Will Forte Commits to the Bit

Speaker 1 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre.
Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.
And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Speaker 1 I suck for my face paint. I suck for my face paint.
Face paint. Right after this ad.

Speaker 1 We're listening

Speaker 1 to DraftKings Network.

Speaker 1 Yo,

Speaker 1 just washed my hands. Good to see you.
How you doing? I like it.

Speaker 1 Thank you for doing this on short notice, too. Sorry, it's so last minute.
No, this is ideal. Were you coming from other stops on your press tour? We started a couple weeks ago.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And did a big junket. And then we last week did the premiere and I did a Kimmel.

Speaker 1 And when we were working on this we were doing it in like beacon new york so when i saw you that was why i only came down for a half hour because i came straight from work and had to go back i was gonna say when i saw you it was at sadegas's birthday this would have been the fall yeah it was karaoke you appeared out of the mists of upstate new york and people were like we don't know why will

Speaker 1 is even able to be here right now i surprised him yeah I was, I was up

Speaker 1 there in New York, and we finished at like 10. So I just got in the car, and I think I got there at 11:30.
And I said, I, or, or maybe even midnight, I said, I can only stay for a half hour.

Speaker 1 And I did. I stayed and did a karaoke song.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 very memorably duetted with Jason

Speaker 1 Luther Van Dross.

Speaker 1 Always and forever, right?

Speaker 1 Then a kind of recent one that is one of our anchors now is

Speaker 1 shallow.

Speaker 1 Which you've done, I know, on stage at his charity.

Speaker 1 I always get to do the gaga part. So like trying to hit that.
Oh man, I have shredded so many people's eardrums trying to hit that note. I mean, my version of hitting it is just like bunting the ball.

Speaker 1 The word that comes through that I heard at karaoke and that you were just describing when it comes to blowing out your vocal cords, there's this through line of what I dare say is commitment.

Speaker 1 Like you commit to this shit, man.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 But what I have been realizing, what I've been finding out talking to people that know you so much better than I, of course, know you is that this is part of your myth and reality, it turns out.

Speaker 1 Is that like you're

Speaker 1 genuinely the stuff I've been hearing about, it all feels almost too absurd to be your life, but this is this is the case. Well, I'm looking forward to diving in there.

Speaker 1 So what I need you to know at the top here is that Will Forte is responsible for some of the most idiosyncratically bizarre characters in the history of American comedy.

Speaker 1 And he is also responsible for my favorite comedy of all time, which starred Val Kilmer and Kristen Wigg, and also isn't even really about the SNL sketch that inspired it.

Speaker 1 And so I will finally get to talk to Will about all that in just a bit here. But you should also be aware that I have been doing a bit of reporting on Will.

Speaker 1 Because, first of all, I'd never met him outside of that half-hour karaoke when he briefly left the set of his excellent new Netflix show with Tina Fey called The Four Seasons.

Speaker 1 And so what I did was just start asking Hollywood people why, specifically, they all clearly love working with him.

Speaker 1 As he made his way from The Groundlings, where he was improvising, and then Letterman, where he was a writer, and then That 70s show, and Saturday Night Live, and 30 Rock and Conan, and The Last Men on Earth, and also a serious, critically acclaimed film like Nebraska.

Speaker 1 And at some point in this research, mutual friend of PTFO Mike Scher, who wrote for SNL in the office before creating Parks and Rec and many other TV shows, told me something eye-opening.

Speaker 1 Mike told me that out of all of the SNL auditions he has ever seen, all of which happened to occur in front of the show's creator, Lauren Michaels, nobody has ever made him laugh harder than Will Forte.

Speaker 1 My SNL audition,

Speaker 1 I was writing at the 70s show at the time and was

Speaker 1 loved writing at that show. It was, we had just gotten picked up for two years, which is unheard of.
I had been on on a series of shows that had gone,

Speaker 1 you know, gotten canceled after 13 episodes. So this was the first time that I felt real job security.
So

Speaker 1 when I did this groundling show, there was a hiatus period in between seasons. And I did a groundling show.
Lauren came and he asked, I think, four of us to come out and audition. And I was like,

Speaker 1 I can't, I can't do it. I'm under contract for 70 show.
I I think I was just, well, I know I was just terrified of it. Like, I don't want to go.
That sounds so scary.

Speaker 1 Anyway, eventually he talked me into going.

Speaker 1 The people at 70 Show were super cool about it. So I went over,

Speaker 1 did the audition, which was Tim Calhoun, which I did on the show a little bit.

Speaker 1 I am Tim Calhoun, and I am running for the office of President of America. I did a speed reader, which I also did on the show.

Speaker 1 Done. Poor Jesus.

Speaker 1 And I did a couple impersonations, Michael McDonald and Martin Sheen, both of them very bad impersonations.

