During a recent profile for Vanity Fair, writer/director Adam McKay opened up about his split from Will Ferrell, which McKay revealed was much more personal than just the dissolving of their Gary Sanchez Productions. The two not only ended their business partnership, but also their friendship, and McKay blames himself for the whole thing. And it was his fault. According to McKay, the situation went south when he poorly handled casting John C. Reilly as Lakers owners Jerry Buss in a new HBO limited series after initially giving the role to Ferrell, a longtime Lakers fan.
However, after making the admission to Vanity Fair, numerous outlets covered the falling out, which McKay might be a little surprised to see. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, McKay made mention of how the media focused more on his split from Ferrell and not the climate issues raised in the Vice director’s latest film:
It’s kind of crazy to see how much has been reported on this. We made Don’t Look Up to hopefully get people talking about the climate crisis — literally the biggest threat to life in human history — and to see so much made about two comedy guys not talking about a TV show is a scary sign of our times. I love Ferrell. Always will. I had the best, most fun run of my life with him. Yes, I wish I had talked to him about it out of respect, but we were both focused on our new companies and life just took over.
Despite knocking the media for focusing on the Ferrell split, McKay was surprisingly game for sharing more details about what went wrong with the friendship that created such comedy classics as Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Although, McKay does have hope for the future.
“As clean as we both tried to make it go, there were moments afterward where we weren’t exactly chummy,” McKay told THR. “I kept trying to frame it like, ‘Hey, it’s OK. It’s its natural conclusion,’ but as I would say it, it didn’t quite feel right. It felt like a breakup. I’m looking forward to when the dust has settled. I’d love to just go watch a Lakers game with him and kick back and get back to our old kind of rhythm.”
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)