NEW YORK — MacGruber still can't diffuse a bomb to save his — or anyone else's — life. Nor has he got around to trimming that mullet.
And heck, even Will Forte doesn't know how the bumbling special operative he plays in two-minute skits on Saturday Night Live got his own action movie.
"You would never think from seeing that first sketch, 'Oh, eventually we'll be making a movie out of it,'" the SNL cast member says during a round-table interview. "When (SNL creator) Lorne (Michaels) approached us about the movie we were still like, 'Really?' ... There was no part of us that felt like we deserved to be in this situation. We are so excited to be given this opportunity."
MacGruber — a spoof of '80s and '90s actioners Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and, of course, MacGyver — hits theatres nationwide on Friday. It sees its title character, in all of his plaid-shirted, mulleted glory, avenge the murder of his fiancé (SNL alum Maya Rudolph) and try to save the world from a nuclear warhead with his "elite" team, including Colonel Faith (Powers Boothe), Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) and usual sidekick/romantic interest Vicki St. Elmo (SNL's Kristen Wiig). The villain he's after is his longtime enemy and black market arms dealer Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer).
"People, I think, automatically assume that it's just going to be the sketch over and over again for 90 minutes, and I think they'll be pleasantly surprised," Forte, 39, says. "We didn't want to write that, and we wouldn't want to see that."
There are many things people will see and hear in the MacGruber movie that they won't on SNL. Apparently, MacGruber likes to drops bombs — F-bombs, that is — as much as he likes to attempt to diffuse them. And walk around in the nude with celery tucked in a place where the sun don't shine in order to distract his enemies. You know, as all action heroes do.
"I had to be naked and do something with a piece of celery that my mom will be haunted by for a long time, because she was on the set," Forte says.
Adds first-time director and longtime SNL writer Jorma Taccone: "It was amazing how many times you turned around on this movie and saw Will completely naked with a (genital) protector on. At least five."
And at least once did Phillippe find himself in the same outfit. And it was, um, a stretch for the star of more dramatic flicks such as Crash and Flags of Our Fathers.
"It was one of these things in the beginning where I wondered how tied to this moment they are, but after being on the set with Will and Kristen for a few weeks, and seeing to which lengths that they would go to get the laugh and make the scene work — and Will was naked every day — so I just thought, 'Well, what the hell?' " says Phillippe, 35, who dug his nails into his thumbs and bit the insides of his cheeks to keep a straight face on set.
"I've always wanted to be in this kind of movie ... And (if you are) you just kind of have to go for it and just play. It'll haunt me for the rest of my career, I know."
Wiig too found herself in a compromising position: Under Forte in a sex scene that got a little too steamy during MacGruber's scorching, 28-day Albuquerque shoot.
"I felt bad for Kristen on that day we actually did it, because it was very hot in Albuquerque and this was a bedroom on the second floor of this house. And already I was sweating just walking to the bed — and so she was so covered in my sweat," Forte say, laughing. "I felt bad for her because it was her birthday."
But Wiig forgives him.
"Have you ever had anyone sweat on you? Like really drip sweat on you?" asks the 36-year-old SNL standout (Target Lady, one-upper Penelope, Gilly) and now film star (Knocked Up, Whip It). "But it's Will, so as creepy as it sounds; it's kind of like my brother."
That would make MacGyver her father. In an edition of the SNL sketch last year, it was revealed that the 1985-92 adventure series' hero was MacGruber's dad — though directors were unable to get MacGyver star Richard Dean Anderson to appear in the film.
"We shot so fast that there was no real time for it," Taccone says. "Richard emailed us just yesterday. He said, 'Good luck with the movie.' "
And they'll likely need it. Forte's MacGruber goes up against SNL alum Mike Myers' inevitable blockbuster Shrek Forever After at the box office this weekend. But Forte has a few words for the ogre and his crew.
"We are going to take those f---ers down!" he says in his best MacGruber. "No, we're huge fans of Shrek.
"No matter what, I can live with however (MacGruber) does at the box office because we made the movie we wanted to make, and we are very excited. So I hope it does well. If it doesn't, I can live with myself."
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