Free Will

The next two years may well prove whether Ferrell will be Murray's heir apparent, or just the next Kevin Nealon. There are nearly a dozen projects before him--some forthcoming (Anchorman, an ensemble comedy about newsmen in the '70s, which he co-wrote), some just finished (films directed by Woody Allen and Luke and Andrew Wilson), some announced but not quite definite (Curious George and a big-screen Bewitched). Most are comedies, but there is the one "heavy drama," as Ferrell describes it: Winter Passing with Deschanel and Ed Harris, in which he offers moments of comic relief in a story about a woman who moves back in with her estranged father.

"I always hoped, in that Bill Murray way, to get to kind of be in a film like Winter Passing," Ferrell says. "So it's going to be fun to see if the audience continues to come with me, or if they just say, 'OK, enough of that. Go back to the other thing.' The Old School thing just triggered a new line of thinking about me, and I am lucky that I kind of work with some people who have some decent foresight and want me to do different things. Every project can't be perfect, and there's kind of a mix between the things. At the very least, there's something distinct about every choice I try to make, and that's kind of all you can hope to do with it."