Will Forte Commits to the Bit

Will Forte is responsible for some of the most idiosyncratically bizarre characters in comedy history — and the funniest movie Pablo has ever seen. But to understand Forte's legend, you must peer behind the scenes of "MacGruber" and "SNL" (his mythical audition, included). With a little help from their mutual friends, Pablo goes inside the making of a cult classic... and that time Val Kilmer moved in. • Watch "The Four Seasons" on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81750702 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

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• 0:44Pablo Torre?

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• 1:02Speaker 01

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• 1:47Pablo Torre?

  This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory, two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill.

• 2:28Pablo Torre?

  My move: QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery. 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 gonna find out what this sound is. I suck for my face paint.

• 3:11Pablo Torre?

  I suck for my face paint, face paint. Right after this ad.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  You're listening to DraftKings Network.

• 3:32Pablo Torre?

  Yo.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  How you doing?

• 3:34Pablo Torre?

  Dude.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Just washed my hands. Good to see you. How you doing?

• 3:37Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I like it. Um, thank you for doing this on short notice, too.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Sorry it's so last minute.

• 3:43Pablo Torre?

  No, this is, this is ideal. Were you coming from other stops on your press tour?

• 3:48Speaker 03

  We started a couple of weeks ago.

• 3:50Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  And did a big junket. And then we, last week, did the premiere and I did a kimmel. 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 I had to go back.

• 4:05Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, when I saw you, it was at Sudeikis's birthday. This would have been the fall.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:12Pablo Torre?

  It was karaoke. You appeared out of the mists of upstate New York. And people were like, we don't know why Will is even able to be here right now.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  I surprised him. Yeah, I was, I was up, up there in New York and we, we finished at like 10:00. So I just got in the car and I think I got there at 11:30 and I said I, or maybe even midnight, I said, I can only stay for a half hour. And I did, I stayed and did a karaoke song.

• 4:44Pablo Torre?

  You, uh, very memorably, uh, duetted with Jason. It's Luther Vandross.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Always and forever, right?

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Then a kind of recent one that is one of our anchors now is Shallow.

• 5:26Pablo Torre?

  Which you've done, I know, onstage at his charity.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  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.

• 5:45Pablo Torre?

  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. Like, you commit to this [BLEEP], man.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 6:02Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Wow, thank you.

• 6:12Pablo Torre?

  And reality, it turns out, is that like you're...

• 6:14Speaker 03

  I have a myth?

• 6:16Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Well, I'm looking forward to diving in there.

• 6:35Pablo Torre?

  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. And he is also responsible for my favorite comedy of all time, which starred Val Kilmer and Kristen Wiig, and also isn't even really about the SNL sketch that inspired it. And so I will finally get to talk to Will about all of that in just a bit here. But you should also be aware that I have been doing a bit of reporting on Will. 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.

• 7:18Pablo Torre?

  And so what I did was just start asking Hollywood people why specifically they all clearly love working with him. As he made his way from The Groundlings, where he was improvising, and then Letterman, where he was a writer, and then That 70's 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. And at some point in this research, mutual friend of PTFO, Mike Schur, who wrote for SNL in The Office before creating Parks and Rec and many other TV shows, told me something eye-opening. Mike told me that out of all of the SNL auditions he has ever seen, all of which happened to

• 8:02Pablo Torre?

  occur in front of the show's creator, Lorne Michaels, nobody has ever made him laugh harder than Will Forte.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  My SNL audition, I was writing at The 70's Show at the time, and was, loved writing at that show. It was, we had just gotten picked up for two years, which is unheard of. I had been on a series of shows that had gone, gotten canceled after 13 episodes. So this was the first time that I felt real job security. So when I did this grounding show, there was a hiatus period in between seasons, and I did a grounding show. Lorne came, and he asked, I think, four of us to come out and audition. And I was like, "I can't, I can't do it. I'm under a contract for 70's Show."

• 8:56Speaker 03

  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." Anyway, eventually, he talked me into going. The people at 70's Show were super cool about it. So I went over, did the audition, which was Tim Calhoun, which I did on the show a little bit. 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.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Done.

• 9:33Pablo Torre?

  Poor Jesus.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  And I did a couple impersonations, Michael McDonald and Martin Sheen. Both of them, very bad impersonations. And then this thing, it was the Goldman, which was something that I did at the Groundlings for... It was something that was very dirty.

