Will Ferrell

In 2002, Will Ferrell married his long time girlfriend Viveca Paulin, whom he met in 1995. The couple has three sons: Magnus Paulin Ferrell, Mattias Paulin Ferrell and Axel Paulin Ferrell. The family resides in Orange County, California; but also has a home in New York.

John William Ferrell was born on July 16, 1967 in Irvine, California. His father, Roy Lee Ferrell Junior, was a keyboard player with The Righteous Brothers and his mother, Betty Kay nee Overman was a teacher. Will also has a younger brother named Patrick.

When Will was eight years old his parents divorced. However, both of them took care of the children and so Will did not have any hard feeling about it. Instead, he reveled at the thought that they would be able to celebrate Christmas twice.

Will started his education at Turtle Rock Elementary School in Irvine. After passing out from there he first joined Rancho San Joaquin Middle School and finally University High School. He was a member of the High School’s soccer team and mostly played the kicker.

Initially, he was an introvert; however, while in third grade, Will realized that he had a potential to make people laugh. Soon, he was exploring ways to be funny and making people laugh became a kind of entertainment in an otherwise monotonous life.

While in ninth grade, Will, along with one of his friends, began to perform comedy skits, which they themselves wrote, over the school’s intercom. He also performed such skits at school’s talent show and won the Best Personality superlatives.

After unsuccessfully trying his hand at some minor jobs, Will moved to Los Angeles. He tried to establish himself as a standup comedy artist, but failed. To hone his skills he enrolled at an advance comedy class. Here he learnt to improvise and also to impersonate successfully.

Next he auditioned for the Groundings, an improvisational and sketch comedy troupe, and got through. Here, he got the chance to hone his impersonation skill. Very soon, he began to receive small roles in different TV sitcoms like ‘Grace Under Fire’ and ‘Living Single’. In addition, he also took part in low-budget films like ‘A Bucket of Blood’

In 1994, he won a spot with the top professional group of The Groundlings. By that time ‘Saturday Night Live’ on NBC had started declining in popularity and producer Lorne Michaels was looking for new cast. Ferrell caught his attention.

Will Ferrell joined ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1995. He left the show in 2002 after a successful seven years stint. During this period, he impersonated many well-known people including President George Bush and became quite well known for such acts. He returned to SNL as guest host three more times to host special shows

While working on ‘Saturday Night Live’, Ferrell appeared in many films. Some of those are ‘Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery’ (1997), ‘A Night at the Roxbury’ (1998), Superstar (1999), Dick (1999), ‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me’ (1999), ‘The Ladies Man’ (2000), ‘Drowning Mona’ (2000), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), and ‘Zoolander’ (2001).

’Saturday Night Live’ is the first major work to come in Ferrell’s way. He hosted the show for seven long years and then returned to make guest appearance on three different occasions.

’Old School’, released in 2003, is another major work in his formative period. The film grossed $75,585,093 in the North America and $11,470,256 in international markets; total worldwide gross was $87,055,349. Ferrell received an MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Comedic Performance.

’Stranger Than Fiction’ was another of his comedy dramas, which was well received both by the critics and at the box office. In this Ferrell was able to show his acting talent to the fullest.

‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby’ is another important work in his life. It was his highest grossing live-action opening at $47 million.