Speaker 1 And then this thing, it was the Goldman, which was something that I did at the Groundlings for,

Speaker 1 it was something that was very dirty. this is an nc 17 show when it needs to be for the record here so so this is a guy one of those guys you've seen people on the streets who uh

Speaker 1 uh are you know dressed in all gold or all silver well this one was all gold and he doesn't move and then you put something in the in the jar and then they do you know a couple moves and then

Speaker 1 uh you know

Speaker 1 uh freeze again until somebody puts more money in so my thing was this guy gets his money stolen. Somebody takes all the money out, but they're not putting money in so he can't move.

Speaker 1 And he has to wait until somebody else puts money in. And then he like goes, tries to find out where the person is.
And

Speaker 1 they're long gone. So he's up there.
And then a bunch of people crowd around him. Like, why is the gold man so sad? What is the turn at which this becomes a thing? Okay, I'll sing it for you.

Speaker 1 If you would like. I would love to find out what the gold man song is like.
I'm going to just shut up and sing it. Okay.

Speaker 1 Just because I'm a man made of gold doesn't mean I'm made out of money.

Speaker 1 But the calling I've found is to give people pleasure through incredibly precise robotic movement.

Speaker 1 That's why I come out to the streets to help me make ends meet.

Speaker 1 And I work real hard to fill up that jar. But then a bad apple ruins the barrel Heart of gold

Speaker 1 24 carrot

Speaker 1 But through all the pain

Speaker 1 I grin and I bear it Heart of gold

Speaker 1 I'm living a golden dream

Speaker 1 And any way you slice it we're all on the same team Come on everybody and then everybody gathers round Heart of gold

Speaker 1 twenty-four carat.

Speaker 1 But through all the pain, I grin and I bear it.

Speaker 1 Heart of gold,

Speaker 1 but it don't make me no saint. Cause I got a little secret.
I suck

Speaker 1 for my face paint. Come on, everybody, sing with me, heart of I suck for my face paint.

Speaker 1 I suck for my face paint.

Speaker 1 I suck that for my face paint, face paint.

Speaker 1 Face paint, face paint,

Speaker 1 and face paint.

Speaker 1 Face paint.

Speaker 1 Face paint, face paint,

Speaker 1 face paint, face paint,

Speaker 1 together at last in a heavenly union.

Speaker 1 And it's just kids going out and, you know, then it's just all and face paints. And I remember getting to, that's how I ended the

Speaker 1 thing.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I walked up to Lauren

Speaker 1 and I didn't know what to say. So I said, sorry for all the.

Speaker 1 And then, and then I got the job.

Speaker 1 One of the single most important and glamorous jobs you could have in comedy is to be the guy who plays the sitting president of the United States on Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 1 And back in 2004, as you may recall, our sitting president, about to start his second consecutive term, was an athlete named George W. Bush.
We must stop the terror.

Speaker 1 I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Now watch this drive.

Speaker 1 What you may not recall, however, is that the cast member Lauren Michaels assigned to portray W in 2004 was the self-described non-impressionist who joined the show in 2002 and is also sitting with me in studio here today

Speaker 1 and this turned out to be a deliberate turning point in will for the

Speaker 1 life in a typically atypical way

Speaker 1 so you're you're already sort of like disclaiming your other impressions

Speaker 1 but just to give people the recap on like you taking the mantle of W,

Speaker 1 just like man, talk about like a backup quarterback stepping into a job vacated by who in this case

Speaker 1 well it was vacated by Will Farrell finally to Saddam Hussein. I have just one more thing to say live from no wait two more things to say

Speaker 1 One of the people I still consider to be you know

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 if not the funniest person alive, he's in the top three tied for funniest person alive. There's nobody funnier than him.
With one of the most iconic political impressions of all.

Speaker 1 It's like this went beyond a political impression for me, but you have, like, I get it. Like, it's

Speaker 1 you have to have somebody doing George Bush on SNL. He's the president.
We got to get someone to do that.

Speaker 1 I don't agree that I was the right person for that, but I, you know, it was my, God, I think it was my second year when they, when they came and

Speaker 1 asked me to do it. And for, so, A, I'm terrified.

Speaker 1 It's not my strong suit, any impersonation. I've since found out that I can do a Kermit the Frog, and I think that's it.
Can we hear Kermit the Frog? Kermit the Frog here.

Speaker 1 But everybody can do a Kermit the Frog. I mean, a pretty good version of it.
Now, you're George W. Bush, by contrast.
Do you have that even in you, that muscle that can activate what yours was?

Speaker 1 I just remembered the first time I did it, I think it was just saying,

Speaker 1 it was hard. But I also wanted Osama to know something.

Speaker 1 I'm ready. Anytime, your turf or mine.
I'll be waiting.

