Friends no more.
“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” director Adam McKay addressed for the first time the end of his partnership with actor Will Ferrell.
The pair of funnymen created the comedy video site “Funny or Die” and founded the company Gary Sanchez Productions. But seemingly out of the blue, the once dynamic duo announced they were ending their working relationship in 2019.
“The two of us will always work together creatively and always be friends. And we recognize we are lucky as hell to end this venture as such,” they said in a statement at the time.
McKay, now 53, explained in a new Vanity Fair profile what went down between him and his “Step Brothers” writing partner, 54.
“I’ve learned some lessons. It’s always hard feelings,” McKay said. The filmmaker and Ferrell discussed dissolving their production company, and when McKay decided to recast the role of LA Lakers’ former team owner Jerry Buss for an HBO series, that’s when stuff hit the fan. The “Don’t Look Up” director opted to cast John C. Reilly, Ferrell’s co-star in “Step Brothers,” instead of Ferrell for the coveted part.
“The truth is, the way the show was always going to be done, it’s hyperrealistic. And Ferrell just doesn’t look like Jerry Buss, and he’s not that vibe of a Jerry Buss. And there were some people involved who were like, ‘We love Ferrell, he’s a genius, but we can’t see him doing it.’ It was a bit of a hard discussion,” McKay told the publication.
He continued, “Didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Wanted to be respectful . . . I should have called [Ferrell] and I didn’t. And Reilly did, of course, because Reilly, he’s a stand-up guy.”
McKay added that he hasn’t spoken with “Holmes & Watson” actor Ferrell since the phone call when they decided part ways. McKay also said he tried to email him, but to no avail.
“I said, ‘Well, I mean, we’re splitting up the company,’ and he basically was like, ‘Yeah we are,’ and basically was like, ‘Have a good life.’ And I’m like, ‘F – – k, Ferrell’s never going to talk to me again.’ So it ended not well,” he continued.
“I f – – ked up on how I handled that,” McKay revealed. “I should have just done everything by the book. In my head, I was like, ‘We’ll let all this blow over. Six months to a year, we’ll sit down, we’ll laugh about it and go, ‘It’s all business junk, who gives a s – – t? We worked together for 25 years. Are we really going to let this go away?’ “
However, Ferrell “took it as a way deeper hurt than I ever imagined and I tried to reach out to him, and I reminded him of some slights that were thrown my way that were never apologized for.”
In an October interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Ferrell discussed the friendship breakup. “Adam was like, ‘I want to do this, and this, and this’; he wanted growth and a sphere of influence, and I was just like, ‘I don’t know, that sounds like a lot that I have to keep track of,’ ” Ferrell told the outlet. “To me, the potential of seeing a billboard, and being like: ‘Oh, we’re producing that?’ I don’t know . . . At the end of the day, we just have different amounts of bandwidth.”