CraveOnline: Since this movie takes place in Flint, Michigan, what kind of response do you expect from Michael Moore?

Will Ferrell: I heard he is going to protest the movie actually. I heard he’s actually picketing it already. He doesn’t feel like we have a proper depiction of Flint.

CraveOnline: How does improvising work into films like this?

Will Ferrell: Wow. I was not expecting that question. [Laughs] Will [Arnett] and Andy [Daly] got to sit at the scorer’s table and just [riff], so they were kind of in a contained situation where you could just roll the camera and they could come up with 8,000 things that we’d cherry pick as to what worked for the scene.  This was kind of the typical pattern where we’d start filming the scenes written and then slowly throw some zingers in there.  I really try to change it up whenever I can, in my personal life.

CraveOnline: Were there times the director just had to tell you to knock it off?
 
Will Ferrell: Yeah, Kent had the kind of unenviable task of herding all of us, because you’ve got 10 guys on a basketball court and about 1800 extras and every time he yelled cut we’d want to just start shooting the ball around and running around and doing bits at the scorers table. So, yeah, it was tough.

CraveOnline: What was your favorite scene to shoot?

Will Ferrell: Luckily, it’s hard to say. It’s hard to pick one. If I had to pick one right now, it would probably be the Russian roulette poker scene, just because that was insane. We had a good time. That was fun. The last take, the prop man thought it would be funny to sneak in a real bullet. Yeah, turns out he wasn’t a real prop guy. He was just on the stage that day and it turns out he had done it before. He’s known for it. Some of those days when we were actually playing the games and got to play. We had something like 15 choreographed plays that we had to run and set up because you can't just roll the basketball out there because you've got to concentrate on what the plays are going to be so that you can set up the cameras and everything. Sometimes we'd run the play and they'd say, whatever happens whether you make a basket or not, we're going to have free play for the next three minutes and just literally see what happens. After lunch, I remember I was still digesting a bean burrito or something and went down and had 1,800 people there and made a shot, the crowd went crazy. You felt like a real basketball player.

CraveOnline: What was your favorite promotional stunt Jackie did?

Will Ferrell: I kind of loved all of them because if you look at what they were doing in the ABA, that's how the league survived. They did all these stupid promotions just to get people in. I thought each of them were kind of the funny version of what they did.

CraveOnline: Jackie sings Love Me Sexy to get people in the mood. What is your favorite party song?

Will Ferrell: Hava Nagila. Anytime I hear it.

CraveOnline: Did Andre Benjamin help you write Love Me Sexy?

Will Ferrell: He flatly refused. No, that was the work of Scott Armstrong, a little bit of myself and Kent and Niles Rodgers. That's how hits were made.

CraveOnline: You've done soccer, NASCAR, figure skating and basketball. Will you ever do a football spoof?

Will Ferrell: Well, unfortunately the college football parody I’m doing is actually a drama taking an in depth look at the problem we have with steroid use. Yeah, it’s not a fun movie at all. This is actually just coincidence that these movies lined up the way they did. I love kind of combining sports and comedy together, but only one of those was my idea. That was the NASCAR movie, otherwise I was asked to be a part of these. So, that having been said, it’s a great framework to kind of do comedy in. You can parody the sport, in this movie you can parody the era. And at the same time, you have a built in arc that’s fun for the audience to watch this team of losers try to attain the lofty goal of fourth place.

CraveOnline: You're doing a movie of Land of the Lost with modern effects, but will it still have the same creatures?

Will Ferrell: Everything is going to be kind of ramped up a little bit. The kitsch of the physical production of the TV show was kind of thrown out the window. The dinosaurs and everything are going to look very realistic or as realistic as we think dinosaurs should look. But even the Sleestaks and things like that, they are all going to be real creatures as opposed to in the show where you saw a guy with a costume and a zipper running up his back.

CraveOnline: So you will have the zipper or you won’t have the zipper?

Will Ferrell: You will not be able to see the zipper. CGI it out. You think that’s a good decision?

CraveOnline: You may want to CG the zipper in.

Will Ferrell: We might do that later, in post if the audience misses the zipper.

CraveOnline: In the movie, Jackie's motto is Everybody Love Everybody. What's your personal motto?

Will Ferrell: My motto is just try to get out of bed. I just lie there and go [sigh] just get out of bed.

CraveOnline: How did you end up doing those videos with Pearl on the internet?

Will Ferrell: That's my friend Adam McKay's daughter. We actually needed some content to launch the website, funnyordie. It was all Adam's idea. And we took an hour or two one day and shot that and put it on with the launch of the website, and just laughed that so many people saw it. It was completely surprising.

CraveOnline: Why did you stop?

Will Ferrell: She got too outrageous with her demands and attitude. It was messy. Very messy.

CraveOnline: What's coming up next fro you?

Will Ferrell: I have Stepbrothers coming out in July with John C. Reilly and then a passion project of mine, the Lee Iacocca story. 10 years in the making. I get to play one of my heroes, Lee Iacocca.

CraveOnline: How was it reuniting with John on Step Brothers?

Will Ferrell: Not so good. [deadpan]

CraveOnline: You've done the '70s twice. Is there another era in history that's ripe for comedy?

Will Ferrell: I'd love to make fun of the future. Some sort of space travel movie where pogos are the main form of transportation. I'm an amateur futurist, yes.

CraveOnline: Who's your favorite real basketball team?

Will Ferrell: I am a Laker fan. Born and raised in Southern California, right here. And we just made the deal of the season. We just got Paul Gasol from the Memphis Grizzles.