WILL FERRELL: What?

WOODY HARRELSON: If he says it.

WILL FERRELL: I heard you were saying you started out excellent and got better.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Yeah, I heard it.

WOODY HARRELSON: I only said that once.  We were all pretty evenly matched. (Laughs.)

Q: Will, you’re known for making these movies with sports themes. Knowing your USC connections, will you tackle college football at all?

WILL FERRELL: Well, unfortunately the college football parody I’m doing is actually a drama taking an in depth look at the problem we have with steroid use.

WOODY HARRELSON: Wow.

WILL ARNETT: That sounds like a real bummer.

WILL FERRELL: Yeah, it’s not a fun movie at all.

WOODY HARRELSON: You could get a few laughs in there.

WILL FERRELL: But, this is actually just coincidence that these movies lined up the way they did. I love kind of combining sports and comedy together, but only one of those was my idea, that was the NASCAR movie, otherwise I was asked to be a part of these. So, that having been said, it’s a great framework to kind of do comedy in. You can parody the sport, in this movie you can parody the era. And at the same time, you have a built in arc that’s fun for the audience to watch this team of losers try to attain the lofty goal of fourth place.

Q: Just wondering since you did play a bunch of basketball, were there any sports injuries during the shoot?

WILL FERRELL: There was a full time training staff. It was pretty intense. So, we were always getting worked on and stuff.

WOODY HARRELSON: Didn’t you fake a groin injury?

WILL FERRELL: I faked several. I actually faked an appendectomy at one point to get out of filming. Just to let you know.

WILL ARNETT: That was a real scar?

WILL FERRELL: Well, that was real movie makeup.

KENT ALTERMAN: Wow. That’s commitment. Will is very committed to the work.

Q: Will, if I could just ask about ‘Land of the Lost,’ I know you are going to change the tone of it, but are you going to keep the creatures?

WILL FERRELL: Y’know, everything is going to be kind of ramped up a little bit. The kitsch of the physical production of the TV show was kind of thrown out the window. The dinosaurs and everything are going to look very realistic or as realistic as we think dinosaurs should look. But even the Sleestaks and things like that, they are all going to be real creatures as opposed to in the show where you saw a guy with a costume and a zipper running up his back. 

WOODY HARRELSON: So, you will have the zipper or you won’t have the zipper?

WILL FERRELL: You will not be able to see the zipper.

WOODY HARRELSON: CGI it?

WILL FERRELL: CGI it out. You think that’s a good decision?

WOODY HARRELSON: I think that’s smart.

Q: You may want to CG the zipper in.

WILL FERRELL: We might do that later, in post if the audience misses the zipper.

Q: What are your Valentine's Day plans?

WOODY HARRELSON: When is it?

ANDRE BENJAMIN: I don't have any plans.

WILL FERRELL: I'm going to do my usual. I dress as cupid and chase my wife around the house with a real competition level bow and arrow. I literally try to shoot her.

WILL ARNETT: That sounds romantic.

WILL FERRELL: It is for me. She hates it. She usually cowers in a broom closet. I just try and wing her. The upper part of the thigh or maybe the calf.

WILL ARNETT: I'm going to see a Broadway show. That's a real answer. With my girlfriend, not my wife, she hates musicals. We're going to see ‘Young Frankenstein.’

WILL FERRELL: That's romantic.

WILL ARNETT: Science fiction makes me warm.

Q: Will, what did you think of your hairdo? Did Andre Benjamin help you with the song?

WILL FERRELL: I think Jackie would have loved to have had the means to pay for a $500 haircut. There's no way he could afford it. He probably primped a fair amount. In terms of the song (Andre) flatly refused (to help me). No, that was the work of Scott Armstrong, a little bit of myself and Kent and Nile Rodgers.

KENT ALTERMAN: The evolution of the song is that Scott had written the chorus in the script and we had a table read and Will in just an improv way threw out that tune. We already had hired Nile Rodgers to produce the song. I had this funny feeling that it could be useful to Nile so I took a clip from the table read and sent it to Nile. I said I don't know if this is of use. You can use it or disregard it and he ended up building that entire song out of that little thing that Will threw out. That was really the basis for the song.

