Student Questions | Will Ferrell & Craig Pollard

let's open it up to some questions from students we have mics front aisles here students only questions for Craig and we'll do this route 20 minutes step right up yes please and your name here your your grade for your class hi my name is Mike Lynn I'm a sophomore here and my question is for will and I am dying to know what is your favorite character that you have played oh um well you know I've I feel very lucky in that you know I've gotten to I've truly had so much fun doing literally every movie that I've gotten to do or whether it be on Sara Night Live and and that sort of thing I mean if I have to pick one you know Ron Burgundy an anchorman was such a such a tough battle to get that movie made I think we we literally had 10 production companies and and studios in one day declined to do the movie and it took us took us about three years to get anyone to read the script and so to actually finally make it and then to watch it have this kind of following and that's that's very satisfying to me yeah congratulation thank you next question on this side yeah first of all I just want to say thank you to both you especially Craig for sharing your story today my question is for will I just wanted to know if you I wanted to get your opinion on if you think your portrayal of George Bush affected the public's perception of the man uh I've been told that it did you know when you're kind of in the the vortex of doing that you know I mean how quickly forget that you know we didn't have a president there for a month and we were just Darrell Hammond who was who was doing al gore and myself it was we were just basically doing these comedy characters you know you you kind of forget when you're on a show like Star Night Live that the people you portray are actually real people and that you might have effect on how things are perceived but yeah I've been told that I made him seem really likable and like a guy you want to have a beer with and I didn't actually think he would win I just yeah and win some you lose some yeah and he did and ended up playing him for but you know what I don't I don't really sit back and analyze that too much yeah I'm wondering you know you're from Orange County playing that role active in in in democratic circles are you allowed to go back to Orange County anymore uh I I have an EZ Pass yeah so toll road joke yeah yeah that's happy three yeah next question please okay hi my name is Danielle and I'm a sophomore my questions for Craig how bad was okay and do you regret going into business I'm sorry what how bad was okay man do you regret going into business instead because I'm pre-med and I'm really contemplating it right now run Rhonda Hoffman Hall right now ya know yeah I mean that the entrepreneur program I was you know actually a fraternity brother of ours was already in the program and he invited me to one of the classes and I was hooked from from that standpoint yeah it was fantastic good luck come come to Marshall yeah come to Marshall question over here hi name is Boca I'm a freshman um my questions for mr. Farrell or can I call you well yeah sure call me will hey alright oh you can call me Dave if you want all right so all right Dave um question if you have a question for me from now on please call me Dave alright so Dave you played a lot of like comedic roles and I'm wondering in your personal life do people have a harder time taking you seriously when you're dribbling like real news like I wouldn't be like if you told me I'm on fire right now like oh oh Dave that's why I never give anyone real news yeah yeah no I you know I I do find when I meet people in public because you know I might be with my kids I might be running around doing something and there is an expectation level that you're going to be funny all the time and I'm continually letting people down yeah yeah question on this side hi my name is Renee I'm a senior should I call you Willard a it's Dave yeah just checking um like he mentioned earlier that you take it maybe maybe take in some parts of your life and put them in in your films but I was wondering if you ever plan on making a project that's mainly autobiographical or are any of your previous characters kind of autobiographical about your life I I mean other than old school there you know there was some auto biographical moments there that were already written in the script so I knew I was perfect for the part but uh no you know I I mean I kind of really loved the roles I get to do as a chance to to be someone I'm not and you know it's it's a chance to to kind of explore that as opposed to I don't think anything about my life would be that interesting so it seems pretty interesting other than my antique pistol collection which is gorgeous okay thanks look oh thank you very satisfied with that answer Thanks question hi Dave I'm Joey I have to ask as it's a bit of a urban legend but did you really get kicked out of DT D for flooding the basement and trying to kayak on it I did not know oh yeah we would even have a base we don't have a basin yeah yeah that's a good one I haven't heard that yeah you can address him his will so that on the internet when people show this clip it will make sense but all right well we're all trombones in the trumpet trombone section in the marching band we're gonna be at the game this weekend the Notre Dame game can you pay us a visit while you're there Oh we'd love to see you you're gonna feel that I mean the rules have changed as to access to the field since certain sanctions were put in this lands leave a place look in Chicago all weekend I'll try to follow you find you guys what hotel are you guys staying Batman told us yet the airport Radisson not that way cuz that's where I'm gonna be out the airport Radisson all right but not O'Hare Midway last you point southwest yeah yeah yeah disable buffa Southwest yeah Midway I make about six connections I go Portland Seattle Phoenix Burbank change planes Minneapolis back to Burbank Chicago and it's 30 bucks and bags and bags are free bags our bags