Perhaps bruised from the disappointing reaction from Stranger than Fiction and previous films, Talladega Nights saw Will step onto more familiar territory. Not that Will saw this as a return to form.
He told The Independent: ‘I remember when Talladega Nights came out, I think it was Entertainment Weekly that wrote “He’s back!” And I thought, “What? Did I go somewhere?” And they whipped through the past year [2005] in which my films in one year were Kicking & Screaming, Bewitched, The Wendell Baker Story, The Producers and Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda. And they cited that as a year that was rocky. But meanwhile Melinda and Melinda, that was considered – at least in a lot of stuff I read – that I held my own in a Woody Allen movie; Kicking & Screaming turned out to actually be a really big hit with families; Bewitched didn’t perform I think in the way they thought it would, and it was the poster child for what’s wrong with Hollywood – and yet it made domestically $125m, which still seems OK … and then The Producers, which only made about $40m; but they categorised it as my movie, which I was only in maybe six scenes, for which I was nominated for a Golden Globe, so that was my bad year … So, yeah, I survived.’
Adam McKay and Will decided to collaborate once more, and they decided to move away from the smoke-filled chauvinistic air of newsrooms and strap themselves in the also high potential comedy world of NASCAR – the preposterous testosterone-fuelled sport which is phenomenally popular in the US. Said Ferrell in the film’s production notes: ‘This whole thing was actually a byproduct of having a lot of difficulty getting Anchorman made. We knew nothing about NASCAR and every studio passed on Anchorman our first time around and then it really wasn’t until Old School came out and it was the usual game of, “We always loved that script.” But it was just difficult for them to wrap their heads around all of it, that it was a comedy about newsmen. We were just like, “No. Think of them as crazy characters.” In commiserating over that we should just pick a topic that everyone knows about and is really accessible like NASCAR and it was like, “That’s a good idea.” That’s kind of how it started out. Then of course we gained a little more insight after going to tracks and races and that sort of thing. But I think that in a weird kind of backwards way our ignorance about the sport allowed us to feel free about creating outlandish scenarios and characters that had we known too much might have edited us in a way. So by the time that we started learning about it we had already written a lot of it and so it enhanced what we already had.’
McKay said in the production notes: ‘Will and I talked about NASCAR racing while he was making Elf. We were in New York City and he was set to take a break before we started work on Anchorman. We noticed how fascinating the world of NASCAR racing had become. It’s gigantic. We weren’t even huge NASCAR fans at the time, but after we started going to the track, we got swept up in the phenomenon.’ Ferrell added: ‘For as popular as the sport is, it didn’t seem like anyone was doing a NASCAR comedy. And it just kind of popped into our heads one day, even though we knew nothing about the sport. We’re big sports fans, so we knew the top drivers and that sort of thing.’
Producer Jimmy Miller took them to a NASCAR race in California, and soon they were in love. ‘As soon as we heard the roar of the engines, we knew there was something here to make a movie about. The crowd was huge – like a city, with campers and bonfires outside of every race. I was told that during the Talladega Race [the UAW-Ford 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway] each year, the speedway becomes the second largest city in Alabama.’ Ferrell, despite his background in sports, had never been to a race before. ‘I knew a fair amount about NASCAR just because it had grown in popularity,’ he said. ‘I knew some of the top drivers and had a fairly good working knowledge of the sport. But I never understood the intensity of it all until we started writing the character of Ricky Bobby. The challenge for us became writing a movie that was both a comedy and a racing film, because we really wanted the audience to experience the amazing visceral reaction we had had while watching these cars fly around the track at 200 miles per hour.’
Will began to test out voices for the character, and as soon as he hit the southern twang McKay was hooked, muttering that it looked like their next two years would be dominated by race cars.
Given this very male-dominated and hugely serious sports event, it would have been understandable for the NASCAR organisers to distance themselves from the possibility of a comedy skewering their beloved sport. But it was the opposite. Judd Apatow said in the production notes: ‘We were very lucky to get NASCAR involved in the movie. We showed them the script early and hoped they would come onboard. If they didn’t, we would have to come up with a new racing league. But they got it and we were excited that NASCAR could have a sense of humour about it and really allowed us to be a part of their world. During filming, occasionally some guy at NASCAR would pitch us a better joke than we had, and then we were embarrassed that they could ride cars at 150 miles per hour and be funnier than us.’
The plot was described in the production notes: ‘Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) has always dreamed of driving fast – real fast – like his father, Reese Bobby (Gary Cole), who left the family to pursue his racing dreams. Early on, Ricky’s mother, Lucy Bobby (Jane Lynch) worried that her boy was also destined to end up as a professional daredevil on wheels. Ricky Bobby first enters the racing arena as a “jackman” for slovenly driver Terry Cheveaux (Adam McKay) and accidentally gets his big break behind the wheel when Cheveaux makes an unscheduled pit stop during a race to gorge on a chicken sandwich. Ricky jumps into the car and … so begins the ballad of Ricky Bobby.
