Will Ferrell is one of the biggest names to ever come out of Saturday Night Live, and some would say he’s the absolute best cast member of all time. But at one point, he was just a young comedian doing improv comedy at the Groundlings hoping for his big break. The Step Brothers star recently opened up about his first audition for the NBC sketch show, and a bit he tried to do with Lorne Michaels that he just couldn’t get over the line.
In an interview with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson for their podcast, IMO, Ferrell talked about the nerves surrounding his first audition for SNL, including doing characters like Ted Kennedy, an adult who plays with cat toys, and Harry Caray, which ended up becoming one of the funniest recurring characters on the show. He was so nervous because nobody laughed at his audition; however, after being asked to meet with Michaels later, he knew he was still in the running.
Ferrell had heard a story about how Adam Sandler, who made quite the impact on SNL, got the gig after a five-minute meeting with the legendary showrunner. As a result, Ferrell decided he’d do a bit during the meeting to showcase his talents. He said:
I bought a whole bunch of fake money from a novelty store, and I was gonna — I had a briefcase, and I let him talk, and I was just gonna start piling money on his desk. I was like, ‘Lorne, we can keep talking ‘til the cows come home, but we know what really talks, money. And I'm going to stack this money up on your desk. And it was bad counterfeit money, toy money. I'm like, ‘And no one's going to know. You can take it or leave it. It's up to you.’ And then I was going to pack up my thing and walk out. And that was going to be my meeting.
This is an absolutely hilarious idea, and such a perfect Will Ferrell bit that would land perfectly during a sketch. However, Michaels has a reputation for being intimidating and a pretty serious guy, despite the fact that his expertise is in comedy. Ferrell had these big plans of doing this ridiculous bit, but apparently the second he walked into his future boss's office, the energy and the tone of the meeting shot him down right away. He said:
I walk in there with my briefcase and the atmosphere is like [not ideal]. What comedian walks in with a briefcase? I've got my little briefcase, and I'm [like,] ‘Okay, so don't do that. Okay, throw out my entire audition? Okay.’ And then I'm leaving [and] going, ‘Ugh, he thinks I’m an idiot. What? What weirdo walks in with a leather briefcase?
A briefcase is certainly a bizarre thing to bring to a meeting about comedy. It is so big and clunky and implies you brought a lot of stuff with you to a meeting that doesn’t require much of anything. Without context, I can’t imagine what Michaels was thinking.
The whole thing was made even worse when Steve Higgins, who was one of the head writers at the time, said “nice briefcase” to Ferrell during the meeting, who was still too nervous to do the bit. Even better, when the Talladega Nights star was asked to come back for a second meeting, he wanted to try and do the bit again. He explained:
And then when I finally — Lorne wanted to meet with me again, and they were very vague as to why. It was the meeting where he told me I got it. So then I was in my apartment and I was like, ‘Damn it, I'm bringing the briefcase back. I'm gonna show him. I must stack the money. I'm going to do it. This time I'm doing it. I walk in, the assistant goes, ‘You can leave your briefcase. I'm like, ‘Okay.’
He literally planned and failed to do the bit twice, which makes the whole thing even funnier. Especially considering he asked Michaels’ assistant, who was sitting outside his office, to finish the bit for him, which Michaels ended up finding funny later. Farrell finished the story, saying:
I go, ‘Hold on, I've been trying to give this fake money to him twice, will you just give it to him and say, this is what I was trying to do, I was going to stack all this fake money.’ He got it later. He thought it was so funny that I tried twice. So he laughed later.
The joke itself was one thing, but the real funny aspect of this story was that Ferrell kept trying to do this absurdly stupid joke but couldn’t manage to execute it. He went on to be a stellar addition to the cast and gained the confidence around Lorne Michaels to start doing ridiculous bits like this one to his face.
After his cast member stint from 1995 to 2002, Will Ferrell went on to host the broadcast mainstay six times. This includes the SNL Season 51 finale this year, which you can revisit now with a Peacock subscription. Fans of Ferrell can also check him out in his new comedy series The Hawk, which will be available with a Netflix subscription on July 16, 2026.
