Will Forte facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Will Forte
Forte at the 2023 WonderCon in Anaheim, California
Born	Orville Willis Forte IV (1970-06-17) June 17, 1970 (age 55) Alameda, California, U.S.
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (BA)
Occupation	Actor comedian writer producer
Years active	1991–present
Spouse(s)	Olivia Modling ​ (m. 2021)​
Children	2

Orville Willis Forte IV (born June 17, 1970), known as Will Forte, is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He was a cast member and writer on the TV show Saturday Night Live for eight seasons, from 2002 to 2010. During his time on the show, he played a popular character named MacGruber. This character later got his own movie in 2010 and a TV series in 2021.

Forte also created and starred in the comedy series The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018). For this show, he was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards. He has acted in many comedy films and also starred in the drama film Nebraska (2013). Will Forte has also lent his voice to many animated movies and TV shows. These include the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films, The Lego Movie films, and Scoob!. He also voiced characters in Lab Rats, Clone High, and The Great North.

About Will Forte

Early Life and Education

Will Forte was born in Alameda, California, on June 17, 1970. His mother was an artist and teacher, and his father was a financial broker. Forte grew up in Moraga and later Lafayette. As a child, he was called "Billy" but changed it to "Will" after being teased at school.

He described himself as a happy child with loving parents. From a young age, he enjoyed comedy and looked up to comedians like Peter Sellers and Steve Martin. He also loved the TV show Saturday Night Live. Forte often played pranks and recorded imaginary radio shows. He initially wanted to be a football player.

Forte was a relaxed teenager with many friends. He played football and swam at Acalanes High School, graduating in 1988. He was voted "Best Personality" by his class. After high school, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he earned a degree in history.

Starting a Career in Comedy

After college, Forte first tried to become a financial broker like his father. However, he felt unhappy in that job. He then discovered he loved writing more than anything else. During his time at UCLA, he had been encouraged to try comedy. He decided to change his career path to pursue it.

Will Forte's Career Journey

From Writing to Saturday Night Live

Forte began taking classes at The Groundlings in Los Angeles. This is a famous group that teaches improv and sketch comedy. To support himself, he tutored children. His first comedy success was a comic book he made about men who were not very good at dating. This comic book helped him get his first professional writing job for The Jenny McCarthy Show.

He later worked as a writer for Late Show with David Letterman. However, he felt he wasn't experienced enough for the job and left after nine months. Forte returned to Los Angeles and started performing with The Groundlings' main group. He also tried stand-up comedy a few times but stopped when he joined the main Groundlings company.

Forte then got jobs writing for popular sitcoms like 3rd Rock from the Sun and That '70s Show. He loved writing and had mostly stopped acting, except for his work with The Groundlings. In 2001, Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live (SNL), saw him perform. Forte was invited to audition for SNL, which he found surprising.

At his SNL audition, he performed several original characters and impressions. He was offered a spot on the show but first declined, wanting the financial stability of That '70s Show. He later realized he was making a mistake.

Life at Saturday Night Live

After another actor left SNL, Forte joined the cast in the fall of 2002. He became a main cast member after his first year. In his early years on the show, he sometimes felt nervous and found it hard to perform sketches he didn't write. He had to "re-learn" how to act after years of just writing. He felt it took him five seasons to feel completely comfortable on the show. His first movie role was in Around the World in 80 Days (2004).

Forte at the 2011 Tribeca Festival in New York

Forte became known for his unique and often strange humor on SNL. He created many memorable characters, including Tim Calhoun and the Falconer. One of his favorite sketches involved him playing a motivational coach with football star Peyton Manning. He also appeared in the first SNL Digital Short, "Lettuce," with Andy Samberg.

The MacGruber Character

Forte's most famous character on SNL was MacGruber. MacGruber is a special agent who tries to stop a ticking bomb but gets sidetracked by his own problems. The sketches were a funny take on the TV series MacGyver. Writer Jorma Taccone came up with the idea and convinced Forte to do it, even though Forte initially thought it was too silly.

The first MacGruber sketch aired in 2007. In 2009, the sketches became commercials for Pepsi during the Super Bowl XLIII. These ads featured Richard Dean Anderson, the actor who played MacGyver. The commercials made MacGruber very popular. After this success, SNL creator Lorne Michaels suggested making a MacGruber movie.

The movie MacGruber was filmed in 2009. Forte, Taccone, and writer John Solomon wrote it while also working on SNL. The film was released in May 2010. It received mixed reviews and didn't do well at the box office at first. However, it has since become a cult classic, meaning it gained popularity over time.

Forte said about his time on SNL, "Looking back, the experience is something I'll never forget. I still miss it, and I'll always miss it. That's my family." He also did impressions of famous people like George W. Bush and Brian Williams.