• 9:56Pablo Torre?

  This is an NC-17 show when it needs to be, for the record here, so...

• 9:59Speaker 03

  So this is a guy, one of those guys, you've seen people on the streets who 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 jar and then they do, you know, a couple moves and then, you know, 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. And he has to wait until somebody else puts money in. And then he like goes, tries to find, find out where the person is and, and they're long gone.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  So he's up there and then a bunch of people crowd around him like, "Why is the Goldman so sad?"

• 10:47Pablo Torre?

  What is the turn at which this becomes a thing?

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Okay, I'll sing it for you, if you would like.

• 10:53Pablo Torre?

  I would love to find out what the Goldman song is like.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  I'm gonna just shut up and sing it, okay. Just because I'm a man made of gold doesn't mean I'm made out of money. But the calling I've found is to give people pleasure through incredibly precise robotic movement. That's why I come out to the streets to help me make gans meet. And I work real hard to fill up that jar. But then a bad apple ruins the barrel. Heart of gold, 24 karat. But through all the pain, I grin and I bear it. Heart of gold, I'm living a golden dream.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  And any way you slice it, we're all on the same team. Come on, everybody. And then everybody gathers around. Heart of gold, 24 karat. But through all the pain, I grin and I bear it. Heart of gold, but it don't make me no saint. Cause I got a little secret. I suck [BLEEP] for my face paint. Come on, everybody, sing it with me. Heart of... I suck [BLEEP] for my face paint. I suck [BLEEP] for my face paint. [BLEEP] face paint. I suck [BLEEP] for my face paint. I suck [BLEEP] for my face paint, face paint.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  [BLEEP] face paint, face paint. [BLEEP] and face paint. [BLEEP] [BLEEP] [BLEEP] face paint. [BLEEP] face paint, face paint. [BLEEP] [BLEEP] face paint, face paint. [BLEEP] [BLEEP] face paint. [BLEEP] face paint, [BLEEP]. Together it lasts in a heavenly union. [BLEEP]. And it just keeps going out and, you know, then it's just all [BLEEP] and face paints. And I remember getting to... That's how I ended the thing. And, and I walked up to Lauren.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  And I didn't know what to say. So I said, "Sorry for all the [BLEEPs]." And then, and then I got the job.

• 13:29Pablo Torre?

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• 13:59Pablo Torre?

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• 14:43Pablo Torre?

  so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than four million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one most visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus.com. Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence, and unwrap more of who you are.

• 15:28Pablo Torre?

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• 16:12Pablo Torre?

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• 16:29Speaker 05

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• 17:03Pablo Torre?

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

• 17:25Speaker 06

  We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.

• 17:35Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 17:37Speaker 06

  Now watch this drive.

• 17:41Pablo Torre?

  What you may not recall, however, is that the cast member, Lorne 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. And this turned out to be a deliberate turning point in Will Forte's life in a typically atypical way.

• 18:08Pablo Torre?

  So you're already sort of like disclaiming your other impressions? But just to give people the recap on like you taking the mantle of W.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 18:19Pablo Torre?

  Talk about like a backup quarterback stepping into a job vacated by who in this case?

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Well, it was vacated by Will Ferrell.

• 18:29Speaker 07

  Finally, to Saddam Hussein, I have just one more thing to say. Live from... No, wait. Two more things to say.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  One of the people I still consider to be, you know, he's, if not the funniest person alive, he's in the top three tied for funniest person alive. There's nobody funnier than him.

• 18:53Pablo Torre?

  With one of the most iconic political impressions of all time.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  It's like, this went beyond a political impression for me. But you, like, I get it, like, it's, you have to have somebody doing George Bush on SNL.

• 19:07Pablo Torre?

  He's the president. We gotta get someone to do this.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  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, and asked me to do it. And so, A, I'm terrified. 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.

• 19:31Pablo Torre?

  Can we hear Kermit the Frog?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Kermit the Frog here. But everybody can do a Kermit the Frog. I mean, a pretty good version of it.

• 19:39Pablo Torre?

  Now, you're George W. Bush, by contrast. Do you have that even in you? That muscle that can activate what yours was?

• 19:46Speaker 03

  I, I just remembered the first time I did it, I think, it was just saying, you know, it was hard. But I also wanted Osama to know something. I'm ready, anytime, your turf or mine, I'll be waiting, Texas style.

