Almost seven years after his public falling out with longtime creative partner Will Ferrell, Adam McKay shared he is open to working together again.
The writer-director collaborated with Ferrell on some of the most popular comedy films of the 2000s, including “Anchorman,” “Talladega Nights” and “Step Brothers.” He admitted it was a “shame” that they did not make their collaboration work out after years of partnership.
“It’s a shame because we had a great creative partnership,” he said in an interview with Business Insider, published Thursday and celebrating 20 years of the race car comedy.
He also spelled out the infamous split in 2019, saying that Ferrell’s affinity for movie stardom versus his creative pursuits split them apart.
“Ferrell said it publicly, he was never someone who wanted to produce, so he was always half in and half out, but then he would love it and be proud of the company, but by the end, he wanted to move on,” McKay explained. “It had become too much extra work; it was never his passion. I was really the one who wanted to produce, but a movie star’s life is very different than a writer-director’s life. So we split up.”
Speaking to the dissolution of Gary Sanchez in 2021, Ferrell cited bandwidth as his primary motivator to leave his production banner that he ran with McKay. He was not as interested in the producing responsibilities.
McKay, however, said at the time that Ferrell’s exit was prompted by McKay’s decision to cast John C. Reilly over the “Elf” actor as Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in HBO comedy series “Winning Time.” The “Don’t Look Up” director allegedly hired Reilly behind Ferrell’s back when Ferrell was supposed to star.
“I should have called him and I didn’t,” McKay told Vanity Fair interview at the time. “And Reilly did, of course, because Reilly, he’s a stand-up guy … I f–ked up on how I handled that.”
The director also shared that Ferrell was pretty curt on his phone conversation following that incident as they decided to split up their company.
“He basically was like, ‘Have a good life.’ And I’m like, ‘F–k, Ferrell’s never going to talk to me again.’ So it ended not well,” he said. “[Ferrell] took it as a way deeper hurt than I ever imagined and I tried to reach out to him, and I reminded him of some slights that were thrown my way that were never apologized for.”
As for where the duo stands today, McKay appears to believe there’s room for growth and reconciliation. He also said that he harbors “no hard feelings” for Ferrell and would like to collaborate in the future.
“I totally have been open to the idea,” he said. “We always got along great, we were tremendous creative partners. The only thing that caused acrimony between us was when we decided to end our production company, Gary Sanchez. And I know it was reported one way or the other, but that was really it.”
