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Friday
Sep 07 2007

Inside With: Will Forte By: Keith Huang

Will Forte's new movie comes out this weekend. It stars Forte, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Jenna Fischer, Chi McBride, LEE MAJORS and was directed by . A few months ago, Forte, with the help of his grandmother, taped some commercials for the movie. But just three weeks after capturing the footage, she passed away. Heeding his family's encouragement, Forte decided to release the videos, which have begun journeying about YouTube and MySpace. Amid the weekend-press blitz, The Apiary finagled Forte for a few minutes to ask about the grandma commercials.


What's your grandmother's name and how old was she?
Her name is Helen Louise Stivers. And she was 92 years old. She lived in Modesto [California] most of her life. I wasn't gonna continue on with the Grandma trailers, but my family convinced me to. My Mom told me about how excited Grandma was about doing them so I went ahead with it. Yeah, as you can tell from the footage, she was a very special woman.

What's an early, funny memory you have of her?
My favorite memory of her was her taking her dentures out and then using her hands to bite me with them.

Was she a comedic influence in your life? And do you come from a funny family?
She was funny whether she was trying to be or not. And the rest of my family is pretty funny too in different ways. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm probably the least funny person in my family.

What made you decide to get her to help promote your movie?
She's just a magic woman so I was thinking that maybe some of her magic would rub off on the movie.

How much did you coach her in the videos?
I would yell out lines for her and she would repeat them. But it took a long time because her hearing was not very good. So most of the times she's repeating things I said, but then she would freestyle for a while, too.

It must have been cool to record your conversations with her on tape.
We shot a bunch of footage of her that day, but a lot of it was her telling stories about the family and stuff like that--and I'm so glad we have that footage now!

Does she have a role in The Brothers Solomon?
Nope, she's just our unofficial spokesgrandma.

Tell us something else cool about the movie.
The entire movie is a palindrome. So if you play it backwards, the dialogue sounds exactly the same as if you play it forwards.

Do you like living in LA or New York?
I'm in LA for the summers, but I'm still at SNL so I go back and forth during the season. I love New York, but I'm a native Californian--most of my family and friends are out here--so I try to come out as much as possible.

Anything you're missing about New York right now?
The main thing I miss about it is hanging out with Rachel Dratch. We live on the same street and I'm kind of addicted to my friendship with her. So when I'm away from her for too long, I get a bad case of Dratch fever!

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Reader Comments (3)

I'm excited this movie is coming out. I'm a huge fan of all these SNL cast members. I even have a site on Bill Hader, check it out:

Bill Hader Online
September 7, 2007 |
I'm glad Will decided to go ahead with these... they are fantastic. My very own tiny grandma will be 90 this month and I plan on filming the heck out of her at her big birthday party. And I'm sure there will be much comedy gold on those little tapes.

Oh, and Hiram, that's one heckuva Bill Hader site for someone who's not Bill Hader. I applaud your thoroughness.
September 7, 2007 |
Thanks Anthony, lol; I try. I did see Brother's Solomon and Bill actually only has like a 10 second part, I was highly disappointed.

HiramBill Hader Online
September 10, 2007 |

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