Speaker 1 Texas style.

Speaker 1 I know that Sudakis ended up taking W, no? Or who got it? Yes, Lauren came. Yeah, what's that like to be taken to call for the reliever when you're on the mound doing W?

Speaker 1 I think Lauren knew that I didn't like doing it.

Speaker 1 I think it was best for the show.

Speaker 1 Suddenkas, he's just really good at those things. And if you wear a uniform and regularly carry a gun, we need you in our rank.

Speaker 1 Whether you're a New Jersey state trooper or Alan Iverson.

Speaker 1 How does he talk about? Because basically, it was entirely through the lens of like when he took over W from you.

Speaker 1 It allowed you to be the like staggeringly original person that you actually are as opposed to this vessel for other stuff.

Speaker 1 I will say I do think that was a big part of it because in the early going when I was given

Speaker 1 this Bush assignment, I would

Speaker 1 usually be in these cold opens as Bush. And then basically it's like, oh, Forte's taken care of.
He's got. his bush.
And it's like, no, I don't, I don't want to be doing that.

Speaker 1 I'll do it if I have to, but, but it's nothing like the stuff that I do. So

Speaker 1 for face paint before, yeah, it's just like weird, absurd stuff I like.

Speaker 1 And, and, and because of the bush stuff,

Speaker 1 I very rarely got a chance to try those things out. So, once, once like, I was free of the bush thing, which was, I remember hearing that and, and it was like 99%,

Speaker 1 yes, oh,

Speaker 1 I'm free, I'm free. And then 1% of like, oh, he didn't like me, right?

Speaker 1 You know, you can't help but know that, like, oh, that means I wasn't doing great, but but it was way more the other side of it, like, oh, I'm finally free.

Speaker 1 And, and then, yeah, a little bit at a time, got to, got to start doing the kind of stuff that I like to do.

Speaker 1 Now, you must fly away from these woods and bring back something, a possum, a squirrel, anything to keep us alive. So, be gone, my friend.

Speaker 1 Bring us life.

Speaker 1 Bring us life.

Speaker 1 What is also clear to me as I assess the scouting report here is that, you know,

Speaker 1 I don't know what a prank as defined

Speaker 1 necessarily entails, but, you know, I may or may not have heard stories about you, I don't know, throwing omelets out windows. Yes, it was a, we used to go to this place called, geez, what is it?

Speaker 1 It was a real, the pump.

Speaker 1 I've been to the pump. You have? I have.
Is it still around? Yeah. Oh, way to go, pump.
The pump energy food. Yeah.
That's right. So Eric Sloven, he had ordered this meal for like late night.

Speaker 1 And I came in and I

Speaker 1 forget why, but I had a $20 bill out. And he took the $20 bill and went to his window and said, and threw my $20 bill down, which was really funny.
And, but he, so he's watching it. He's like, ha ha.

Speaker 1 And, and it's fluttering down. I don't remember.
I'm sure that I deserved for that $20 bill to go down there,

Speaker 1 even just for just being kind of annoying walking into the room. And so he's watching the thing flutter down.
And while he's, he's doing that, I had grabbed his meal and just dropped it out.

Speaker 1 And it kind of, he

Speaker 1 had to realize like, oh, that's my freaking omelette that's going down. No.

Speaker 1 So the way it's always told is that I just callously threw out his omelette this was like ultimate frisbee and this was me evening the score this was justice guilty is charged yeah with

Speaker 1 yes it was justice thank you what what form of justice is being served when it comes to how you decorated a certain keyboard That's also sloven.

Speaker 1 So that probably like that makes and that was way before all this stuff. So I I did

Speaker 1 I don't do a lot of manscaping so i have a pretty full

Speaker 1 jungle in my nether regions um

Speaker 1 uh and so at some point i just like took a bunch i cut off a bunch of my my pubic hair and i sprinkled it all over his keyboard just to bug him

Speaker 1 for a little surprise when he came back in the room and he he his sloven is amazing so he just he just uh deadpan just came in.

Speaker 1 You could tell there was some,

Speaker 1 a little

Speaker 1 curbed anger. He was holding it in check and he just undid his keyboard and came over and brought it over to my keyboard and then undid that.
And then, you know, we had a keyboard swap.

Speaker 1 Look, I don't stand by this stuff. It's not, I'm, it was stuff we did.

Speaker 1 I look back now and I'm like, oh, I have two daughters and they're going to, you know, at some point listen to this and and go like, listen to the sports adjacent podcast and be like, So, why was why was our dad being deposed for pubes?

Speaker 1 Why did our dad get kicked out of the country?

Speaker 1 Um, I do want to get to uh, when I'm when I'm talking about how you were as a writer and the deliberateness, like you care about details, and you have an internal logic to why the thing you wrote is that way.