WILL FERRELL: That's how hits were made.

Q: In the movie, Jackie's motto is ‘Everybody Love Everybody.’ What's your personal motto?

WILL FERRELL: My motto is ‘Just Try to Get Out of Bed.’

WILL ARNETT: Everyday?

WILL FERRELL: Yeah. I just lie there and go (exhaustedly) ‘Just get out of bed.’

WILL ARNETT: Mine is ‘Let's Go to Iran.’

WILL FERRELL: Very pointed.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Mine is ‘No matter how bad it looks it's probably going to be better to tomorrow.’

WOODY HARRELSON: Mine is ‘Never Give Up Hope.’

WILL FERRELL: You stole that from someone.

WOODY HARRELSON: It sounded believable.

Q: How did those Pearl videos come about on the Internet?

WILL FERRELL: That's my friend Adam McKay's daughter. We actually needed some content to launch the website, Funny or Die (www.funnyordie.com). It was all Adam's idea. And we took an hour or two one day and shot that and put it on with the launch of the website, and just laughed that so many people saw it. It was completely surprising.

Q: Why did you stop?

WILL FERRELL: She got too outrageous with her demands and attitude. It was messy. Very messy.

Q: Andre, talk about your new album.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: I've only written two songs in my head. I haven't even started recording them. I've just been tinkering around. Maybe the release will be this fall. Who knows?

Q: You're into a lot of stuff, does that take time from your studio?

ANDRE BENJAMIN: They all relate in some way so it's just ideas. I wouldn't say one helps out. They are all just ideas.

Q: Is there something you can do that could be an Olympic sport?

WOODY HARRELSON: The pogo (stick). Part of me thought just stay quiet.

WILL FERRELL: I hate the Olympics so... you know, all the countries getting together.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: I'm a big football fan so...

WILL FERRELL: Olympic football?

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Yeah, why not? Arena football ain't getting it. I get depressed when football season is over so maybe we need something.

WILL FERRELL: What I'd love to see in the Olympics is opening up the age group to small children. I'd love to see the events done by small children: powerlifting, shotput. Open age class.

Q: Who committed the biggest pranks on set?

WILL FERRELL: Woody, were there any pranks you can remember?

WOODY HARRELSON: No.

KENT ALTERMAN: Patti LaBelle.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: We did play a prank on Rasheed. That was the biggest prank.

WILL FERRELL: There was one member of the Tropics, the tallest one, Rasheed, who missed almost an entire day of filming because he didn't think he was needed even though it was a team locker room scene. When he finally showed up, we wrote a two-page monologue for him to do.

WOODY HARRELSON: It was based on Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.

WILL FERRELL: I started crying I was laughing so hard.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: He had almost no lines throughout the whole movie and he really studied hard. He was trying.

WILL FERRELL: Yeah, he was trying. His hand was shaking with the (script) in his hand.

WOODY HARRELSON: Also, he was so tall, he could hold (the script) at his waist.

WILL FERRELL: He maintained that he was in on the joke all along because he's from New York.

Q: What was your favorite day of filming?

WILL FERRELL: That was a fun day that we just talked about. (laughter) Some of those days when we were actually playing the games and got to play. We had something like 15 choreographed plays that we had to run and set up because you can't just roll the basketball out there because you've got to concentrate on what the plays are going to be so that you can set up the cameras and everything. Sometimes we'd run the play and they'd say, whatever happens whether you make a basket or not, we're going to have free play for the next three minutes and just literally see what happens. After lunch, I remember I was still digesting a bean burrito or something and went down and had 1,800 people there and made a shot, the crowd went crazy. You felt like a real basketball player.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Your wife too... He had a wife. We were on the bus and she was showing her chest to everybody.

(Someone says "she got cut out of the movie.")

WILL FERRELL: That was a fun day.

Q: What was the best or most hideous promotional thing you did? Leaping the ball girls? Performing the giant sun?

