- Born
- Birth nameOrville Willis Forte IV
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- Forte was age 32 before he came to the public's attention on Saturday Night Live (1975), but had been working in comedy since 1997.
Will Forte was born in Alameda County, California, and is the son of artist Patricia (Stivers) and financial broker Orville Willis Forte III (divorced). He has an older sister, Michelle. A creative and artistic child, he was an athlete (football and swimming) in high school and voted Best Personality at Acalanes High School. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in History, Forte had a brief career at a brokerage house before deciding to try comedy. Although he rarely performed stand-up, he joined the world-famous "Groundlings" and was hired as a writer for the series The Jenny McCarthy Show (1997), The Army Show, and The David Letterman Show. He eventually caught the attention of Carsey-Werner executive Tom Werner when he wrote a pilot about two childlike idiot brothers (eventually turned into the film, The Brothers Solomon (2007)) and was hired for the shows 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996) and That '70s Show (1998). In 2002, Forte moved from his home state of California to New York City to join Saturday Night Live (1975) as a writer and cast member. Although known as shy and reserved in his personal life, Forte was one of the individuals responsible for the shows move to absurd, surrealist comedy. Along with voice-over acting, guest appearances on television and small roles in films, Forte had his biggest opportunities to be a movie star with films he wrote. Forte wrote the screenplay for The Brothers Solomon (2007) (and had the leading role of childlike "Dean Solomon") and played the title role and co-wrote the SNL film MacGruber (2010). Both films were given small budgets ($10,000,000 each) and they were both considered box-office and critical failures, although they do have a cult following.
After MacGruber's theatrical release, Forte left SNL for personal and professional reasons, although he has returned as a guest performer. Forte has had a recurring role on the series 30 Rock and made numerous other guest appearances on other TV comedies. After leaving SNL, he increased his work as a voice artist and appeared in many films, including A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011), Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012), Rock of Ages (2012), That's My Boy (2012), and The Watch (2012).
Since 2012, he has moved into dramatic and straight roles on a television pilot titled Rebounding by the producers of Modern Family and Irish film Run and Jump. In August 2012, he was cast in the Alexander Payne film Nebraska (2013), beating out higher-profile actors such as Casey Affleck and Paul Rudd.
From 2015 to 2018, he starred on, and as The Last Man on Earth (2015), a television sitcom. In 2018, he headlined as National Lampoon co-creator Douglas Kenney in the biographical film A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018). The next year, he co-starred in more comedies, Booksmart (2019) and Good Boys (2019)- IMDb Mini Biography By: anonymous
- SpouseOlivia Modling(July 31, 2021 - present) (1 child)
- ChildrenZoe Douglas Forte
- ParentsOrville Willis Forte
- RelativesMichelle(Sibling)
- According to Darrell Hammond, the only time he cracked facing the camera was during his Donald Rumsfeld sketch when Will Forte improvised and kissed him on the cheek twice as George W. Bush.
- In her book, "Girl Walks Into a Bar", Rachel Dratch describes Will Forte and Seth Meyers as two of her comedy non-boyfriends (male friends she relates to as brothers). Dratch and Forte lived on the same block during their time together at SNL and would often have breakfast together.
- Forte auditioned twice for SNL. He was offered a position in 2001 but turned it down to produce and write for That '70s Show (1998). He decided to audition again in 2002.
- Has the 36th highest score in the World for the classic video game Donkey Kong! Will played the game a lot while filming A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011) in Wilmington, NC after seeing the movie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007). His score can be seen on the official high score website of Twin Galaxies, the official keeper of world records for the Guiness book of records for video and pinball games. Will and his stand-in Leo Daniels (13th highest DK score) on the film A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011) are supposed to have a Donkey Kong playoff in the near future.
- While he has often spoke of "being Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)", an article on him at the former website Grantland said that it was unclear if he had ever been officially diagnosed with OCD even though he often brought the subject up. Forte said that he and a former girlfriend once read through a pamphlet on OCD and then answered a quiz set where the pamphlet results/advice set was "You should talk to someone immediately about this." He has also said he is unable to leave any task (even games) un-finished. He claims he was so consumed by one jigsaw puzzle friends took it from him during a party and threw it away.
- "There's kind of a weird, intense energy that flows through the place. I tend to get in there about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and get out around 8 a.m. Wednesday. You end up drinking a massive amount of coffee and downing a lot of Funions." (On the Tuesday-night "SNL" writing regime)
- [discussing his liberal upbringing and love of playing dress-up as a child] If I had become a cross-dresser it would have taken her just a second because my mom is very supportive and she would have loved me anyway.
- I have been in a lot of things, but maybe I've cursed them all.
- I'll check my stove all the time, but I haven't used the stove in 8 years. An old girlfriend of mine, we went through this test you could take on-line to see if you are OCD or not and at the end, it said get help immediately.
- I don't know if I was a funny kid. I would say I was a loud and weird kid.
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