Featured Image Credit: YouTube / Paramount Movies
It's producer, actor and all-round legend Will Ferrell's birthday today as he turns 49, a year off the big five and zero.
Before he hit the big time, Will's life was pretty standard. He worked as a hotel valet after completing a degree in Sports Information in 1990 - and on his first day on the job he managed to fuck up, tearing a baggage rack off the top of a van when he was trying to drive it under a low-lying beam.
After trying unsuccessfully to make it as a stand-up comedian, he ended up getting a gig on American sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL), having been a part of comedy group The Groundlings.
From there his career kicked-off. He made a name for himself doing impersonations of celebrities on SNL, including: George W. Bush, Shaft and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which shows the variety of stuff he can do.
Video Credit: YouTube / Movieclips
While he was still on SNL he appeared in some great films, playing the guy who gets 'badly hurt' in the Austin Powers series, as well as playing characters in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Zoolander.
After he had left SNL, he played the lead role of Buddy in Christmas film Elf, starring alongside New Girl actor Zooey Deschanel. The movie smashed it at the box office, making $220.4 million from a budget of just $33 million.
But his big break came in 2004, when he played the title character in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
Video Credit: YouTube / Movieclips
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Personally speaking, I'd say it's still the funniest film he's been in. Just thinking about him chatting up Veronica Corningstone by saying: "I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany," can bring me to hysterics.
In 2006 he teamed up with John C. Reilly for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and they continued their comedy partnership in Step Brothers that was released two years later, and then again for the 79th Academy Awards, where they teamed up with Jack Black to sing about comedies being snubbed by the voters in favour of dramas.
Talking about his view of comedy in a 2015 interview with The Guardian, he talked about how lucky he's been to never be lacking for ideas.
Video Credit: YouTube / Saturday Night Live
"I think it is the absence of ideas that is the cause of pain and frustration and that's when writers or comedians will say they can't be in relationships too long or can't be tied down. They have to put work first. But I have simply never felt that. The ideas have always come fairly easily, and when they don't for a while I don't think to blame the people around me."
Lucky for some, isn't it?
He's made some decent movies and it's fair to say he's a top lad. Happy birthday mate - look forward to watching whatever you're up to next.
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Words by James Dawson
Topics: Will Ferrell