• 20:07Pablo Torre?

  I know that Sudeikis ended up taking W, no? Or who got it?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Yes, Lauren came.

• 20:14Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, what's that like to be taking, to call for the reliever? When you're on the mound doing W?

• 20:19Speaker 03

  I think Lauren knew that I didn't like doing it. I think it was best for the show, Sudeikis. He's just really good at those things.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  And if you wear a uniform and regularly carry a gun, we need you in Iraq.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Whether you're a New Jersey state trooper or Allen Iverson.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  How does he talk about?

• 20:41Pablo Torre?

  Because basically, it was entirely through the lens of like, when he took over W from you, it allowed you to be the like staggeringly original person that you actually are as opposed to this vessel for other stuff.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  I will say, I do think that was a big part of it because in the early going, when I was given this Bush assignment, I would 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. I'll do it if I have to, but, but it's nothing like the stuff that I do.

• 21:26Pablo Torre?

  I was sucking [BLEEP] for face paint before.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just like weird, absurd stuff I like. And, and, and because of the Bush stuff, 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 remembered hearing that and, and it was like 99%, yes, oh, I, I'm free, I'm free. And then 1% of like, oh, he didn't like me.

• 21:55Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  You know, you, 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, I'm finally free. And, and then, yeah, a little bit at a time, got to, got to start doing the kind of stuff that I, I like to do.

• 22:13Speaker 08

  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. Bring us life. Bring us life.

• 22:26Pablo Torre?

  What is also clear to me as I assess the scouting report here is that, you know, I don't know what a prank as defined necessarily entails. But, you know, I may or may not have heard stories about you, I don't know, throwing omelets out windows?

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Yes, it was a, we used to go to this place called, geez, what is it? It was a real, The Pump.

• 22:51Pablo Torre?

  I've, I've been to The Pump.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  You have?

• 22:53Pablo Torre?

  I have.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Is it still around?

• 22:54Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Ah, way to go, Pump.

• 22:56Pablo Torre?

  The Pump Energy Food.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:58Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  So Eric Slovan, he had ordered this meal for like late night. And I came in and I, I 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, and it's fluttering down. I don't remember, I'm sure that I deserved for that $20 bill to go down there, 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.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  And it kind of, he had to realize like, oh, that's my frigging omelet that's going down, no! So the way it's always told is that I just callously threw out his omelet. This was like-

• 23:56Pablo Torre?

  The ultimate frisbee to an omelet.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  This was me evening the score.

• 24:00Pablo Torre?

  This was justice.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Guilty as charged, yeah, with, yes, it was justice. Thank you.

• 24:06Pablo Torre?

  What, what form of justice is being served when it comes to how you decorated a certain keyboard?

• 24:14Speaker 03

  That's also Slovan, so that probably, like, that makes, and that was way before all this stuff. So I, I did, um, I don't do a lot of manscaping, so I have a pretty full jungle in my nether regions.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  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. For a little surprise when he came back in the room. And he, he, Slovan is amazing. So he just, he just deadpan just came in. You could tell there was some, a little 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. I, look, I don't stand by this stuff. It's not, um, it was stuff we did. I look back now and I'm like,

• 25:18Speaker 03

  oh, I have two daughters and they're gonna, you know, at some point, listen to this and go like,

• 25:24Pablo Torre?

  Listen to the sports adjacent podcast and be like,

• 25:26Speaker 03

  That's so.

• 25:27Pablo Torre?

  Why was, why was our dad being deposed for pubes?

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Why did our dad get kicked out of the country?

• 25:35Pablo Torre?

  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. And so just being the guy who has a point of view that feels like it's fully formed. Um, did that, did you walk in with like, I have this sensibility and I want to make sure it is protected as it makes its way through the operating room of SNL?

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I, I did. I think everybody has their lane. 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 like, I love that, but like one out of every 10 people, so yeah, I got it from 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. He's, he's fine. But that, but that is, I think, how I feel when I re-watch you and Peyton Manning

• 26:46Speaker 03

  doing a locker room motivational, you know, talk sketch.

• 26:52Speaker 09

  Look, Coach, it's no use, alright? We suck. And I know for a fact that we can't win this game. 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. Aye! All opposed, nay!

• 27:11Speaker 03

  That was, that's my favorite one I ever got to do. So, we wrote this whole sketch. 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, maybe dance during the, during the music? Like, are we just gonna sit there?" And it's like, "Do a little dance or something." So, I'm like, "Oh, okay." And it was like, it's so crazy to think back now, because that's the whole thing.

