“You’re Cordially Invited” marks the first time Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell have starred in a movie together. The collaboration felt like a long time coming — for one of them, at least.
“Nick Stoller, who wrote the movie, he did ‘Neighbors’ and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall.’ He called me, and he was like, ‘So, I have this movie, and it’s starring Will Ferrell—’ and I was like, ‘I’m in,’” Witherspoon revealed during an interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Wednesday. The actress then explained that she’d been waiting well over 20 years to work with Ferrell when “You’re Cordially Invited” came around.
“The first time I met Will, and the only time I’d ever worked with Will [was] in 2001 when I hosted ‘SNL,’” she recalled.
When Fallon asked if she and Ferrell had kept in touch in the years after her “SNL” gig, Witherspoon replied, “Well, no. Since then, I hadn’t heard from him. So [with ‘You’re Cordially Invited’] I was like, ‘This is it. This is my shot.’” Apparently, she let Ferrell know how excited she was to work with him, too. “Every day, I think you have to make sure and tell people you’re grateful,” she added. “So every day, I’d say, ‘This is, like, [on] my bucket list, Will.”
Witherspoon stars in “You’re Cordially Invited” as a wedding planner who books her sister’s wedding at a dream venue that was accidentally double-booked the same weekend by a father (Ferrell) looking to give his daughter the perfect ceremony. It’s a comedy about a battle of wills, and while Witherspoon was clearly content to just enjoy her experience making the film, Ferrell joked on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” that he’s always more focused on making sure his co-star never generates more laughs than he does.
“There’s a lot of laughs [in the film]. I’m not just saying that. A lot of laughs,” Ferrell quipped on Wednesday night. When Colbert asked who gets more laughs throughout the romcom, the actor replied, “It depends. Depends on what part of the movie. I think it’s equal share.”
“Contractually?” Colbert prodded. “Contractually? Contractually I have to get 60/40,” Ferrell joked. “I will watch the movie, I’ll watch final cut, and I’ll count the laughs. I have a clicker.”
Witherspoon, for her part, had nothing but nice things to say about her experience working with Ferrell. “Will is just human kindness. He’s the king of kindness,” she said, agreeing with the “Tonight Show” host’s description of Ferrell as a “sniper” when it comes to comedy. “He’s always doing sneaky little things, bits in his head, but you have no idea because he’s just totally dead-faced, and then he comes out with the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.”
“You’re Cordially Invited” is now streaming on Prime Video.