Speaker 1 And so, just being the guy who has a point of view that feels like it's fully fully formed.

Speaker 1 Did that, did you walk in with like, I have

Speaker 1 this sensibility and I want to make sure it is protected as it makes its way through the operating room of SNL?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I did.

Speaker 1 I think everybody has

Speaker 1 their

Speaker 1 lane.

Speaker 1 I'd rather have less people like it more than more people liking it, but like, yeah, I like that. I'd rather people go,

Speaker 1 I love that, but like, one out of every 10 people.

Speaker 1 So, I got if I'm being charitable to myself, say, like, I love that, you know, as opposed to like, you know, six people saying, like, yeah, he's good,

Speaker 1 he's fine.

Speaker 1 But that, but that is, I think, how I feel when I re-watch

Speaker 1 you and Peyton Manning doing a locker room

Speaker 1 motivational, you know, talk sketch.

Speaker 1 Look, coach, it's no use, all right? We suck. And I know for a fact that we can't win this game.

Speaker 1 And I'd much rather head home, bake some Snickerdoodles with a few of my bros, and then practice French kissing with my French kissing puppet. So, all in favor of getting the F out of here, say aye.

Speaker 1 Aye. All opposed? Nay.

Speaker 1 That was... That's my favorite one I ever got to do.

Speaker 1 So we wrote this whole sketch.

Speaker 1 The dance wasn't even part of it. At the very last minute, all credit to John Lutz because we're about to turn this in.
And he's like, Yeah, at the table read tomorrow,

Speaker 1 maybe dance during the basketball during the music. Like, are we just going to sit there? And he's like, Do a little dance or something.
So I'm like, Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 It was like, it's so crazy to think back now because that's the whole thing. I mean,

Speaker 1 Peyton is so funny in that and says so much funny stuff.

Speaker 1 But like, but I thought without that dance, I mean, truly, as a person re-watching it, I'm like, they started with the dance because the whole payoff is the dance, Right.

Speaker 1 You would think, but it's that's that's that place. Such a collaborative place.

Speaker 1 The potato chip sketch, if you ever saw it, have you seen that one? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But explain it, please. This was a sketch that me and John Solomon wrote.
This was one of those examples I was going to say about one that kind of just flowed out.

Speaker 1 John Solomon was writing with somebody, so it's getting later and later, and soon it's six in the morning, 6.30 in the morning. And at like 7 in the morning, he's like,

Speaker 1 all right, what do you want to do? And I had had this little idea that I had recorded into my phone that was just like,

Speaker 1 I think I just said like, don't dig my potato chip.

Speaker 1 I don't want to dig my potato chip. And so he's like, oh, that's really stupid.
So basically, it's really hard to describe the sketch. It's basically that voice of that guy right there

Speaker 1 works at NASA. And I thank you, sir, for your interest in outer space.

Speaker 1 So how long have you wanted to be an astronaut? And Jason Sudakis comes in.

Speaker 1 The best way to describe him is like a Colonel Sanders-looking guy with the voice of Foghorn Leghorn.

Speaker 1 Sir, I will be waiting here patiently in the deepest of pissuppress.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's interviewing to be an astronaut.

Speaker 1 And it's just

Speaker 1 the most bonker sketch. And I leave the room.
I warn him not to touch my potato chips. He eats a potato chip.
I come back in, I catch him, and we just get into this insane fight.

Speaker 1 I did not come here to have my reputation assassinated. Then you shouldn't have taken that potato chip.
You go take me more once I go to you. But I did nothing of the sort.

Speaker 1 That is between you and your god. Now get the hell out of here.
I'm not going nowhere until I'm an astronaut. We just basically did stream of consciousness writing.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, we knew immediately when we're like, we're like, okay, what should we do?

Speaker 1 Interior NASA. And it's like, and John's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 logical.

Speaker 1 Your philosophy, by the way, that you articulated before, of I would rather have this be the favorite thing for a minority of people as opposed to the broad appeal that can sink the level of your creative sort of sensibility and ambition.

Speaker 1 It does take us to Magruber quite organically.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, that does. My theory of this movie, which I consider like truly like my, when people ask me, and I am on the record again, saying, like, what's your favorite comedy?

Speaker 1 I say Magruber, unapologetically. Thank you.
The sketch was originally a parody satire of MacGyver. Yeah.
And the scene ends.

Speaker 1 And Magruber, again, if I may just summarize him as a character, is a terrible person who is a terrible teammate.

Speaker 1 And the bomb explodes, killing everybody. Magruber, I feel like you've gone down some kind of alt-right misinformation rabbit hole.
You're all wrong about that, Karen.

Speaker 1 My information is 100% non-insane. You ever heard of QA?