• 27:40Pablo Torre?

  The whole idea.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Peyton is so funny in that and says so much funny stuff, but like, without that, dance.

• 27:46Pablo Torre?

  I mean, truly, as a person re-watching it, I'm like, they started with the dance. Because the whole payoff is the dance.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Right!

• 28:05Speaker 03

  You would think, but it's, that's, that's that place. Such a collaborative place. The potato chip sketch, if you ever saw it. Have you seen that one?

• 28:15Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. So, but explain it, please.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  This was a sketch that me and John Solomon wrote. This was one of those examples, I was gonna say, about one that kind of just flowed out. John Solomon was writing with somebody, so it's getting later and later, and soon it's 6:00 in the morning, 6:30 in the morning, and at like 7:00 in the morning, he's like, "Alright, what do you want to do?" And I had had this little idea that I had recorded into my phone that was just like... I think I just said like, "I don't dig my potato chip. I don't want to eat my potato chip." And so he's like, "Oh, that's really stupid." So basically, it's really hard to describe the sketch.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  It's basically that voice of that guy right there is, works at NASA.

• 29:04Speaker 08

  And I thank you, sir, for your interest in outer space. So how long have you wanted to be an astronaut?

• 29:11Speaker 03

  And Jason Sudeikis comes in. The best way to describe him is like a Colonel Sanders-looking guy with the voice of Foghorn Leghorn.

• 29:21Speaker 10

  Sir, I will be waiting here patiently in the deepest of anticipation.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  And he's interviewing to be an astronaut. And it's just the most bonkers 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.

• 29:49Speaker 10

  I did not come here to have my reputation assassinated.

• 29:51Speaker 08

  Then you shouldn't have taken that potato chip.

• 29:53Speaker 10

  You don't take people's potato chips! But I did nothing of the sort.

• 29:56Speaker 08

  That is between you and your God. Now get the hell out of here!

• 29:59Speaker 10

  I'm not going nowhere until I'm an astronaut.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  We just basically did stream of consciousness writing. Like, you know, we knew immediately when we're like, we're like, okay, what should we do? Interior NASA. And it's like, and John's like, "Yep, logical."

• 30:25Pablo Torre?

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• 31:07Pablo Torre?

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• 31:52Pablo Torre?

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• 32:37Pablo Torre?

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• 33:22Pablo Torre?

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• 33:46Pablo Torre?

  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 sensibility and ambition." "It does take us to MacGruber quite organically."

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, my theory of this movie, which I consider truly,

• 34:11Pablo Torre?

  when people ask me, and I'm on the record again, saying, "What's your favorite comedy?" I say MacGruber, unapologetically.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 34:17Pablo Torre?

  The sketch was originally a parody satire of MacGyver. And the scene ends, and MacGruber, again, if I may just summarize him as a character, is a terrible person, who is a terrible teammate, and the bomb explodes, killing everybody.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  MacGruber, I feel like you've gone down some kind of alt-right misinformation rabbit hole.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  You're all wrong about that, Karen. My information is 100% non-insane. You ever heard of Q and A?

• 34:51Pablo Torre?

  You know, there are movies like this, and they're called cult classics, which is, again, like a pejorative wrapped inside of a compliment. But it is like, it's wet, hot, American summer. It's the stuff that wasn't commercially viable, or successful, I should say, that got an afterlife because, through an authentic, human-to-human virality, it became this test of like, are we sharing this very specific wavelength?

• 35:20Speaker 03

  That's a really cool way to put it. When we did MacGruber, it was the exact movie we wanted to make. I mean, little things here and there. If the budget was bigger, we could have done a couple of things that we didn't get a chance to do. Then, you know, we get it exactly the way we want it. We're so excited about it, so proud of it. And then it just [BLEEP] 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 movie going public. Who hates, you know, didn't go to see this, you know?

• 35:58Pablo Torre?

  Right, the market has spoken.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  They gotta know more than we do. Yeah, exactly. So it's hard not to like.

• 36:03Pablo Torre?

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

• 36:17Speaker 03

  My mom, and we just talked about this the other day, lost friends. Who she, you know, she's like being a good mom and saying, Willie's movie comes out. And she, she lost some friends who, who just couldn't be friends with her anymore. By the way, I think that that was a good paring down process.

