Will Ferrell gets serious in 'Everything Must Go'

PLAYING A downward-spiraling drunk in the art house picture "Everything Must Go" isn't where you expect to find Will Ferrell on the eve of the summer season.

Truth be told, it wasn't his first choice.

Ferrell loves his serious turn in "Everything Must Go," but he came to it only after pitching several ideas for mainstream, bigger-budget comedies, including an "Anchorman" sequel.

There were no takers.

A sign of how radically the business has changed, and how quickly.

Just a few years ago, Ferrell could have gotten anything made. And did, some would say. "Semi-Pro" and the notorious "Land of the Lost" come to mind.

Ferrell's taste for oddball material also paid big dividends - "Blades of Glory," "Talladega Nights" and "The Other Guys."

Those movies were made in flush times, when there was a lot of money to float the kind of absurdist projects that Ferrell cooked up with "Anchorman" collaborator Adam McKay.

Then came the recession. The risk money dried up, and Hollywood retreated to the safety of big budget titles with a can't-miss international audience in mind - just look at where the money's being made this spring.

"Fast Five" in Rio. "Rio" in Rio. "Hangover II" in Asia.

"Thor," with its international cast, opened overseas before it played in the states - ditto for "Fast Five." That's where the money is.

"All the studios now are going away from the way they used to do things. You used to deal with companies where they had business people, and people who did things based on what their gut told them to do. Recently, they've kind of eliminated the gut factor," Ferrell said. "The way things are now, you don't even bother talking with the creative people. You might as well go straight to the business guy."

And the business guy, Ferrell said, does not want to take chances. "You pitch the premise, and one guy will say, 'I like that. That would make a funny movie.' And another guy will say, 'yes, but how will it play in Portugal?' "

Ferrell offered a case in point.

"Three years ago, they were begging us to do 'Anchorman 2.' So we go and get the cast together, and everybody says OK, we're willing to do it. But the studio says you have to make it for a price, and the price was more than they were willing to pay."

Which raises a question.

How many $100 million movies does a guy have to make in order to get a green light these days?

Ferrell has made five, not counting "Megamind" or "The Wedding Crashers."

"We brought that up," said Ferrell, drily.

Well, when one door closes . . .

It was at the time that "Anchorman 2" collapsed that Ferrell fell for a script called "Everything Must Go," based on a Raymond Carver short story.

It's not a movie you make for commercial reasons.

Not only is it quintessential Carver - spare and bleakly funny, if it's funny at all - but it belonged to a writer-director (Dan Rush) who'd done only television commercials.

Ferrell wasn't just taking a chance on tough material, he was taking a chance on a guy who'd never made a feature film.

Still, Ferrell loved the script, and his instincts were good. Ferrell is a gifted physical comedian (think "Elf"), and "Everything Must Go," even when it touches on darker territory, draws on his natural comic gifts.

Ferrell plays a relapsed drunk whose fed-up wife tosses his stuff on the lawn and locks him out of the house.

He decides to live on the front yard - sets up the La-Z-Boy, the record player, the mini-fridge.

You can't help but laugh, especially with Ferrell and his big doughy body walking to the front-yard fridge in bathroom slippers for another Pabst.

The character's collapsed life also becomes public - we pick up sordid details as he interacts with a local teen (Christopher C.J. Wallace) and a bride-to-be (Rebecca Hall) across the street.

Much of what the man reveals about himself is unpleasant. He's self-destructive, he's sometimes cruel. It's uncharted territory for Ferrell, accustomed to lighter roles and much bigger gestures as an actor.

The Carver-inspired "Everything" demands that small, telling bits of information be revealed in the most oblique ways.

Ferrell and Rush knew they didn't want a big, sloppy, funny drunk. No Foster Brooks.

Their model was Paul Newman in "The Verdict."

"You watch that, and you know the character has a drinking problem. But it's amazing how subtle Newman keeps it. That was very helpful."

Next for Ferrell, is something a little more familiar.

He'll star opposite Zach Galifianakis in "Southern Rivals," a Jay Roach comedy about rival pols vying for a congressional seat in a Dixie district.

Read what Will Ferrell has to say about his "Everything Must Go" co-star Christopher Jordan Wallace, son of Notorious B.I.G., on Gary Thompson's blog, Keep It Reel on philly.com.