Speaker 1 You know, there are movies like this, and they're called Cult Classics, which is, again, like a pejorative wrapped inside of a compliment.

Speaker 1 But it is like it's wet hot American summer. It's this stuff that wasn't commercially viable or successful, I should say, that got an afterlife afterlife because

Speaker 1 through an authentic human to human virality, it became this test of like, are we sharing this very specific wavelength? That's a really cool way to put it. When we did Magruber,

Speaker 1 it was

Speaker 1 the exact movie we wanted to make. I mean, little things here and there.
If the, if the budget was bigger, we could have done a couple of things that we didn't get a chance to do.

Speaker 1 Then the, you know, we get it exactly the way we want it.

Speaker 1 We're so excited about it, so proud of it. And then it just sh the bed so hard.
And it was really tough. It's hard not for your brain not to go like, oh, I agree with the

Speaker 1 movie going public who hates, you know, didn't go to see this, you know, the marketing. They got to know more than

Speaker 1 we do. Yeah, exactly.
So it's hard not to like. But just to give a sense, Will, of like how in real time you experienced it, like, you know, you have a movie coming out.

Speaker 1 Your family is proud of you, I presume. But like, truly, like, were they ready for what this was? My mom,

Speaker 1 and we just talked about this the other day, lost friends who she, you know, she's like being a good mom and saying, it's Willie's movie comes out. And she, she lost some friends who, who.

Speaker 1 just couldn't be friends with her anymore. By the way,

Speaker 1 I think that that was a good paring down process because whoever kind of like again, do we share this wavelength? Yeah, but more than that, just like my mom had nothing to do with that.

Speaker 1 She was just being a good mom supporting her son.

Speaker 1 At every turn of this podcast, I wanted it to be clear that Will's family has nothing to do with the contents of what we're describing.

Speaker 1 But the reason why it's something that I love so much is because

Speaker 1 it has so little to do with whatever like log line it originally was.

Speaker 1 How would you describe what it is, actually? Because

Speaker 1 a full-on love letter to all the

Speaker 1 80s action movies that John and Yorma and I and everybody of our era grew up watching, you know, Uncommon Valor,

Speaker 1 Roadhouse, I know

Speaker 1 so many movies went in because they all share this one. So we're just like, we're just having fun doing our versions of the movies that we love to see.

Speaker 1 And we're like, and at the heart of it is this dip.

Speaker 1 But what Sudeikis described it as, as we were like talking through, like, how would you describe a grouper to someone who hasn't seen it?

Speaker 1 He's like, well, it's kind of like if The Jerk was an action movie.

Speaker 1 So, like, Steve Martin's The Jerk. I mean, The Jerk is, I think, my all-time

Speaker 1 comedy movie favorite. And maybe all-time

Speaker 1 Jaws is up there. I love Jaws.
Raiders of the Lost Ark,

Speaker 1 but that's a real compliment. But like like the commitment of Steve Martin in the jerk to be always

Speaker 1 this guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So too are you as Magruber. I mean, look, throat ripping as a love language.

Speaker 1 Awesome. Got another throat rip in.
Cool. Might go for the turkey.
The turkey. Yeah, it's a bowling term for when you get three strikes in a row.

Speaker 1 You know, for those not familiar, like, yes, there's the action stuff. There is just an incredible amount of you ripping people's throats out of their bodies.
That was really disgusting.

Speaker 1 We'll get used to it, because that's my main move. Besides, he would have done the exact same thing to me if he had the chance.
No, he wouldn't have. He would have shot you.

Speaker 1 And then, as I like survey, like, now I'm just doing the exercise of, like, what... What was the point of no return for Will's mom's friend? And I'm like, was it the celery?

Speaker 1 What are you doing? Making a little distraction.

Speaker 1 By the way, the celery scene, my mom came that day to watch us film. So she, the night before, she called up and said she was there with two friends.
And these weren't the two friends that she lost.

Speaker 1 She was there the night before and she said, so honey, we're going to come to the set in the morning and then we're going to go to Santa Fe.

Speaker 1 And I said, well, let me pitch this. Why don't you go to Santa Fe in the morning and then come to the set when you get back? Because I knew that this freaking celery scene was up.
And she's like,

Speaker 1 let me check with Barbara and Marsha. So

Speaker 1 she

Speaker 1 calls them and she says, no, we're going to come in the morning. So I'm like, all right.

Speaker 1 You know, I think I warned her, but, but anyway, anyway, so that we're doing this. celery scene, which for those who have not seen the movie is basically I'm creating a distraction

Speaker 1 to try to let Ryan Phillippe's character take out these snipers. And so

Speaker 1 what I chose as a distraction is dancing around naked with a piece of celery in my butt.

