If you happened to be at the White House during a President Barack Obama-hosted shindig and happened to see Will Ferrell walking around blank-eyed and isolated, don’t read into it too much.
That, at least, is the lesson Craig Robinson, “IMO” podcast co-host and brother to First Lady Michelle Obama, learned early on in Wednesday’s interview with Ferrell.
The A-list comic actor swung by the popular podcast while promoting his upcoming Netflix golf series “The Hawk” (debuting July 16) and was immediately grilled by Robinson about the anti-social “bit” he was pulling at an unnamed White House party during his brother-in-law’s administration.
Ferrell was dumbfounded.
“We haven’t met, but we were in the same place together — at one of the White House parties. And I want to see if you remember this because I think that you were doing this on purpose,” Robinson began.
“You were walking around the White House with the straightest of faces not looking at anyone like this,” he continued, staring off slack-jawed in the distance.
“Uh oh, do you remember that Will?” co-host Obama asked, to which Ferrell admitted he didn’t: “I’m trying to piece it together,” he said.
“I could never forget it, because I know it was you, and I have a witness to go along with it. And I was like, ‘He’s doing some sort of gag, or bit’ … I wouldn’t have said ‘bit’ back then, but that’s what I meant,” Robinson insisted. “And you had the straight face, you were dressed like you had come to a party.”
“Right. But was it not a party?” Ferrell asked, apparently genuinely trying to help the memory along.
“There was like 300 people there. You’ve been to those parties,” Robinson said. “You said not one word to anybody for the time that I saw you. Not one word. And everybody’s talking, the music’s going on, and you had the straight face. And I looked over at my wife and I said, ‘See, this is why this dude is the funniest dude in the world right here.’”
“I was getting credit for being funny without — I had no, I was just having a Chauncey Gardiner moment,” Ferrell admitted, nodding to Peter Sellers’ beloved — but peacefully misunderstood — “Being There” hero.
“There’s no way. No way,” Robinson insisted.
“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ferrell concluded. “I wouldn’t have — I think I was just literally being a nerd checking out sconces in the White [House], checking out wallpaper.”
Robinson finally laughed off the mix-up: “This makes it even better.”
Watch Ferrell’s full “IMO” episode — which takes him down memory lane to growing up funny and devious in high school through to “Saturday Night Live,” falling in love with his wife and growing his family — below.
The post No, Will Ferrell Was Not ‘Doing a Bit’ at the Obamas’ White House: ‘Just Having a Chauncey Gardiner Moment’ appeared first on TheWrap.
