Will Forte on Guest Starring in NBC's Up All Night: "Everything Acting-Related Has Been Gravy"

Will Forte said it plainly: "I got my first acting job at 32 when I went to SNL and at that point I had kind of given up on acting. I was settled in …" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

On September 27, 2011, NBC Universal hosted a press conference call with comedian and Saturday Night Live veteran Will Forte ahead of his guest appearance on the NBC comedy series Up All Night . Forte plays Reed, a stay-at-home dad and Zen surfer who becomes an unlikely life coach to Will Arnett's character. The episode aired Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. Premier Guide Media's Camilla Wallace was among the journalists on the call.

Below is the full exchange.

As far as your career and the track that it's going — is it taking you where you want to go?

I'm super delighted. I was a writer. I got my first acting job at 32 when I went to SNL and at that point I had kind of given up on acting. I was settled in as a writer and I love it. I love writing. So I just — the SNL thing came out of the blue and just everything acting-related has been gravy. I would be — if the acting stuff dried up and I had to go back to a life of writing I would be so happy to continue writing. So yes, I'm very happy. I feel blessed to even get this opportunity. The fact that anybody wants me to work on anything is really cool. So yeah, I'm loving it and I'm very happy to be doing the things that I'm getting the chance to do.

As far as your part that you're playing on the show — is it easy for you or a little bit hard?

Well I resent that because it's a super cool character so for you to think that it would be hard for me to play a cool character — no, you know, it always depends on the writing. And this writing was so fun and funny that it made it very easy to play. The character is a surfer so the one tricky part was trying to find — I didn't want to get into a surfer character that you've seen a million times before so I tried to switch it up a little bit and just have a guy who is kind of a Zen surfer. I guess a lot of people might just go straight to Spicoli from Fast Times — who is the most awesome character of all time. So I wanted to make sure I wasn't just doing a Spicoli rip-off. But who knows? Maybe that's how it will come across. I wasn't trying to do that but if that happens then I guess I'll live with it.

If you were to act in any other TV show, which one would it be?

I've been watching a lot of Louie recently. I love that show very much. But I wouldn't want to come in and ruin one of his shows so I just want to watch it. I've also been listening to a lot of sports talk radio — I've been getting some work done on my house. I'm behind on Breaking Bad. I'm behind on Mad Men. I've got to catch up on everything.

As far as your writing — do you feel that you have pushed yourself as far as you can go as far as the diversity of it? Like if you're writing for a movie or a TV show or a comedy show — do you feel that you push yourself as far as you can go with the diversity of writing next to other writers?

No, there is way more stuff that I would like to try. But it's really hard to write. I think the first couple of things that you write are just exercises almost. You might finish a screenplay but very rarely is that a screenplay that has any shot at getting made. So I feel like I'm just getting comfortable with knowing how to do that. First I'm trying to kind of get down the stuff that I kind of know and then I can start branching out and exploring other types of writing. But yeah, there is way more stuff I would like to explore creatively. But it's tough. There are only so many hours in each day — I believe 24 is the number.

Up All Night aired Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. Will Forte's guest episode aired September 28, 2011.

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