Ferrell: ‘Daddy’s Home’ and Gibson’s back
THIS FAMILY reunion comes with a dose of holiday hijinks — and some extra baggage.
Will Ferrell’s new comedy, “Daddy’s Home 2,” centers on his overly earnest character Brad Whitaker trying to co-exist with his wife’s rough-and-tough ex-husband Dusty Mayron (played by Mark Wahlberg) - until drama ensues when their respective fathers come to town for Christmas.
The film features a controversial cast addition in Mel Gibson, who stars in his first family comedy in over a decade after his infamous 2006 drunken-driving arrest and anti-Semitic rant. Recordings of hateful tirades against an ex-girlfriend became public four years later.
Gibson, who plays Dusty’s bad-boy father Kurt in the new film, has slowly returned to Hollywood after a lengthy hiatus from mainstream moviemaking. He starred in the 2014 thriller “The Expendables 3” and directed the Oscar-nominated 2016 war drama “Hacksaw Ridge.”
Ferrell believes viewers will now embrace seeing Gibson in a different type of role.
“He’s going to open audiences’ eyes with how great he is in comedy,” Ferrell told the Daily News.
“I think this was kind of a fun thing for him to step outside, be on camera after having an absence for a while, and also (doing) a family, PG-13 comedy was something he hasn’t really done,” he said. “I think if he chooses to do more of that, he’s going to be more than back.”
The “Daddy’s Home” sequel — due out this Friday — hits theaters a little under two years after the original, which introduced Ferrell’s character, the goofy, excessively upbeat stepfather to Dusty’s two children.
Ferrell — whose father is played by John Lithgow — didn’t originally anticipate making a sequel, but after the success of the first film decided he was on board as long as they came up with a worthwhile storyline featuring the right characters.
“We really wanted to see someone come down the escalator like a Mel Gibson, and without even saying a word of dialogue, you knew, ’Oh, this is why Dusty acts the way he acts,’” Ferrell explains. “And the same with John and why I’m so touchy-feely and open with my feelings.”
The movie is the latest co-starring vehicle for Ferrell and Wahlberg, who first delighted audiences as a pair of unlikely police partners in the 2009 comedy “The Other Guys.”
“It just started making us laugh, the idea of Mark and I together,” Ferrell said of their initial pairing. “You wouldn’t ever picture it. Him always — for the most part — playing the tough guy … up against my kind of plain, everyman thing I’ve been able to corner the market on.
”It’s proven to work really well, and Mark is as adept a comedian as he is a dramatic actor.“
Although Ferrell plays a father figure in “Daddy’s Home 2,” he acknowledges he’s not as over the top around his real kids as Brad is in the movie. Ferrell, 50, is starting to allow his 13-year-old son Magnus to watch some of the more raunchy comedies his dad has starred in, though he still limits what his younger sons Mattias, 10, and Axel, 7, can see.
Regardless, the Ferrell kids are fans of their father’s comedy style.
“They love their ’Family Guy,’ and they love Adam Sandler,” Ferrell said. “I think they’re like, ’You’re good too Dad, you’re good too.’ So as long as they’re not like, ’Dad, that was not funny. What are you doing man?’ — as long as I kind of stay in the top 10 with them, I’ll take it.”
His sons visited the “Daddy’s Home 2” set while Ferrell was filming a particularly memorable scene that involves him kissing Lithgow on the lips when they meet at the airport. The scene took all day to perfect and they ultimately recorded over 30 takes, which Ferrell says left his sons “laughing and embarrassed the whole time.”
“For some reason, we kept doing it off camera as well, just to try and make Mark laugh,” Ferrell recalls. “So we kept kissing all day long. I’m not afraid to admit that.”