Speaker 1 You're wasting your time. I'm never, ever going to do that.
So she just watched me take after take,

Speaker 1 you know, dancing around with celery in my butt. How many takes, roughly, would you say, Barbara? I mean, you you got to do this angle.
And then you got closer and closer.

Speaker 1 So it was, I'm probably out there for,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 two hours doing it, I would guess, something like that. So anyway, it's at a certain point, I just remember looking over and my mom.

Speaker 1 My mom's just the most supportive, best person, my dad, too, my whole family, very lucky. But my mom was there just smiling.

Speaker 1 You know, I can't really, you know, she might have even waved. And then I just saw her two friends right behind her kind of

Speaker 1 horrified.

Speaker 1 But the sex scene,

Speaker 1 sex scenes, yes,

Speaker 1 romance, 80s, music soaring like sincere into a series

Speaker 1 of sounds that I assume you already had mastered earlier in your life before you unveiled them in this way.

Speaker 1 All three of us, John and German and I, all kind of enjoy the, you know,

Speaker 1 doing stuff for a little longer than people feel comfortable with. And, and so it was, the editing process was like, that was tough.
All three of us, I, I think I wanted it, you know,

Speaker 1 double the length it was

Speaker 1 and then and you know

Speaker 1 of the for of the Snyder cut of this the forte cut it's like man I think what ended up turning into what we, we finally agreed on, on that length. And, and, uh, but, but, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then the, so Kristen, oh, man. God bless her.
You know, she's, it was very hot. It was a summer in New Mexico.
I'm a sweater.

Speaker 1 Again, we know. I'm not really a sweater unless I get.
active and moving around and then I just can't stop sweating.

Speaker 1 So she, if you look, I mean, there's so much stuff that we cut around that was just like somebody's pouring a bucket of water on her. The second one with Maya Rudolph.

Speaker 1 So just the timeline of this, because I was trying, again, do my research as a responsible, rigorous journalist.

Speaker 1 Wasn't she pregnant at the time, Maya? She was eight months pregnant. She, for those who haven't seen the movie, this is, I'm feeling really guilty.
I've just had sex with

Speaker 1 Vicki,

Speaker 1 who was Casey, Maya Rudolph's character's best friend.

Speaker 1 But Casey was dead. So I went to the, I go to the cemetery to apologize to Casey's gravestone, and she

Speaker 1 shows up in

Speaker 1 ghost form.

Speaker 1 And then my apology to her turns romantic, and we start having sex. So, and then it just pushes to me like fully naked, and she's sitting on this headstone with no back support or anything.

Speaker 1 And she's eight months pregnant. So, like, I have like a little thing covering my genitals, but I'm completely naked besides that.

Speaker 1 And I'm just like, you know, just

Speaker 1 having. I can't stress enough how vigorous the

Speaker 1 approach you have here is.

Speaker 1 I mean, she's a total pro, and we've known each other forever. So she was,

Speaker 1 it didn't feel like that was like emotionally uncomfortable for either of us, but physically,

Speaker 1 basically, anything's uncomfortable when you're eight months pregnant. And this position she was in, I think was very uncomfortable.
And here I'm, you know, like, then

Speaker 1 like it's so anyway, they would have a stand-in who would come in every once in a while for the shots we could get away with to like, you know, to give this poor woman a rest.

Speaker 1 And then, then we had to do it so that you can see Brandon Trost, our cinematographer. His dad comes by.
He's like a

Speaker 1 person picking up trash in the park for some reason at two in the morning. And

Speaker 1 his point of view then is me just having sex with the air. And so Yorma, for that one, I remember

Speaker 1 he, he, so I'm having sex and this thing, it's because of where I'm at.

Speaker 1 Every thrust, the only way my body stops is by knocking right at this level of my shins into this this gravestone so it's very painful and it's going on for

Speaker 1 i you know

Speaker 1 a minute and then i'm like

Speaker 1 you know they it's from behind so i'm like all right you guys how are we doing we get it's very painful you know trying not to move my mouth and they just keep going soon i just hear them laughing because they were just they had gotten it so long before but they just wanted to make me keep doing it Commitment.

Speaker 1 Commitment. Just as a matter of now, doing the accounting of

Speaker 1 the family members involved. Have you met the child Maya birthed? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is are

Speaker 1 is he or she aware of what, how close in contact she were? It's very funny because it's like, you know,

Speaker 1 she must be like 16 now.

Speaker 1 And I do, I haven't seen her in a while, but I did do something for,

Speaker 1 I think it was

Speaker 1 at some point I saw Maya and her. And like, it's just kind of

Speaker 1 almost inappropriate to bring it up because at the time she was probably 12. So we, you know, trying to, it's kind of funny to us.
Like, oh, this is the one who is.

