With Eurovision cancelled, Netflix offers Will Ferrell comedy

NEW YORK — With the coronavirus pandemic forcing cancellation of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, actors Will Ferrell and Rachel Mcadams hope fans can get their fix by watching their madcap Netflix comedy about a duo from Iceland who compete in the event.

“Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” is a “zany, unexpected, musical extravaganza,” Mcadams told Reuters.

She and Ferrell play Sigrit Ericksdottir and Lars Erickssong, blond Scandinavian soulmates who bumble their way into being Iceland’s contest entrants, and find unlikely ways to keep advancing.

The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the world’s biggest annual television events, featuring colourful and often tongue-in-cheek and overthe-top performances. It was due to take place in Rotterdam in May after the Netherlands won the 2019 contest, but was cancelled as the pandemic spread.

Pierce Brosnan said he only needed a quick look at the script to sign on for the role of Ferrell’s father and harshest critic, Erick Erickssong.

“I read it one morning and said yes to it by lunchtime,” Brosnan said, adding he “grew up with Eurovision living in London” and watched ABBA win in 1974.

Ferrell said Eurovision officials “totally got” his idea of a movie lampooning the contest.

“I said, ‘You know, we’re going to have some fun with it.’ And they’re like: ‘Oh, you should.’”

Ferrell said real past Eurovision performances were a key inspiration and gave them the idea, for instance, for a scene in which Ferrell sings while running on a giant hamster wheel.

“Andrew (Steele), our writer said, let’s just do the hamster wheel.” They got an “amazing team of British prop guys constructing this massive hamster wheel out of steel that would later be lowered, you know, 100 feet out of the air that I’m running on.”