WILL FERRELL: I kinda loved all of them because if you look at what they were doing in the ABA, that's how the league survived. They did all these stupid promotions just to get people in. I thought each of them were kind of the funny version of what they did.

Q: What's your next project?

WOODY HARRELSON: Oh, you guys got a lot going on after this? I'm playing a blind piano player in Will Smith's next movie.

Q: Hancock?

WOODY HARRELSON: It's called ‘Seven Pounds.’ (To Andre) I need to get with you.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: I faked (piano playing) in ‘Idlewild.’ I'm not good.

WOODY HARRELSON: I guess that's what I'll do.

Q: How about you Andre, you're in ‘The Battle in Seattle?’

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Yeah. (To Woody) You don't care about that one.

WOODY HARRELSON: I thought you meant something we're actively doing. That's done.

Q: What's coming out?

ANDRE BENJAMIN: ‘Battle in Seattle’ with Charlize Theron and Woody and Michelle Rodriguez. It's about the riots and protests that took place in 1999 in Seattle. That's coming out in April.

Q: What do you play?

ANDRE BENJAMIN: A protester by the name of Django, who keeps protesting fun. He keeps it

lighthearted.

WOODY HARRELSON: I get to arrest him.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Yeah, (Woody's) a bald-headed cop.

Q: Will?

WILL FERRELL: I have "Stepbrothers" coming out in July with John C. Reilly and then a passion project of mine, the Lee Iacocca story. 10 years in the making. I get to play one of my heroes, Lee Iacocca.

Q: How was it reuniting with John on that?

WILL FERRELL: Not so good.

Q: Will Arnett?

WILL ARNETT: I just finished this kids movie with Zach Galifianakis and Bill Nighy for Mr. Bruckheimer, as I know him. That doesn't come out for about a year. There's a lot of post (production), mainly to remove me from the movie.

Q: You have another comedy coming out?

WILL ARNETT: Do I?

(Someone yells out ‘The Rocker.’)

WILL ARNETT: Oh yeah, ‘The Rocker.’ Thank you. I brought my superfan today. He's great. Technically a stalker I guess.

Q: Is there another era in history that's ripe for comedy?

WILL FERRELL: I'd love to make fun of the future. Some sort of space travel movie where pogos are the main form of transportation. I'm an amateur futurist, yes.

Q: How did you get funny on the set especially on days when you weren't feeling funny?

WILL FERRELL: I usually turn to my acting coach, Jim Beam. (He holds up his hand for a high five to Will Arnett who declines.)

WILL ARNETT: I won't high five with you because it's true.

WILL FERRELL: I don't know.

KENT ALTERMAN: I can answer that. It looks like it's a lot of fun but they're consummate professionals. So a lot of it is that they're hardworking and committed to what they do.

WILL FERRELL: There are days when you show up and you're not feeling totally on your game but that's where it's fun to work on comedy because for the most part you have a blast every day.

WILL ARNETT: Some days you show up and not feeling so great, you're surrounded by guys having a good time and you feed off of it.

WOODY HARRELSON: That's what happened to me today.

WILL FERRELL (to Woody): Yeah, you were a little bit in the dumps and then you walked in this room.

WOODY HARRELSON: You guys really picked me up, thank you.

WILL FERRELL: Plus your motto: Never give up hope.

ANDRE BENJAMIN: I thought they were pretty outrageous. You don't get a chance to walk around in those clothes everyday. Film is your chance to go back to that time. The 70s style is what it is. A lot of the stuff wouldn't work right now. No, I didn't keep the coat; the material was hideous. It was in good shape though.

Q: Was that your hair?

WOODY HARRELSON: That was my real hair. (Takes off his baseball cap to reveal a nearly bald head.) I did shave it off. (raises eyebrows facetiously)

ANDRE BENJAMIN: Mine was a wig. But I used to have hair that big. I was supposed to get a wig (to keep) but they tricked me. I told them I wanted to keep it but they took it.

“Semi-Pro ” opens in theaters on February 29th.

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