Ferrell finds an unlikely co-star in Gibson
Casting comes years after infamous rants.
This family reunion comes with a dose of holiday hijinks — and some extra baggage.
Will Ferrell’s new comedy, “Daddy’s Home 2” (new in theaters this weekend), centers around his overly earnest character Brad Whitaker co-existing 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 drunk-driving arrest and anti-Semitic rant, followed by audio of hateful tirades against an ex-girlfriend that was released four years later.
Gibson, who plays Dusty’s badboy father Kurt in the new film, has slowly returned to Hollywood after a lengthy hiatus from mainstream moviemaking, notably starring in the 2014 thriller “The Expendables 3” and directing the Oscar-nominated war drama “Hacksaw Ridge” last year. Ferrell believes viewers will embrace seeing Gibson, 61, in a different type of role.
“He’s going to open audiences’ eyes with how great he is in comedy,” Ferrell told the New York 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 hits theaters a little under two years after the original, which introduced Ferrell’s character as 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 “Daddy’s Home,” he 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 touchyfeely, and open with my feelings, and positive parenting and things like that.”
The movie is the latest co-starring vehicle for Ferrell and Wahlberg, who first delighted audiences as unlikely police partners in the 2009 comedy “The Other Guys” before revisiting their oddcouple dynamic in the original “Daddy’s Home.”