• 36:38Pablo Torre?

  Again, again, do we share this wavelength?

• 36:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, but more than that, just like, my mom had nothing to do with that. She was just being a good mom, supporting her son, so.

• 36:47Pablo Torre?

  At every turn of this podcast, I wanted to be clear that Will's family has nothing to do with the contents of what we're describing. Uh, but the reason why it's something that I love so much is because it has so little to do with whatever like logline it originally was. Well, how would you describe what it is actually? Because.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  It's a full on love letter to all the eighties action movies that, that John and Yorin and I, and, and everybody of our era grew up watching. You know, Uncommon Valor, Roadhouse, I know. So many movies went in, because they all share this. So we're just like, we're just having fun doing our versions of the movies that we love to see. And we're like, and at the heart of it is this dip [BLEEP].

• 37:39Pablo Torre?

  But what Sudeikis described it as, as we were like talking through, like, how would you describe MacGruber to someone who hasn't seen it? He's like, well, it's kind of like if The Jerk was an action movie. So like Steve Martin's The Jerk.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  I mean, The Jerk is, I think, my all-time comedy movie favorite. And maybe all-time Jaws is up there. I love Jaws. Rages of the Lost Ark. But, but, but that's a, a real compliment.

• 38:08Pablo Torre?

  But, but like the commitment of Steve Martin in The Jerk to be always this guy.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:15Pablo Torre?

  So too are you as MacGruber. I mean, look, throat ripping as a love language.

• 38:23Speaker 03

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

• 38:33Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  That was really disgusting. Well, 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. He would have shot you. Down, now.

• 38:54Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 39:03Speaker 03

  What are you doing? Making a little distraction.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  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. She was there the, the night before and she said, so honey, we're gonna come to the set in the morning and then we're gonna go to Santa Fe. 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 frickin' celery scene was up. And she's like, Let me check with Barbara and Marcia. So she calls them and she says, no, we're gonna come in the morning.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  So I'm like, all right. You know, I think I warned her, but 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 to try to let Ryan Phillippe's character take out these snipers. And so what I chose as a distraction is dancing around naked with a piece of celery in my butt.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  When you use the old celery trick, you're gonna wanna go with the thick end. It seems counterintuitive, but if you go thin end first, it just slides right out.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  You're wasting your time. I'm never, ever gonna do that. So she just watched me take after take, you know, dancing around with celery in my butt.

• 40:34Pablo Torre?

  How many takes roughly would you say Barbara?

• 40:38Speaker 03

  I mean, you gotta do this angle and then you got closer and closer. So it was, I'm probably out there for, you know, two hours doing it, I would guess, something like that. So anyway, at a certain point, I just, I remember looking over and my mom, my mom is just the most supportive, best person, my dad too, my whole family, very lucky. But my mom was there just smiling, you know, I can't, she might've even waved. And then I just saw her two friends right behind her kind of horrified.

• 41:13Pablo Torre?

  But the sex scene, sex scenes.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:18Pablo Torre?

  Romance, 80s, music soaring, like sincere, into a series of sounds that I assume you already had mastered earlier in your life before you unveiled them in this way.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  All three of us, John and Gorman, I all kind of enjoy the, you know, doing stuff for a little longer than people feel comfortable with. And so it was, the editing process was like, that was tough. All three of us, I think I wanted it, you know, double the length. It was, and then, and, you know.

• 42:03Pablo Torre?

  It's like the idea of the Snyder cut of this, the Forte cut. It's like, man.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  I think it, what ended up turning into what we, we finally agreed on, on that length. And, and, but, but yeah. And then the, so Kristen, oh man, God bless her, you know, she's, it was very hot. It was the summer in New Mexico. I'm a sweater.

• 42:28Pablo Torre?

  Again, we know.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  I'm not really a sweater unless I get active and moving around. And then I just can't stop sweating. So she, if you look, I mean, there's so much stuff that we cut around. It was just like, somebody's pouring a bucket of water on her.

• 42:43Pablo Torre?

  The second one with Maya Rudolph. So just the timeline of this, because I was trying, again, do my research as a, as a responsible, rigorous journalist. Wasn't she pregnant at the time, Maya?