‘Ricky quickly becomes one of NASCAR’s top stars, supported by his pit boys – the impressively large crew chief Lucius Washington (Michael Clarke Duncan), a trio of lovably moronic but loyal crew members, Herschell (David Koechner), Kyle (Ian Roberts) and Glenn (Jack McBrayer), as well as racing partner and boyhood best friend, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly). They are all part of the Dennit Racing team, headed by wealthy Dennit Senior (Pat Hingle) and his petulant son, Dennit Junior (Greg Germann), whose jealousy of Ricky Bobby increases with every victory. In a short time, Ricky Bobby is on top of the world. He has everything a championship NASCAR driver could ever want – a gorgeous wife, Carley (Leslie Bibb), a lakeside mansion, two hell-raising sons, Walker (Houston Tumlin) and Texas Ranger (Grayson Russell), huge sponsor endorsements and a string of victories from Daytona to Darlington. Ricky Bobby’s “win at all costs” approach has made him a national hero. But as he quickly realises, in racing, as in life, you have to watch out for the curves.
‘After a frightening crash sends Ricky Bobby to the hospital, he loses his nerve and falls on hard times. When his career and his wife are taken over by his friend Cal, Ricky Bobby turns his back on racing and takes his sons back to his small hometown to live with his mother. But Ricky just isn’t cut out for the slow life away from the race track and soon hits rock bottom. His mother reluctantly turns to the only person she can think of to help her son – his estranged father Reese Bobby. His old man still has a few old racing tricks to help Ricky conquer his fear of driving. Ricky Bobby will do anything to find a way back to the top, no matter how many speed bumps life throws his way.’
Sacha Baron Cohen stars in the movie as Ricky Bobby’s driving nemesis – a flamboyant French driver whose eccentric European ‘way’ jars with Ricky’s Midwest traditions. Sacha said in the production notes: ‘I think how Adam and Will work is brilliant. Will is such an amazing improviser. He has the ability to take any scene in a totally different direction. He’s so earnest and always so in character that it is incredibly easy to improvise with him.’ Will had met Sacha before he broke through with Borat, and he admitted: ‘I just saw his new movie Borat yesterday. He’s really taken that concept to the next level. It’s so good it was slightly depressing. Not slightly, actually. I was like, upset when I walked out. I’m just thankful we’re coming out before it.’
He added to About Movies.com: ‘A lot of the basic setup of how that character was written, and then what we usually like to do is just take a week of rehearsals to work on the scenes. We improvise them and kind of put that on tape, and try to go back and film all the options that we thought of in an improvisational setting. And of course we just kind of let Sacha run with it. We almost have to warn a lot of the cast members. In some way it looks like a wonderful opportunity, though a lot of actors are intimidated by it. “What am I supposed to say now? What if it’s not funny?” We’re like, “Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be funny. If it happens, it happens. We still have our script here.” So it can be a hard thing to let go of, but this cast was really open to doing that.’ We were really, as we were writing it were like, “Who’s going to be the villain?” First it was Cal [Johnson’s] character that was going to be my arch-nemesis and this, that and the other. Then we started making Cal more of a buddy and it was like, “What would be the one thing that would be a real threat to this world? Maybe it’s someone who is Formula One? Oh, that’s good and it makes sense on a sports level. What about making him from France and he’s gay? OK. I think that covers it.” So that was all thought of ahead of time.’
Joining the film was John C. Reilly as Ron’s faithful number two. Reilly was better known for his dramatic work like Boogie Nights, but Talladega Nights showcased a whole new side to him. McKay said about Reilly in the production notes: ‘We had actually offered John a part in Anchorman, but he couldn’t take it because he had committed to working with Martin Scorsese on The Aviator. He was so funny, he blew us away. So when we wrote this film, we knew we had to find a role for him. He is incredible, a revelation. We were amazed at how well he did with improvisation.’
Reilly said in the production notes: ‘Will and I have known each other for about six years now. I met him through my friend Molly Shannon and we just hit it off right away. That friendship bled into the relationship in the movie, I guess. I was almost in Anchorman but I was shooting another movie at the time, so I couldn’t do it. That was a real heartbreak for me because I thought that was the chance to work with Will and Adam. Lo and behold, they put this together and called me. So it worked out good, I thought.’ He went on: ‘I have real genuine affection for Will. We’re really good friends, besides any kind of like professional relationship. Just as guys, we really like each other and we share a sense of humour. … He’s a really down-to-earth guy, very real. As successful as he’s gotten, none of that has gone to his head.’
