Will Ferrell’s legal first name is not Will, and it bothered him at the start of every school year as a kid.
When Ferrell, 56, appeared on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast on Tuesday, July 9, to discuss the 20th anniversary of the pair’s comedy classic Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, he confessed to Applegate, 52, that he felt embarrassed when people would address him as John, his legal first name, when he was growing up.
After Applegate asked Ferrell, who rose to fame as a Saturday Night Live cast memberin the 1990s, whether he always liked being part of groups growing up, he recalled that he felt “being funny was an easy way to make friends” as a kid before bringing up his real name.
“This is a minor thing in terms of — it’s not really even trauma — but I remember feeling so embarrassed because my real name is John, John William Ferrell, so first day of school, I’d be John. The teacher would be like ‘John Ferrell?’ and it was so embarrassing to me to have to say ‘Here, but I go by Will, I don’t go by John.’ “
Ferrell described having to wait through the first week of school before his teachers would remember he went by Will as “excruciating to me.” “It wasn’t my choice,” he said, when Applegate asked about his disdain for the name John. “My parents named [me] John but they called me Will. I grew up as Will, but on a rule sheet, my legal name is John Ferrell.”
“I don’t know why that was so embarrassing to me to have to explain ‘I’m actually Will,’ ” he added, noting that other children would usually ask him about his name after hearing him correct teachers each school year.
“People are probably going to be listening to this going ‘That is the lamest thing ever,’ ” Ferrell then joked, to which Applegate responded: “We just lost anyone named John.”
Ferrell and Applegate famously costarred in 2004’s Anchorman, a satirical comedy about a fictional news station in 1970s San Diego. Ferrell starred as anchorman Ron Burgundy, while Applegate portrays Veronica Corningstone, a new addition to the team and eventual love interest.
“At the end of the day, Christina just checked all the boxes — between funny, smart, tough, because we needed Veronica to stand up to these doofuses, and she was the smartest person in the room,” Ferrell said of casting Applegate in the movie elsewhere during the podcast.