• 42:54Speaker 03

  She was eight months pregnant. She, for those who haven't seen the movie, this is, I'm, I'm feeling really guilty. I've just had sex with Vicky, who was Casey, Maya Rudolph's character's best friend. But Casey was dead. So I went to the, I go to the cemetery to apologize to Casey's gravestone. And she shows up in ghost form. 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. And she's eight months pregnant.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  So like, I have like a little thing covering my, my genitals, but I'm completely naked besides that.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  And I'm just like, you know, just having.

• 43:53Pablo Torre?

  I can't stress enough how vigorous the approach you have here is.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  I mean, she's a total pro and we've known each other forever. So she was, I, it didn't feel like that was like emotionally uncomfortable for either of us, but physically, 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, and then like it's, so anyway, they would have a stand-in who would come in every once in a while for, for the shots we could get away with to like, you know, to give this poor woman a rest. And then, then we had to do it so that you can see Brandon Tross, our cinematographer, his dad comes by. He's like a, a person picking up trash. Yes.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  In the park for some reason at two in the morning. And his point of view then is me just having sex with the air. And so Yorma, for that one, I remember, he, he, so I'm having sex and this thing, it's because of where I'm at. 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, I, you know, a minute. And then I'm like, you know, they, it's from behind. So I'm like, all right, you guys, how are we doing? We can, it's very painful, you know, trying not to move my mouth. And they just keep

• 45:30Speaker 03

  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.

• 45:38Pablo Torre?

  Commitment. Commitment. Just as a matter of now, doing the accounting of, of, of the family members involved. Have you met the child Maya birthed?

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 45:51Pablo Torre?

  Is, are, is he or she aware of what, how close in contact you were?

• 45:57Speaker 03

  It's very funny because it's like, you know, she must be like 16 now. And I do, I haven't seen her in a while, but I did do something for, I think it was.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  At some point, I saw Maya and her and like, it's just kind of almost inappropriate to bring it up because at the time she was probably 12. So, you know, trying to, it's kind of funny to us like, Absolutely. Oh, this is the one who was in it. And it's like, you can't really say, yeah, this, this was, yeah, I was like, you know, you heard what I, how I just explained it. That's not something you tell to like, this probably was now that I think about it, You were there too. Seven years ago or something. Right, right. And so she would have been nine or something. Oh, my God. We'll save it for Yeah. Her 21st birthday.

• 47:08Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 47:25Pablo Torre?

  Val Kilmer died at age 65 from pneumonia just last month. After a career playing Iceman in Top Gun and Batman in Batman Forever and Jim Morrison in The Doors and also, yes, MacGruber's arch-nemesis in a parentally polarizing adaptation of a gross SNL sketch that happened to gross less than $10 million worldwide. And so I really wanted to talk about Val Kilmer with Will Forte, but I also wasn't sure how Will would feel. Can we talk about the now late, great Val Kilmer?

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:11Pablo Torre?

  I mean, just, just to go from the beginning, though, like, Val Kilmer, convincing him to do every... 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.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 08

  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, cunt. Of course, it's gonna be awfully hard to fly it without...

• 48:47Speaker 03

  The guidance system.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  That's another one that's like...

• 48:52Pablo Torre?

  No, I will say, I will say very, very confidently that Dieter von Kuntz is just the only name that character could have ever been named.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  I remember how blown away we were.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  And then, 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, "Oh, this is just my buddy Val." Like, it's so weird that then you just forget because he's such a part of your life that like, then when I, you know, when he sadly passed away,

• 49:36Speaker 03

  you see all these things and you're like, "Oh, that's right. This guy who's my buddy is like, like, what a, what a, just 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.

• 49:55Pablo Torre?

  Yes. 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. He moved in with you, more specifically, right?

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he was selling his place in New Mexico, and he was trying to find a new place. He was living in a place in Malibu, but having a dispute with his landlord, 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. Can I stay with you?" For a couple of days, I think he said for a couple of days. However, he phrased it made me think that it was gonna be a couple of days.

