QA: Will Ferrell kind of tri-lingual after Spanish language 'Casa de mi Padre'

In ‘Casa de mi Padre’ Will Ferrell plays Armando Alvarez, a diligent and loyal son who has worked his entire life on his father’s ranch in Mexico. Trouble and drama ensue when Armando’s flashy younger brother turns up with his beautiful fiancé Sonia and Armando discovers that his brother’s business involves drug dealing. Naturally he also falls hard for Sonia.

And oh, one more thing, the movie is spoken almost entirely in Spanish.

‘Casa de mi Padre’ is a spoof of Latin telenovelas and those cheap Saturday afternoon movies we all watched as kids. Ferrell, 45, knows a few things about kids, being a parent of three boys with his Swedish born wife, Viveca Paulin. And he's also about as normal and nice a guy as you'll meet, especially in Hollywood.

Fox411: We hear that your Swedish is pretty good.

Ferrell: I might be more fluent in Swedish than I am in Spanish. My wife speaks it to our kids and they’re fluent so I hear it all the time, so I’ve got that under my belt.

Fox411: Are you now a lover of Swedish meatballs?

Ferrell: I am indeed. In fact that should be my next movie, a Swedish crime drama that is half Swedish, half Spanish.

Fox411: So how did ‘Casa de mi Padre’ happen?

Will Ferrell: It was actually just an idea that I had for a long time, just from watching telenovelas. Not that I’m an aficionado of them, but whenever I would see them on T.V. I’d stop and watch them for a couple of minutes or so and think, God they’re so funny and so arch and so over the top. I thought, you know what you’ve never seen before? Someone from American comedy kind of inserted into a Spanish language film and the joke being not that I speak Spanish poorly, but that I speak it really well, or as well as I possibly can, and that I’m essentially just a member of an all Latino cast. I thought, I don’t think that’s been done before, and it was just an idea that I had that was nagging at me and we finally got it together.

Fox411: Are you fluent now?

Ferrell: Uh no. I still don’t speak it. My comprehension is better, but it really was kind of a crash course and I just worked around the clock with a translator.

Fox411: It really is a celebration of bad movies no matter what language they are in.

Ferrell: Yes. The continuity mistakes, the piece of footage they repeat over and over again. We just kept finding ways to add touches, like after the big shootout at the wedding, there’s a guy still sitting there quietly smoking and he’s perfectly fine. All those things are kind of an opportunity to make every mistake we’ve always wanted to make.

Fox411: You once again take off your clothes in this movie.

Ferrell: This is technically only the second movie I’ve streaked in. ‘Old School’ was the other. It was too funny an opportunity to spoof a romantic scene. We just had to execute it.

Fox411: You’ve been called the most normal, sane comedian. There must be something odd about you, like you like dressing up in women’s clothing every Thursday.

Ferrell: Outside of that? Um, there’s really not anything too crazy. Last weekend we had a big fundraiser for our school and everyone was dressed in tuxes and this and that and The Dan Band played and I made an appearance with lollipops on my nipples and no shirt on, so that’s something. Actually I’m pretty normal which I think bugs people.

Fox411: What’s going on with an ‘Anchorman’ sequel?

Ferrell: I don’t know. Call Paramount and ask them. I don’t know. Everyone keeps asking. It’s their movie (laughs).

Fox411: Does that bug you?

Ferrell: No not anymore. We made a little effort and it’s not of interest right now to them. I mean it was fun to see the response. A lot of fans and a lot of people in the media are like, ‘Why not?’ so that’s cool but it’s beyond your control so you just move on.