After Saturday Night Live

Forte left Saturday Night Live in 2010 after eight years. He felt it was the right time to move on and wanted to be closer to his sister's children on the West Coast. He later felt sad about leaving the show. For a while, he had smaller roles in movies like Rock of Ages and The Watch. He also played Paul L'astnamé, the boyfriend of Jenna Maroney, on the TV show 30 Rock.

Forte with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller at WonderCon 2015

In 2013, Forte took his first serious acting role in the film Run & Jump. He then auditioned for the film Nebraska. He was nervous about this role but learned to "look for the truth" in each scene, meaning to act as honestly and realistically as possible.

Forte started working on The Last Man on Earth, a comedy series, in 2013 with his friends Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Forte developed the idea and the show was picked up by Fox in 2014. He was the show's creator, a writer, the main actor, and the showrunner for the first season. The series premiered in 2015 and was very popular, running for three more seasons.

In 2016, Forte played a character named Hulka in the comedy film Keanu. In 2018, he played Douglas Kenney, a co-founder of National Lampoon magazine, in the Netflix movie A Futile and Stupid Gesture. He voiced Shaggy Rogers in the Scooby-Doo film Scoob! (2020).

More recently, in 2021, Forte starred in Sweet Tooth and returned as MacGruber in a new TV series on Peacock. He also began voicing Wolf Tobin in the animated comedy The Great North. In 2022, it was announced that Forte would have a main voice role in Disney and Pixar's first animated TV series, Win or Lose, which is set to premiere in 2025. He also voiced an older version of the main character in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023).

Will Forte's Personal Life

Will Forte met Olivia Modling in 2018, and they got engaged in 2019. They have two daughters, Zoe Douglas Forte, born in February 2021, and Cecilia, born about 18 months later. They got married on July 31, 2021, while he was making the MacGruber TV series. They live in a home in Santa Monica, California, that Forte bought in 2002, just before he joined Saturday Night Live.

Forte's mother, Patricia, has visited him on every film set he has worked on. She even appeared on an SNL episode for Mother's Day. Will also officiated his sister Michelle's wedding and filmed the births of his niece and nephew.

Forte has openly talked about his OCD tendencies. He once said he listened to only one song in his SNL office for a whole year as a challenge. He sees his OCD as a challenge he has learned to manage, and it's part of who he is.

Forte is also a big gamer. He achieved one of the highest scores in the world on the arcade game Donkey Kong.

Filmography (selected)

Film Roles

Key

Denotes works that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	Around the World in 80 Days	Young Bobby
2006	Beerfest	Otto
2007	The Brothers Solomon	Dean Solomon	Also writer
2008	Baby Mama	Scott
2009	The Slammin' Salmon	Horace the Lone Diner	Cameo
	Brief Interviews with Hideous Men	Subject #72
	Fanboys	THX Security Guard #4
	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs	Joe Towne (voice)
2010	MacGruber	MacGruber	Also writer
2012	Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie	Allen Bishopman
	Rock of Ages	Mitch Miley
	That's My Boy	Phil
	The Watch	Sergeant Bressman
2013	Grown Ups 2	Male Cheerleader	Uncredited cameo
	Run & Jump	Ted
	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	Chester V (voice)
	Life of Crime	Marshall Taylor
	Nebraska	David Grant
2014	The Lego Movie	Abraham Lincoln (voice)
	22 Jump Street	Football Announcer (voice)	Uncredited
	Michelangelo and Lincoln: History Cops	Abraham Lincoln (voice)	Short film
	She's Funny That Way	Joshua Fleet
2015	Don Verdean	Pastor Fontaine
	Staten Island Summer	Griffith
	The Ridiculous 6	Will Patch
	Get Squirrely	Cody (voice)
2016	Keanu	Hulka
	Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping	Bagpipe Player	Cameo
2017	My Life as a Courgette	Mr. Paul (voice)	English dub
2018	A Futile and Stupid Gesture	Doug Kenney
	Luis and the Aliens	Nag (voice)	English dub
2019	The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part	Abraham Lincoln (voice)
	Extra Ordinary	Christian Winter
	Booksmart	Doug Antsler
	Good Boys	Andrew Newman (Max's Dad)
	The Laundromat	Doomed Gringo #1
2020	The Willoughbys	Tim Willoughby (voice)
	Scoob!	Shaggy Rogers (voice)
	... Bus	Fred	Uncredited
2021	America: The Motion Picture	Abraham Lincoln (voice)
2022	Studio 666	Restaurant Delivery Guy (Darren Sandelbaum)
	Weird: The Al Yankovic Story	Ben Scotti
2023	Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken	Captain Gordon Lighthouse (voice)
	Strays	Doug
2024	Thelma the Unicorn	Otis (voice)
2025	Kinda Pregnant	Josh Lewis
2026	The Breadwinner		Filming
	Coyote vs. Acme	Kevin Avery	Completed

Television Roles

Music Videos

Video Games

Web Series

Crew Work (Writer/Producer)

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Will Forte para niños