• 50:42Speaker 03

  And 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 like that afternoon, his, his assistant came with carrying two just enormous duffel bags filled with books. And then I was like, 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 gonna be. Because it just turned into this amazing delightful thing that I look back on with so much joy.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Like he's so many fun stories, but man, I just will never forget the stuff that he was just a. It was a delight to get to have that experience with him. And there was one day, I will say that just as I was saying earlier, like, oh, he just becomes Val and becomes your buddy. There was this day where we were sitting around the dining room table and he started listening to these Doors songs through his speakers. And, and I was a big Doors fan growing up, so we both started singing these songs together.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  And then it kind of dawned on me as we're going through like, just remembering that Doors movie and how special that was. And I was at UCLA at the time and I think they were looking for extras and I, I was going to Alaska for the summer or something. So I, I couldn't, I couldn't do it, but I just remembering like, oh my God, this is this guy that I idolized growing up.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  And one of the reasons I did was for this role. He's sitting right there and I'm getting to sing this with him. And this is a guy who I'm buddies with now. I, you know, it was just like, it kind of sunk in. Uh, just how, how, how special an experience is it is. And just how funny life is and, and like, you know, a lot of, lot of, lot of messages. Take a moment to smell the roses type stuff. But yeah, he was a special, a special, unique. There is nobody like that guy.

• 53:11Pablo Torre?

  Often, it seems, based on, again, the reporting I have, I have become aware of. Um, often dressed as Mark Twain.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was getting together his Mark Twain show. So he was watching, a lot of times I'd come back and, and 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. One, he'd be reading a book and he'd have like a little miner's lamp.

• 53:45Pablo Torre?

  Exactly, yes.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  And he would use that to read. And so that was one way. The other way was he was going through, um, a big 30 Rock kick. He loved the show 30 Rock. So he, he watched that a bunch. And so I would just see him, you know, with a little tablet or whatever, whatever it was, a DVD player probably at the time. So I, having been a part of 30 Rock, they asked me to do one of the DVD commentaries. Um, 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, of course. So anyway, I'd just tell him, you know, meet me at this place and.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  Friggin' Val shows up dressed as Mark Twain. He's just been like walking around the streets of, of the Third Street Promenade as Mark Twain. And it was just like that kind of stuff. You just never knew what was gonna happen. He was fearless and fun and he had this way of communicating. He, he was, he would be like mock serious, but you, but, but also so silly at the same time. It was just, ah, real, real, a real loss. I'm still mad that you guys didn't do the amazing race.

• 55:07Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. That was for people who don't know that we, I used to watch the amazing race back then. So he comes in, he's like, what are you doing? This reality TV stuff is gonna rot your brain. You gotta turn this off. And I'm like, I think you might like this if you gave it a chance. 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 gotta do the amazing race. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah, let's do it. And then, and then we both called our, our reps the next day. And it was a resounding no from all of them. They're like, no, you crazy.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  So anyway, when, when he passed, I called my agent back and I was kind of reminding him like, yeah, at some point we were gonna go on that amazing race together. That's, you know. And, and he said, he was like, oh, that'd be awesome. It's too bad you didn't do that. I'm like, what? You're the dude who told us not to do.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  But I do look back now and so, you know, sometimes you just gotta, just do it. Cause that's one I think we should have done. My God. My God. Look, I am, as I said before, you go through these junkets and you think back on your past. And it's like,

• 56:34Speaker 03

  I'm the, I'm the luckiest guy on the earth. I got to, you go into comedy, go into the groundlings, it's like, I just want to be on SNL. That's, that's what I want.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  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, then I got to be on SNL for eight years. And when I left SNL, MacGruber 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. Like I was aware that that might've been the last acting job I had. And then just somehow it's like blessing after blessing. Nebraska came out of nowhere and then getting, and that led to Last Man on Earth.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  You know, looking back, I would have never seen myself, you know, 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 Fey and Steve Carell and Coleman Domingo.

• 57:51Pablo Torre?

  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 MacGruber two, you're going to make another MacGruber.

• 58:04Speaker 03

  Look, I, it's, that MacGruber family is, it is a family and, and they're all people that I love so dearly. Would love to do another MacGruber if somebody would give us a chance. I would doubt that anybody would, but I would jump at it.

• 58:24Pablo Torre?

  After this podcast, Will Forte, I have a feeling that someone out there might be insane enough to, to, to reflect upon, uh, yeah, the level of commitment that it takes to make something truly special.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Man. You brought it full circle. Thank you. Thank you. This was, thank you for all the kind words. That's really, really, uh, it makes me feel good.

• 58:52Pablo Torre?

  I am grateful that, uh, yeah, that the people we know in common, uh, they, they, they feel the way that I feel, it turns out about, uh, yeah, getting to hang out with you. So, thanks.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 59:14Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

• 59:41Speaker 05

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