Talladega Nights is, like many Ferrell films, packed with improvisation. ‘A lot of times it just hits me like a ton of bricks the absurdity of what we’re doing or what we’re saying and that’ll be when I lose it,’ said Will. ‘But it’s hard to kind of make me break. And then also, if you’re really enjoying the other actors that you’re working with it almost heals itself, but for the most part I don’t normally have a problem with that.’ (CinemaBlend, 30.7.2006) Reilly added: ‘There was a lot – a lot. I mean, when I say that, sometimes it sounds to me like the director didn’t have as much to do with making the movie. But the fact is, because of Adam’s background in improv, he was guiding all the improv. And Adam and Will wrote the script together, so it wasn’t like we were going to offend the screenwriter by throwing out the script. They wrote it, so it was their voice and they were the authority about what it should be. The script was very good. It was very funny, very tightly written. It wasn’t like, “This is a mess. Let’s make something up.”’ (About.com Hollywood Movies)
Reilly continued: ‘What happens is you get talented people involved and everyone shows up on the day. The script is great and you do that a couple of times and all of the sudden it’s like ideas just start popping up. The funny thing that’s in the script reminds me of another funny thing, or what’s the next step we could take this idea to and Adam was encouraging us. I was like, “I don’t know; I’m just trying to get my feet here. How far do I go? This is pretty crazy, some of the stuff we’re doing.” He was like, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry.” It was like the wide net theory. You just give as much as you can because we can always take it out. But if you don’t go there, we’ve got nowhere to come back from.’ And he added further: ‘I’ve seen the movie about five times now. I went to all the test screenings as they went along, for that very reason, because I knew there was enough material out there that he could have made three movies with the amount of stuff that we shot – with the blooper reel and all that. We didn’t have dailies on this movie because we were moving too fast to really watch them. Occasionally we would watch stuff at lunch to see where things were going. But I wanted to see what people came up with, and I knew that if I didn’t go to all the test screenings, some of that stuff just might go away forever. Although with DVD, it’s almost like that’s part of the plan. You can have all the extra stuff for the DVD.’
As well as Reilly, Leslie Bibb was another surprise for a comedy. The former model played the role of Ricky Bobby’s wife with so much spark. McKay said in the production notes: ‘Leslie did so well improvising with Will, we immediately knew she was right for the part. But the character of Carley Bobby is a blonde bombshell, and when Leslie read for us she was dressed down and a short haircut. Once we saw her in all of her blonde glory, with the sunglasses and the tight jeans, we were shocked at her transformation. She possesses that rare combination of talents, an actress with movie star looks who can create a strong character and flow right along with all the improv around her. She is terrific.’
Bibb, in fact, had a connection to the sport. ‘When I was a kid, we went to the Daytona 500 in Florida,’ she says. ‘I remember my Mom getting a picture of herself with [former NASCAR champion] Richard Petty. I was dazzled by Richard and his blue car from then on. I became a pretty big racing fan after I got the part in this movie, though. Now I know all the drivers’ names and their cars. Getting to work in the actual pits and garages was truly exciting and dangerous at the same time.’
Late actor Michael Clarke Duncan also starred in the film. More famous for his dramatic films like The Green Mile, this was a chance for him to show his comedic skills. In the film’s production notes, he stated: ‘I told somebody it was like being on a varsity team as a freshman and the coach says you’ve got to run with the starters now. When you get in there with John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell, the first couple of words may be the script. After that it’s whatever they feel like doing. … The hospital scene, all of that was not scripted. They just said whatever they feel and I was like – it was almost like jumping Double Dutch. You know how you’re like trying to get in there? You’ve got to get in there. They were in it and they were going. Adam would say, “You’ve got to jump in.” But I’m thinking I don’t want to cut [anybody’s] line off. I come from the background where it’s like, “I’m sorry I stepped on your line. I won’t do that next take.” But they’re like, “F the lines. Just say what you want to say. It’s all like this. It’s all confusion.” So after about the third take I finally got it. I said, “All right, Mike, you’ve just got to get in there. You just got to get in there and say something.” I finally got in there and got loose with them.’
The film featured several impressively shot driving scenes, but the original plan was to avoid shooting during real-life races. But as the production crew soaked up the adrenalin-fuelled occasion, with the roar of the engines, matched and excelled by the roar of the crowd, they decided they had to have the audience experience the same excitement as on NASCAR days. McKay said: ‘Our executive producer, David Householter, convinced us that we had to give it a try. He believed that you couldn’t beat the production value of filming during an actual live race. There is no substitute for a track crammed with 200,000 screaming fans. It gives the film a feel that is impossible to fake. In terms of feasibility, it was absurd to have our crazy characters performing in the midst of all this real action. But we never missed a single shot. We got everything we needed during those races.’