Speaker 1 And it's like, you can't really say, yeah, this, this was, yeah, I was like,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 you know, you heard what I, how I just explained it. That's not something you tell to, like, this probably was now that

Speaker 1 seven years ago or something. Right, you were, and so she would have been nine or something.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 We'll save it for

Speaker 1 her 21st birthday.

Speaker 1 But when it comes to the Hollywood people who love spending time with Will Forte, and you can see yet more A-listers who fit that description in the four seasons, which came out just last week on Netflix, the collaborator everybody told me to ask about is Val Kilmer.

Speaker 1 Val Kilmer died at age 65 from pneumonia just last month after a career playing Iceman and Top Gun and Batman and Batman Forever and Jim Morrison in The Doors and also, yes, Magruber's arch nemesis in a parentally polarizing adaptation of a gross SNL sketch that happened to gross less than $10 million

Speaker 1 worldwide.

Speaker 1 And so I really wanted to talk about Val Kilmer with Will Forte,

Speaker 1 but I also wasn't sure how Will would feel.

Speaker 1 Can we talk about the now

Speaker 1 late, great Val Kilmer? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 to go from the beginning, though, like, Val Kilmer, convincing him to do every.

Speaker 1 He's in this movie. If you've never seen it, just know that he is a star of the movie you've now heard described as one of the great all-time names, by the way.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter. There's still enough ammonium nitrate left in that warhead to blow up the White House and Congress combined right again kunt of course it's gonna be awfully hard to fly it without

Speaker 1 the guidance system we

Speaker 1 so i think that's another one that's like

Speaker 1 no i will say i will say very very confidently that dieter von kunth

Speaker 1 is just the only name that character could have ever been named. I remember how blown away we were

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 for him to be a part of it. And then you go through the whole experience and you just get to know the guy.
And then soon it's like,

Speaker 1 oh, this is just my buddy Val. Like, it's so weird that then

Speaker 1 you just forget because he's such a part of your life that like

Speaker 1 then when I,

Speaker 1 you know, when he sadly passed away,

Speaker 1 you see all these things and you're like, oh, that's right. This guy who's my buddy is like,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 what a, what a,

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 an amazing career he had. But you just forget about it.
But I remember there was a point where he stayed with me for a while. Yes.

Speaker 1 This was another thing that I did not appreciate until he passed because then the stories started circulating that you and Val Kilmer for some real period of time lived together.

Speaker 1 He moved in with you more specifically, right? Yeah. So he was selling his place in New Mexico and he was trying to find a new place.

Speaker 1 He was living in a place in Malibu, but having a dispute with his landlord.

Speaker 1 So he was trying to find a new place in Malibu and, and he had had a party and I, he invited me and my girlfriend at the time. And so we were over there and he said, hey, I'm getting a new place.

Speaker 1 Can I stay with you

Speaker 1 for a couple of days? I think he said for a couple of days.

Speaker 1 However he phrased phrased it made me think that it was going to be a couple days

Speaker 1 until I can lock down this new place. And I said, yeah, of course, great.
So this was a Saturday and Monday he shows up. And then

Speaker 1 like that afternoon, his assistant came with carrying two just enormous duffel bags filled with books. And then I was like,

Speaker 1 oh, this is not, this is a bad sign. I mean, not a bad sign because it's a different sign.
He's here for the longer haul. I don't think two days is what it's going to be.

Speaker 1 Because it just turned into this amazing, delightful thing that I look back on with so much joy. Like he's

Speaker 1 so many fun stories, but man, I just will never forget the stuff that he was just a,

Speaker 1 it was a delight to get to have that experience with him. And there was one day I will say that

Speaker 1 just as I was saying earlier, like, oh, he just becomes Val and becomes your buddy. There was this day

Speaker 1 where we were sitting around the dining room table and he started listening to these Doors songs through his speakers. And

Speaker 1 I was a big Doors fan growing up. So we both started singing these songs together.

Speaker 1 And then it kind of dawned on me as we're going through like just remembering that Doors movie and how special that was.

Speaker 1 And I was at UCLA at the time and I think they were looking for extras and I was going to Alaska for the summer or something. So

Speaker 1 I couldn't do it. But I just remembering like, oh my God, this is this guy that I idolized growing up.

Speaker 1 And one of the reasons I did was for this role,

Speaker 1 he's sitting right there and I'm getting to sing this with him. And this is a guy

Speaker 1 who I'm buddies with now. You know, it's just like, it kind of sunk in

Speaker 1 just how

Speaker 1 special an experience it is and just how funny life is. And

Speaker 1 like, you know,

Speaker 1 a lot of messages. take a moment to smell the roses type stuff.

Speaker 1 But yeah, he was a special, a special, unique.

