Will Forte is reflecting on MacGruber, fifteen years after the film flopped on the big screen, and the unexpected bond it created with co-star Val Kilmer, who recently passed away.
Forte recalled that the two had lived together for about three months and even considered competing together on The Amazing Race, an opportunity he calls the "biggest regret" in his career.
In 2010, while filming MacGruber, Will Forte and Val Kilmer got to know one another. What started as a professional partnership swiftly evolved into a true friendship. Forte provided Kilmer with a place to stay after the latter had a disagreement with his Malibu landlord.
In the end, the two spent over three months living together. Will Forte recalled during an interview with Vulture that the duo became "pretty tight" after shooting MacGruber.
He wrote,
“I don’t remember if he said ‘a couple days,’ but I got the impression that it was going to be a couple days.
He added,
"So he showed up on a Monday, and later that day, his assistant came over with two huge duffel bags filled with books, and I’m like, Oh, this seems like it’s maybe going to be more than a couple days. It ended up being two and a half months.”
Will Forte got the chance to observe Kilmer developing Mark Twain in its early stages. There were many special and peculiar months throughout their time as roommates. According to Forte, there were times when Kilmer would read in the dark using a miner's light or wear boxers on his head.
He also wrote that after watching The Amazing Race with him, Kilmer who had been skeptical about reality TV at first got enthralled and suggested they take part in it together.
Their representatives discouraged the idea, a decision Forte still regrets. He wrote,
“That is, maybe to this day, the biggest regret of my whole career – that I never did ‘The Amazing Race’ with Val. I think we would’ve gotten out very quickly, but it just would’ve been the experience of a lifetime.”
Will Forte talks about MacGruber
Will Forte talked candidly about MacGruber being a commercial failure on a recent episode of Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson. The film, which starred Ryan Phillippe, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig, alongside Kilmer and Forte, failed to leave an impression when it was released.
Despite having an all-star cast, MacGruber did not do so well at the box office. Will Forte told Danson,
"The movie came out and just s*** the bed, just did tremendously badly. And it was tough for a couple weeks, and then me and [writers John Solomon and Jorma Taccone], my other buddies who we all made the movie together, we all just got together and said, 'You know what? We're proud of this thing. Eff it.'"
The film's failure, Will Forte continued, marked a turning point in his career. He was told by agents and management that a return to Saturday Night Live was possible, but not another Saturday Night Live-based film. He remembered being advised to leave the show,
"Over the next couple weeks, I just realized with the help of my agents and manager, they said, 'Look, you can go back to SNL, but you're not gonna get to make another SNL movie. That's just not gonna happen. So at some point, you're gonna have to leave. We think this is probably a good time to leave,'"
After that, he had a challenging year and a half with no acting jobs.
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"And I'm like, 'Right after laying a major egg in the movies?' And they're like, 'Yeah, there's always gonna be, you're just gonna have to do it at some point.'"
In the end, he returned to doing comedy with Andy Samberg's help, who offered him a role in 2012's That's My Boy. He was also nominated for several Emmys for The Last Man on Earth.
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