are free trombone section yes flight on we'll see you I'll try to I'll try to find you guys all right guys next question hi my name is May and my questions for Craig just as a social entrepreneur we know that your proper goal is to aim to inspire other than telling your own passions your own stories how do you inspire others through your using your passion and who did you find our most receptacle to these passions how I get the tough questions you know easy ones you know I think the the great thing about our charity is that we have so many you know almost 2,000 kids now and they all have amazing stories you know we have a current you know scholarship winner that is now a nurse and an ecology wing that she you know was treated in so them going out and continuing to be inspirations for the charity to tell the story not just me but now there's like I said 1,700 plus kids that can tell our story and that works for our inspiration how about we just started off who did you talk to who are the most supportive to you you know it was really those things where really it was the my USC connections you know it was my fraternity brothers coming to our small events and then it just growing and really you know the the deal with him when when he did old school and came to our event when we were only giving out maybe about five or ten thousand dollars a year in scholarships and he did old school I don't remember this one you you you spoke at palo mesa resort he was telling about the streaking story at old school in that through my for-profit business in a wholesale distribution business i had a lot of my vendors at the event that supported the charity just because you know i bought stuff from them so i kind of leverage them to attend the event and then when we'll hit it big all of a sudden all of my vendors and other vendors wanted to be a part of our events and that's really how we've grown so fast i mean i'd love to be able to say there was something I did magical but it's sitting right here I mean the reality of it is is that with his popularity it exposed people to what we do and then I think the people that came there saw these stories of these kids and that inspired them to want to continue to support it regardless of whether he's there or not we have a lot of corporate and individual support because they just love the story of what we do thank you hey thank you guys for coming it's been awesome so I'm sitting on the seventh row I came with the lady sitting next to the man with the yellow shirt he was actually a pretty good-looking guy I've been seeing her for about two or three weeks and soubrette is a great looking guy that's a great looking guy I think I'm in love with him it's been stressing me out the whole time can you give me the five easy steps to cracking the code that is the female heart you you want to help me cracking the code that is the female heart my wife might be able to answer her did I do it number one you got a bathe and a v-necks do not work was to three I think poetry is coming back and vogue is a lot of 10-15 page poems take a lady to dinner and offer to pay with a coupon not that fifth one it's your world rinse and repeat number once before there you go that's that's back thank you versatile hygiene yeah yeah my roommate is actually starting a non-profit I think it has to deal with the families of those who died from cancer and I guess my question to you is what is there that you can't learn in a book from the USC bookstore about nonprofits and starting nonprofits that you know would be good to know in these beginning stages yeah I think a really good idea if it would be to go around and talk to other executive directors and people that are running other charities and find out you know what they do well and what they do wrong you know I still spend a lot of my time you know talking to other you know nonprofit organizations and finding out what successful in because it's very hard to fundraise you know in this environment not only because of the economy because there's so much noise out there that you have so I would really highly suggest going to talk to you know other charities and what they're doing to be successful next question hi my name is Lukas I'm a senior here I spent my four years here in the Lane Kiffin era it's my question for will I was wondering based on your knowledge of sports information who do they should be the next head coach of the USC football program both you um who do you like Wow maybe maybe maybe they don't have a coach save some money you know uh I don't know that's a tough that's a tough that's Pat Hayden's job yeah I met I was up in Seattle this weekend and I went to the Seahawks game and I met Mike Holmgren I don't know if you remember packers coach and Seahawk match so I tried to convince him to come down but uh you know yeah I don't know no I mean we're fortunate to have Pat Haden here who cares so much about this University you know know me Genda other than to find the best coach exactly you need to to give ed order on his his due time to see what can happen and go from there yeah I mean I am available I will punt on second down higher play a very conservative game no quarterback Wildcat on every day I'll count on every down yeah it'll be exciting though yeah thank you thank you next question we got a few more hi my name is Nathan I'm a senior my questions for will regarding Funny or Die I have a friend actually that works there and I've heard great things about it and I love your stuff why did you start it I mean you're so busy of so much going on it's just seems like more on your plate and I'm glad you did but what really pushed you to do it well we it was it was serendipity actually we were approached by a Mark Kwame who was at Sequoia at the time and it was it was it was basically an idea that they had and they they were looking for the right kind of combination of people to run it and they approached myself and Adam McKay and you know I think the story's getting revised every year it's now in the fifth year of the site but the the real story is we