Ferrell and Wahlberg: Fathers know best?
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are together again.
After playing ill-suited detectives in 2010’s The Other Guys, the funny guys are squaring off in Daddy’s Home (in theaters Christmas Day). Ferrell plays strait-laced stepdad Brad (Ferrell), who feels territorial when his kids’ real father, Dusty (Wahlberg), swoops in to parent and try to win back ex-wife Sarah (Linda Cardellini). As Ferrell puts it, the movie is “an original take on the family comedy and comments on what’s becoming increasingly more of the norm: the idea of a blended family, with stepparents being involved with the actual biological parents and co-parenting.”
They’re roles that Ferrell, 48, and Wahlberg, 44, know well: Each has kids of his own (Ferrell has three sons; Wahlberg has two daughters and two sons).
The actors catch up with USA TODAY to share their own parenting tips, how they survive Christmas and what movie they’d like to make together next:
Q How would you compare your own parenting styles with those of Brad and Dusty?
Wahlberg: I’m more like Brad, really.
Ferrell: I would say my parenting style is distant, at best. Keep the kids away, bring them out for birthdays and holidays. Otherwise, I don’t got time.
Q What would your kids say is the most embarrassing thing you do as a parent?
Wahlberg: Tell them how much I love them in front of their friends. Getting emotional? That doesn’t go over well.
Ferrell: Yeah, doing all the things you think they would love really embarrasses them. They’ll appreciate it later.
Q How about ways that you’ve earned “cool” points with your kids?
Wahlberg: Taylor Swift and One Direction (concerts) for my daughters. Football games. Basketball games. Professional wrestlers showing up at the house.
Ferrell: I was able to, through a buddy who works at the FBI, set up an actual counterfeit station in our house to make counterfeit money.
Wahlberg: That’s random.
Q What’s the worst parenting advice you’ve ever gotten?
Wahlberg: “Just give them a little drink.”
Ferrell: “Let them figure it out themselves” — that never goes well. Probably to have them sit way back in coach on a flight. When (my friends) travel, their kids always sit back there. I’m like, “Don’t you sit next to your kids?” And they’re like, “Nah, they’re fine.”
Wahlberg: It saves money. Ferrell: It does save money and gives you some quiet time.
Q What are some parenting tips to survive Christmas?
Ferrell: Believe it or not, I was with all three of my boys at a Toys ‘R’ Us on Black Friday buying Nerf guns. It wasn’t that bad.
Wahlberg: Have fun. Enjoy it.
Ferrell: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Don’t give them everything on their list. Make them make their own toys. Go out in the garage, give them a bunch of plywood, hammer and nails.
Q Do your kids still believe in Santa?
Ferrell: The 5-year-old does, for sure. The 8-year-old is teetering on the brink.
Wahlberg: They haven’t told him?
Ferrell: They haven’t. I’ve told the 11-year-old. It’s a weird tradition, right? To tell the older kids to keep the lie going?
Q Having starred in two films together now, why do you think you work so well together?
Ferrell: Mark and I can just pick up where we left off. We both think the same things are funny, in terms of how you approach a character in a comedy.
Wahlberg: We both agree that you’re very funny. We talk about that all the time.
Ferrell: We both agree that I’m really funny. I’ll be like, “Hey, Mark, you know what we haven’t talked about today? How funny I am.” So that dynamic is so great and so natural.
Q In ‘The Other Guys,’ you played mismatched detectives, and in ‘Daddy’s Home,’ mismatched dads. What kind of duo would you like to be next?
Wahlberg: Anything to do with hip-hop would be great. A duo of rappers.
Ferrell: Who are actually superheroes in disguise.
Wahlberg: Super-mommas. Ferrell: We’re women? Oh, OK.
‘Daddy’s Home’ actors dish on parenting, Santa and how to survive the holidays