Will Reynolds and Ryan Ferrell's Late Show Appearances

November 13, 2021 8:35 PM

Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell had some unique late show appearances this week. Don't miss Reynolds' Star Wars bottoms. How do the two know each other? It all began with a TikTok meme ...
posted by MollyRealized (12 comments total)

As Ryan mentions (or was it Will?), they also both had parts in a comedy movie about Watergate in 1999 called Dick.
posted by eye of newt at 9:59 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

I liked how Kimmel started playing improv games with Ferrell. I don't think Fallon knows improv well enough to engage with Reynolds on that level, or if Reynolds even has an improv background.
posted by hippybear at 9:59 PM on November 13, 2021

The TikTok meme, previously
posted by miguelcervantes at 11:55 PM on November 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I barely could get through that Jimmy Fallon clip, and not because of Ryan Reynolds.
posted by Pendragon at 12:23 AM on November 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

They have a Christmas Movie coming to
Apple TV next month. Spirited is a musical version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
posted by interogative mood at 4:59 AM on November 14, 2021

I R confuse. TIL that Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon are different people. I thought Equity insisted that front-of-camera folks had to have different names so they didn't finish up in the wrong film. This generic star jape is clever but the host reactions makes me suspect they were in on it and that dilutes the impact a good bit.
posted by BobTheScientist at 5:42 AM on November 14, 2021

the host reactions makes me suspect they were in on it

Well, yes. I suspect that Christian Glover nearly high-kicking David Letterman in the face in 1987 was about the last time something genuinely impromptu happened on an American late night talk show.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:56 AM on November 14, 2021 [15 favorites]

Will Ferrell Just Wants to Entertain You (and Himself) - "The 'Shrink Next Door' producer-star on building (and winnowing) his empire, splitting with collaborator and pal Adam McKay and chasing the funny above all else: 'I've always loved making other people laugh. I've just never needed to make you like me.'"

It was Elbaum who had come up with the idea for Gloria Sanchez Productions, which now houses all of their projects. It was initially conceived as a sister label to the now-shuttered Gary Sanchez Productions — and when she pitched it to Ferrell seven or eight years ago, nobody was launching female-driven companies, much less greenlighting projects from them. What neither of them could have predicted was just how relevant the company and its mission would become in the #MeToo era. Suddenly, Ferrell was uniquely positioned on two ends of a cultural shift. As a producer, he has had a slew of timely projects, with more coming from Barb and Star’s Wiig and Annie Mumolo along with Lena Dunham and Constance Wu, which he’s nurtured with Elbaum and their tiny staff.

How Ryan Reynolds Built a Business Empire [ungated] - "With a range of film and TV projects on the way, as well as initiatives through his company Maximum Effort, the actor and entrepreneur has turned his on-camera charisma into major marketing savvy."

While Reynolds says he’d be thrilled to “pull a Betty White” and tell naughty jokes into his 90s, he’s not counting on it. “I will not be a movie star at some point,” he says. That thinking informs his planning for the Group Effort Initiative, a diversity and inclusion program funded out of Reynolds’s salary that gives BIPOC and other marginalized people, who have been historically underrepresented in the entertainment industry, tangible work experience on his upcoming productions. “Right now, I’m in a position of unspeakable privilege, where I can enact something like this. At some point, I will not be,” Reynolds says. “So the hope is that you’re creating a template so that it becomes sustainable.” After he introduced the initiative on The Adam Project, several studios and networks adopted the model.

posted by kliuless at 7:07 AM on November 14, 2021 [12 favorites]

Y’all are forgetting the time Drew flashed letterman and he was a doll to her.

But ya with Ryan:Will each host was either tipped off or dead inside because there seemed to be no actual reaction.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:10 PM on November 14, 2021

> the host reactions makes me suspect they were in on it

I feel like I'm party pooping here, but some searching suggests that Fallon's show is based in New York City, and Kimmel's show is based in Hollywood. So, they're not checking in, saying hi, then sneaking off to another floor.
posted by Pronoiac at 8:13 PM on November 14, 2021

I think even if the hosts aren't in on it, both Ferrell and Reynolds are often enough guests on shows and have probably known these hosts long enough that the hosts could make Not A Big Deal out of it while still having it being a surprise.

Kimmell was obviously working to play into Ferrell's strengths.
posted by hippybear at 9:52 PM on November 14, 2021

Loved both clips... these are great guys (Ferrell and Reynolds) doing good comedy (and apparently social good, too).

I'm pretty sure that the guests run through the questions with the hosts on these kinds of shows beforehand in a kind of rehearsal. So I think this was staged. But funny nonetheless. Reminds me of that time Sarah Palin was on SNL and then "refused" to sing the Drill, Baby, Drill song or whatever, and Tina Fey "stepped in" and did the song. Fey was totally prepared to do that, and you could tell. What I loved seeing was the idiotic newscasters duped by this and actually thinking Fey improvised her performance (not to minimize Fey's accomplishments and talent, btw).
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:18 AM on November 15, 2021