A large part of the success when it came to delivering the breathless driving scenes was down to Oliver Wood, a veteran of action cinema, including the suspense thriller classic The Bourne Identity. ‘Oliver is the best there is when it comes to shooting action,’ said McKay in the production notes. ‘He believes that each movie should be shot the way it needs to be shot. He sold me on using handheld, a rarity in comedy films. But he was right. It added energy to the shots and actually helped the comedy. Because the races look so real, you care more about what happens to the characters. The angles and cameras we came up with for the wrecks and stunts were unbelievable. It gave the movie a “big picture” feel – which is exactly what we wanted, because if you don’t believe the racing, you won’t believe anything else about the story either.’
Some of the actors even had a go a driving. Well, kind of! Will said: ‘I loved shooting at Rockingham because it was one of the legendary Southern tracks. It’s also the site of one of my most dangerous scenes when Ricky returns to racing after his debilitating wreck. He is so scared he can only get up to 25 miles per hour. All the other drivers just whiz past him. For the shot, I was actually being towed while the other cars passed me at 150 miles an hour.’ McKay said: ‘As soon as we heard those engines roar, we all turned into terrified chickens. When we got to drive, though it was exhilarating taking the curves and banking at a 45 degree angle. It was like climbing a wall – truly insane, because they tell you to accelerate into the bank, but your natural instinct is to slow down. The experience really came in handy when it actually came time to suit up and film the actual scenes on the track, as well as in the garages and the pits.’
Unsurprisingly, their experience on NASCAR has now made them massive fans of the sport: ‘I watch all the races now on Sunday. I know all the drivers and their cars. I think that once you’ve experienced the spectacle of NASCAR racing, with all of its strategy and mechanics, you can’t help but become a fan. There is a part of me that will always be hooked,’ revealed McKay.
The film has the same absurdist humour of Anchorman, if slightly more grounded. Once again, Ferrell perfected the cocky bluster and swagger of a self-important man, as well as imbuing a touch of vulnerability – much like how he played President Bush. It was well-liked by Frat Pack audiences, who were desperate to see Will hitting the same sort of absurdist highs as in Anchorman. While it may not have hit the same surreal heights, there are still many, many moments of comedic brilliance, and it cemented the feeling that the McKay/Ferrell collaboration offered something unique to cinema audiences. They responded by turning up in droves. Talladega Nights scored nearly $50 million at the US box office, and topped the film charts. It was the second biggest opening ever for an original comedy, behind Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty. It was Will’s biggest ever box-office opening weekend.
Total Film gave it a perfect five-star rating, with the following verdict: ‘Forget the recent blips; Ferrell is back in freewheeling form. More than just the year’s funniest film, Talladega Nights is one of the films of the year.’ Time Magazine said: ‘It’s difficult to guess who Will Ferrell is channeling here. Is he supposed to be a mix between Dale Earnhardt and George Bush? An egomaniacal racing superstar? The boy who never grew up? Just your average Joe? What’s even more difficult is pinning down what kind of a comedy he’s starring in. Is this a comedy about racing? About two best friends? A dysfunctional family? About an arrogant celebrity who goes from top dog to loser, and then back again? And what’s with the 30-second Applebee’s commercial? It’s this unpredictability, this sense of mayhem and inventiveness, that keeps Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby on track and always gaining momentum. That – and director Adam McKay’s skill in mixing up Ferrell’s shtick with a strong supporting cast, keeping the vehicle from bogging down amid Ricky Bobby’s immature tirades and boyish antics.’
While the BBC noted: ‘It’s hard to get a handle on Will Ferrell. There are times when he seems a perfect candidate for the “new Peter Sellers” crown that Mike Myers has been trying to claim for so long. In his best films – and this is certainly one of them – Ferrell embarks on flights of dizzying fantasy that can leave an audience helpless with laughter. But he misses the mark as often as he hits it.’ The review also stated: ‘Much like its star, Talladega Nights is erratic, infuriating and very, very funny.’
During the promotional trail for the movie, Will announced on 27 July 2006 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that he and his wife were expecting their second child. When asked by the host if he was the father, Will replied: ‘I’m not the father. Chuck Norris is the dad – we’re so excited about that.’ Joking aside, Will had met the woman of his dreams. When talking about his marriage proposal, he said: ‘It started serious but ended up comedic. I took her to this beach where we had had one of our first dates. She wanted none of it. She was like, “The beach is creepy at night.” I was like, “Shut up, this is supposed to be really romantic.” I was trying to think of what I was going to say and it just turned into, “So I, uh, really like you and, uh, anyway—” Then I went down to a knee – at least I think I did – and proposed. So it was kind of funny, but not on purpose.’