WILL FERRELL WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH YOUR ASS OFF, ANDRE 3000 WILL MAKE YOU SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PICTURE. THE STARS OF THE ABA FLICK SEMI-PRO SIT DOWN FOR THE MOST COMPLEX MOMENT IN COMEDIC HISTORY. LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP RING…

By Peter Rubin; Photographs by James Dimmock

When you went in, did you know you were going to read with Will at that first meeting?

Andre Benjamin: Oh, I knew it. Will Ferrell: [Laughs.] Andre Benjamin: I was real nervous. I have to try out for movies all the time, and I hate the audition process. Will Ferrell: It’s awful. Andre Benjamin: But when I went in for this one, I honestly took the idea of the role like, “Well, shit, if I don’t get it, then fuck it.” So I went in and I just had fun.

In Will’s movies, during the closing credits when they show alternate takes, there’s always people losing composure, falling out laughing. What kind of moments were there for you?

Andre Benjamin: I don’t remember a lot of those—I could hold it until we got done. Will Ferrell: [Laughs.] The thing with this movie was there was a little less improv, in a way. We had so much to get done with all the basketball plays that there needed to be more structure. We had to get all these different angles, which you normally just get in a scene—but this was on the court, trying to cover 10 different guys and a bench and a crowd and everything. Andre Benjamin: Don’t let him fool you, I still remember laughing. [Laughter.]

So much of hip-hop is about improv skills. Did it make ad-libbing come naturally?

Andre Benjamin: As a rapper, I don’t freestyle. I used to freestyle when I used to get drunk, and it didn’t matter. Will Ferrell: [Laughs.] Andre Benjamin: See, I’m a thinker; I think too much. So for me to freestyle rap, it’s like I’m thinking three, four time steps ahead, and I hate it.  Will Ferrell: There are times when you roll the camera and divine inspiration hits you, and you’re coming up with all this stuff. But a lot of times, you’ll cut, and in that moment when you’re waiting, that’s when you know the thing you want to throw in the next take. Andre Benjamin: And the opposite effect of that, too, was after we finished the reshoots, I got home and was laying in bed one night, and I was like, “Shit, I should’ve done this!” Will Ferrell: That’s the torturous part. Andre Benjamin: Something you wish you could have done. Will Ferrell: You think about it as you drive home, too. Andre Benjamin: Sometimes the improv works because you’re just in it. Like, I don’t freestyle, but when I’m writing and thinking, sometimes things pop up—that’s basically a freestyle.
Will Ferrell: And a lot of times, that’s when it happens.

That’s when you become Ron Burgundy, or Ricky Bobby, or whoever. It’s almost like it’s not a function of the script.

Will Ferrell: Right. I try to make it a person.

You flip that switch, and then all of a sudden you built the Eiffel Tower out of iron and brawn.

Will Ferrell: [Laughs.]

So there was this SNL sketch, and now it’s being replayed on your “Best of” episode: You’re a verbally abusive doctor who left a baby at a BoDeans concert. It feels like the writers got hold of some peyote.

Andre Benjamin: [Laughs.] Will Ferrell: [Laughs.] I would write those with my friend Adam McKay. We did the craziest scenes ever, but somehow Lorne Michaels would put them on like it was a new hit character. It would always strike us that we’re on national television right now, on live TV, saying the craziest stuff. Sometimes that would get in my head, and I’d just start laughing. And people online the next day were like, “They went off script!” They just thought that we were making stuff up. Home // CELEBRITIES // COVER STORY // Will Ferrell and Andre 3000