Will Ferrell’s unsung contribution to the 1995 OJ Simpson trial: “It was very bizarre”
England might be doing pretty well in the World Cup over in the US at the moment, but the last time it was held there in 1994, we didn’t even qualify.
That left those of us watching the tournament with three abiding memories: Diana Ross missing a penalty, Maradona playing on cocaine, and coverage of the opening day being interrupted by OJ Simpson fleeing hundreds of police in a white Ford Bronco while wanted for murder.
That chain of events, which saw the former American football star and Naked Gun actor leading scores of patrol cars down a motorway at a slow pace as they tried to arrest him, somehow wound up in a trial watched by millions the following year with memorable moments like Simpson trying to put a leather glove on his hand (“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”) and the strangest comedy show Will Ferrell ever did in his career.
Simpson’s trial, which began in January 1995 and would run for eight months, was unlike anything ever witnessed in terms of global attention. When his ‘not guilty’ verdict was announced, it was watched live by some 100million people around the globe, with lost productivity in the US alone estimated at around half a billion dollars. At the time, Ferrell had spent some years doing odd jobs, including working as a hotel valet and bank teller, with little success at either, before he moved to Los Angeles in hopes of breaking into comedy.
He told Graham Norton, “I was doing improv at the Groundlings Theatre in LA at the same time the OJ Simpson trial was going on”, and little did he know that he would play, albeit a small part, in what was at the time the biggest news story on the planet.
Ferrell explained, “The jury was sequestered for a long time and couldn’t go anywhere, so someone came up with the idea of performing our sketch show for them in the court to lighten the mood. It was just us and the jurors. They seemed mildly entertained, but it was very bizarre.”
It was later that year that Ferrell began to get small TV roles and then auditioned for Saturday Night Live, where the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels, signed him up as a featured player, with his time on the show lasting seven years until 2002, during which he became one of the most loved cast members of all time, and was nominated for an Emmy in 2001.
It proved to be the launchpad for his film career as well, as he landed his first lead role in a movie with 2003’s Old School, followed by Jon Favreau’s future Christmas classic Elf the same year, and he now has several projects currently in development, the most ready of which is his upcoming golfing comedy for Netflix called The Hawk, which will hit the streaming giant in September.
He’s also teaming up with Ryan Gosling for a new movie called Tough Guys, and in a bit of life coming full circle, he’ll be back in a courtroom for Judgment Day, the movie about a released prisoner who takes a jury hostage live on TV to get back at the judge who sent him to prison.
