After just one year of training in the Groundlings, a group that had included other famous comedians like Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Pee Wee Herman, and Jon Lovitz, Ferrell was asked to join the group as a performer in 1992.

He auditioned for NBC’s hit comedy show SNL four years later and landed the job. For seven seasons, Ferrell impersonated prominent Americans such as Neil Diamond and Ted Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56, D-Mass., created characters that made America laugh, such as Craig the Spartan cheerleader, musical middle school teacher Marty Culp and the caffeine-hyped host of mock talk show “Morning Latte.”

Drawing on his experience in sports journalism, Ferrell also perfected an impression of Harry Caray, the late Chicago Cubs sportscaster.

Ferrell earned two Emmy nominations for his work on SNL in 2001, for Outstanding Individual Performance and for Outstanding Writing for a Variety program.

Hitting the Big Screen

Ferrell’s work at SNL led him from the silver screen to major feature films.

In one popular SNL skit, Ferrell and castmate Chris Kattan play the Butabi brothers, a duo of misfit partiers who continuously bop their heads in unison to Haddaway’s classic 80s song “What is Love?”

Paramount Pictures turned the hit skit into Night at the Roxbury, a full length feature film in 1998 that was a moderate box office success.

After appearing in movies such as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Ladies Man, Zoolander and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Ferrell decided to leave the cast of SNL to pursue a career exclusively in movies.

He began this endeavor with a lead role in Old School, starring along with Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson. The movie followed the zany antics of three men pining to relive antics of their college days—and doing everything in their power to bring back the memories. In one scene, the three men streak down the town’s main street.

Ferrell takes a break from two ongoing film projects to speak today. This winter, he will appear in the movie Elf as a man who is raised by Santa’s elves after falling into his bag of gifts one Christmas.

And, in early 2004, the film Action Newsman is slated for release, in which he will play a chauvinistic news anchor whose authority is challenged by a newcomer female journalist.

Asked what pranks his character in Old School might play if he attended Harvard, Ferrell says he might try speaking gibberish.

“It’s not very ‘Old School,’” he says, “but I’d try to experience four years of Harvard speaking in a made up language.”

Harvard Ties