Ferrell helped to produce McKay’s film The Big Short, which earned him an Academy Award for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’. Their partnership continued until the pair went their separate ways after a dispute over the show Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, as McKay did not reach out to Ferrell for the lead role of Pat Riley.
Ferrell unquestionably kept Saturday Night Live feeling relevant during a critical era in its history, and his impression of President George W Bush is perhaps the most successful political gag within the show’s history. It also can’t be said that Ferrell didn’t pay his dues and offer opportunities to his past collaborators, as nearly all of his films have a tremendous amount of bit parts given to rising comedy stars.
Ferrell remains among the last true icons to emerge from Saturday Night Live, but his career has been in a somewhat different place in the last decade. Without the collaborations with McKay, Ferrell’s film roles haven’t been as consistently strong, and he may have actually developed a better filmography thanks to the work that he has produced, including May December, Succession, and the Netflix documentary Will & Harper.