Speaker 1 There is nobody like that guy. Often, it seems, based on, again, the reporting I have, I have become aware of, often dressed as Mark Twain.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was getting together his Mark Twain show. So he was watching, a lot of times I'd come back and...

Speaker 1 all the lights in the house would be off and he would just be in his little guest bedroom and the door was cracked a little bit and I'd just see a little light coming out not from the lights but but either it would be coming from one of two things.

Speaker 1 One, he'd be reading a book and he'd have like a little miner's lamp. Exactly, yes.
And he would use that to read. And so that was one way.
The other way was he was going through

Speaker 1 a big 30 rock kick. He loved the show 30 Rock.
So he watched that a bunch.

Speaker 1 And so I would just see him, you know, with a little tablet or whatever, whatever it was, a D V D player probably at the time. So I,

Speaker 1 having been a part of 30 Rock, they asked me to do one of the DVD commentaries.

Speaker 1 And I said, you know what? Val Kilmer is living with me right now and he loves the show. Would you ever want us to do it together? And they're like, yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 So anyway, I just tell him, you know, meet me at this place. And

Speaker 1 freaking Val shows up dressed as Mark Twain. He's just been like walking around the streets of the Third Street Promenade as Mark Twain.
And it was just like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 You just never knew what was going to happen. He was fearless and

Speaker 1 fun, and he had this way of communicating. He was,

Speaker 1 he would be like mock serious,

Speaker 1 but also so silly at the same time. It was just

Speaker 1 real, real, a real loss. I'm still mad that you guys didn't do The Amazing Race.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 That was for people who don't know that. We, I used to watch the amazing race

Speaker 1 back then. So he comes in.
He's like, What are you doing? This reality TV stuff is going to rot your brain. You got to turn this off.
And I'm like, I think you might like this if you gave it a chance.

Speaker 1 So check it out. So he's like, all right.
He kind of begrudgingly sits down on the couch and got very into it to the point that at the end of the episode, he's like, we got to do the amazing race.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, Yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah, let's do it. And then, and then we both called our

Speaker 1 reps the next day, and it was a resounding no from all of them. They're like, No, you crazy.
So, anyway,

Speaker 1 when he passed, I called my agent back and I was kind of reminding him, like, yeah, at some point we were going to go on the amazing race together. That's, you know, and and he's like,

Speaker 1 he was like, oh, that'd be awesome. It's It's too bad you didn't do that.
I'm like, what? You're the dude who told us not to do it.

Speaker 1 But I do look back now. And, you know, sometimes you just got to

Speaker 1 just do it because that's one I think we should have done. My God.

Speaker 1 My God.

Speaker 1 Look, I am,

Speaker 1 as I said before, you go through these junkets and you think back on your past. And it's like,

Speaker 1 I'm the, I'm the luckiest guy on the earth. I got to, you go into comedy,

Speaker 1 going to the ground links. It's like, I just want to be on SNL.
That's, that's what I want.

Speaker 1 And then I, then I, Letterman wasn't even a part of it. And then all of a sudden, my two dreams would be write at Letterman, be at SNL.
I got to write at Letterman.

Speaker 1 Then I got to be on SNL for eight years. And when I left SNL, Magruber bombed at the box office.
I was not like this, I wasn't leaving like, oh, this guy's a sure thing to get any job ever again.

Speaker 1 Like I, right, was aware that it, and that might have been the last acting job I had. And then just somehow it was like blessing after blessing.
Nebraska came out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 And then getting, and that led to Last Man on Earth, you know, looking back.

Speaker 1 I would have never seen myself, you know,

Speaker 1 being 15 years after leaving SNL, being on a, on a podcast, well, podcast didn't really exist, but like to talk about a project I'm in currently with Tina Fay and Steve Carell

Speaker 1 and Coleman Domingo. While the guy across from the desk is about to ask, clearly, this means now, following the rhythm of your career, that you're going to make Magruber too.

Speaker 1 You're going to make another Magruber.

Speaker 1 Look,

Speaker 1 it's

Speaker 1 that Magruber family is, it is a family. And

Speaker 1 they're all people that I love so dearly. Would love to do another Magruber if somebody would give us a chance.
I would doubt that anybody would,

Speaker 1 but I would jump at it. After this podcast, Will Forte,

Speaker 1 I have a feeling that someone out there might be insane enough to reflect upon,

Speaker 1 yeah, the level of commitment

Speaker 1 that it takes to make something truly special. Man,

Speaker 1 you brought it full circle. Thank you.
Thank you. This was thank you for all the kind words.
That's really, really,

Speaker 1 it makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 I am grateful that,

Speaker 1 yeah, that the people we know in common,

Speaker 1 they feel the way that I feel, it turns out, about, yeah, getting to hang out with you. So thanks.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metalark media production,

Speaker 1 and I'll talk to you next time.