Daddy’s Home delivers the jokes, family dilemmas and wacky scenarios. Will Ferrell plays Brad, a needy and occasionally annoying Step Dad to two young children. He’s fulfilling his life-long dream of being a father and he seems oblivious to the fact that the kids haven’t quite taken to him yet. Just as the kids start to warm up to Brad, Dusty, their biological Dad (Mark Wahlberg), comes for a visit. We watch as both men vie for the kid’s love and both of their insecurities go through the roof!
I sat with Will Ferrell — one of my all-time favorite stars — and chatted about Daddy’s Home. Here are five fun moments from the conversation!
One of the pivotal scenes in Daddy’s Home was filmed at a Laker’s basketball game. I first learned about this on Twitter — Will Ferrell knocked out a cheerleader with a basketball! It sounded like the crowd wasn’t in on the filming. Will joked that this was one of the funnest experiences in the film because the crowd had no idea what was going to happen. “It was crucial that I pegged the cheerleader since the crowd was watching it for the first time.” He also spoke about being in the moment, “There was a certain kind of electricity to shooting, so we had all the cameras in place, and we knew we only had one take. And so it had this real momentum because we were doing it in real time, so that was pretty fun.”
So few movies portray step parenting in a positive way. Daddy’s Home shows the stepparent is a good guy. That was an area that hadn’t been explored before and drew Will to this script. “I think this whole notion of a blended family is so common now. There’s so many families who have to deal with a stepparent on either side and they are trying to make that work, and accepting the fact that, the biological father is part of it, as well, or not. And you know, it just felt like territory that hadn’t been explored before.” Films often make the stepparents evil and Will liked the idea of a guy who’s goal in life is to be the world’s greatest dad to the point where it’s a little bit, “Nauseous. He loves these kids so much and this family. But the kids could kind of care less.” Will’s character is very much in touch with his feelings which attracted Will to this role, “Brad will cry at the drop of a hat and all those things just seemed so funny to me.”
Speaking of being in touch with his feelings. Will seems to play roles that tend to be needy. Is he like that in real life? “No, not, I’m not…I’m completely opposite. I’m not needy at all, in a way.” He reassures us that’s it’s not because he doesn’t have the same insecurities that everyone else has, “But for some reason – well, it’s just not the way I’m programmed to be.” From the roles he plays and meeting him in real life, he doesn’t seem insecure at all.
This film is packed with mishaps. Does Will have a parenting mishaps that stands out? “I dropped my oldest son off at soccer practice for about two hours — On the wrong field, yeah.”
Will feels that Daddy’s home celebrates parents. “I think that’s what the movie is pointing out and celebrating, is the fact that as parents, you really don’t know what you’re doing and you’re just making it up as you go along. And some day, some nights you lie in bed going, “Today was a good day”. There were some great teachable moments and these are moments our children are gonna remember.” And then other days, you’re like, “Oh, I totally blew it.” He sees the three characters in the film learning to work together and figure things out. He adds, “It doesn’t matter what method you use, as long as you approach the rearing of children with love, and respect, it’s all gonna work out.”
Read our Q&A with Mark Wahlberg of Daddy’s Home.