were fairly ambivalent to the idea we we had seen other comedy sites come and go we didn't we didn't understand we could we couldn't figure out how are we going to get our friends to want to do comedy for free and it just felt like I don't know if it's going to work but we we were afraid if we said no and someone else said yes what if it did you know blow up so we decided to to take it on and we got lucky with the landlord video and that kind of put us on the map and and and then once again we've we've been fortunate in getting a great talented team you know they're in place and and now it's of course kind of running itself and going on to produce uh that was my kind of second part of the question is what uh do you have any kind of role in it now or do you still help produce the skits I mean of course the landlord you are part of you know I walk through our offices and I just yell at people randomly just to keep them on your toes because any sort of company you want to have a certain amount of fear um that I mean I try to you know we're we're more editors in a way now it truly is we're kind of amazed at the stuff that I mean we're just as much fans of the site who discover things for the first time as as you guys so when when time permits all come and do a piece or what we'll definitely call and and send an email if we have an idea for a specific video that should be shot and and and definitely participate in the board meetings and what the future of the site is and things like that cool thank you to uh does this set look familiar at all to you between two giant ferns yeah yeah yeah we gots but that's kind of the amazing story of the site is someone like Zach Galifianakis is like hey I've got this idea I want to just have two ferns in a weird coffee table we're going to shoot it like a bad cable access thing and we're great let's do it and it's it's on the site right away and it's it's I think it's really a fun tangent for a lot of people in comedy and out of comedy to come and play around that between two ferns is just yeah it's indescribable it's going to go on to bigger and better things I'm sure he could do you know a show on HBO or show anywhere he wants with that but it's just perfect where do you know it's a perfect content for the perfect side go which side are we on all right let's go keep it going hello just I like to say thank you for being here and this is for will I'm just some of the most impressive moments for me is whenever you're on like an award show and you're trying present an award like no I'm never at one time Civic when we made it with Sacha Baron Cohen for two minutes and I was wondering like okay and I was wondering like like how does that work but is it like did it give you like a script and then you would burn it like the backstage before you going onstage or or is it like like you just do it spontaneously and also like how is the art of like not giving a crap something you learn or something that is inherent within the human being it's a great question I think they're good gonna start teaching that class next semester upper division upper division okay yeah uh no I mean you know the most of the time it's it's pretty well thought out you know the case with Sasha that was we worked all of that out I just did a thing with at the Golden Globes with Kristen Wiig where we we were the premise was we were supposed to as the presenter have watched all the movies and we talked about the movies in a way that clearly revealed that we had not seen any of them that was something we were just doing off the top of our heads because we didn't want anyone to to just steal it while we while we rehearsed it so it's just it's kind of a combination excellent thank you a couple more questions so my question is for Craig so you talked a lot about how you used well and his fame to grow your business and seeing as a I don't personally know Will Ferrell at all really I was wondering I was kind of wondering did you have any other advice for like starting your own business or other business and will can I get your numbers my number yes of course working on the getting-to-know-you thing okay yeah what was the quite a bunch with you what was the question besides connect you know so like what kind of other advice would you have for people starting their own business besides just like networking and me and I mean Errol I had a passion because of what I went through so I mean regardless of whether will was who he became you know even if he wasn't famous I think he still would be a part of the charity helping out as best he could and I was going to do it either way so the level of my success with the charity I didn't know what it was going to become but I was not going to stop so I would say just persistence and not giving up on the goal it's kind of what you know and I just very fortunate that he ended up where he did thanks great last question please my name is Robbie I'm a sophomore my questions for Dave you've obviously worked with a lot of famous comedians and I was just wondering which one you thought personally was the funniest that you'd worked with oh gosh well Zach got we talked about Zach Galifianakis he's hilarious you know so many of the the non comedians are actually some of the funny like john c reilly is is funny a guy as you'll ever come across and and that's kind of what we like to do in a lot of these movies is take actors that you haven't really seen in a comedic way and have them kind of explore something different and they turn out to be as funny as as as any of us who were the comedians so I'm trying to think George W Bush was really funny when I met him so fast sure he's not a bear of Huma Sasha Sasha Baron Cohen he's a funny guy but but you know what would we aren't kind of sitting around trying to make ourselves laugh either so it's it's a little boring sorry I mean yeah we've been great

Channel: TheLeapTV

Views: 162,208

Rating: 4.7975903 out of 5

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Id: QMDpNZmY5uM

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 26 2013