(2 of 2)
When he's not acting, Ferrell's humor is so much more subtle--and slowly whispered--that it can be confusing. His first week on SNL, before the table reading during which he got to yell like a madman, he believed that no one thought he was going to be funny. On the set of Woody Allen's new movie, in which he has the starring role, thanks to Allen's unwillingness to pay to insure Robert Downey Jr., he's having some trouble relating to the director, though that's probably not Ferrell's fault. "Woody Allen has been nothing but nice and complimentary to me, but every time I've tried to joke with him, I get nothing," Ferrell says. "He thanked me for doing the script and asked me if I liked it, and I said I really liked the car crashes. He went, 'Uh-huh. Anyway.'" Ferrell's so low-key that he's awed by the energy of Green, who, like a Ferrell character incarnate, is raving to an uncomfortable couple about Iraq and Mike Tyson's innocence. "Unearned self-importance is so amusing to me," Ferrell says. "He has so much energy. I have to save it for when it counts."
He will be using a lot more of it in the future, with the barrage of movie roles he has been offered. "After Old School came out, it was a different universe," he says. "I like to think it was because everyone saw how funny it was, but it's because it made a lot of money." His next project, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, about a '70s local newscaster, which he co-wrote, had very little studio interest until Old School, at which point he got a $25 million budget from DreamWorks. This winter he'll be shooting another comedy he conceived, about kids' soccer. He is the voice of the Man in the Yellow Hat in the 2005 animated version of Curious George, has scored the lead in the film based on the Pulitzer-prizewinning comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces and will be Darrin to, as ridiculous as the following may sound, Nicole Kidman's Samantha in the Nora Ephron--directed Bewitched. Plus he and his wife Viveca have a kid due in March. "Everyone keeps asking me when I'm going to take a break," he says. "Most people in the world have to work every day."
In fact, his career is moving so fast, he's already prepping his Oscar speech, trying to decide whether it's better to center it on not thanking God (who Ferrell feels is good but gets too many accolades) or on just being so choked up that he never gets to say anything before the music comes on. And finally, in a more realistic vein, he's even attempting the Tom Hanks leap to a dramatic film in next year's Winter Passing, written and directed by playwright Adam Rapp. "Then I'm going straight to old men," he jokes. "I'm doing Horse Whisperer 2. And a remake of On Golden Pond." The man will not rest until Melrose Larry Green recognizes him.