Faced with the end of the world as we know it, most of us would be tempted to go the full Mad Max route, fighting leather-clad marauders and tooling around in souped-up muscle cars. If youre Will Forte, however, you look for a place to throw bowling balls at aquariums. The Last Man on Earth drops the ex-SNL cast member into a world where the human race has been ravaged by a viral outbreak; when his character isnt searching for fellow survivors, hes indulging in his gleefully destructive, dudebro-ish whims. (Three words: Flamethrower bachelor party.) The brainchild of Forte and The Lego Movies Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the Fox show has become an oddball breakout hit and proves that the man formerly known as MacGruber can even make the apocalypse seem hilarious.
This wasnt the first idea you guys had for a show, right?
Chris, Phil and I have known each other for years; wed been brainstorming ideas for a project we could work on together for a long time. We had notebooks full of ideas wed all been gathering up, and I cant recall who threw the Last Man concept out there. But I do remember that somebody yelled it out and all of us went, Uh, no. [Laughs] Originally, wed fixated on an idea thatwell, for a while Val Kilmer was sleeping on my couch.
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Im sorry, come again?
He was looking for a place in Malibu, wed become friends after MacGruber and he asked, Can I come stay with you for a couple of days? That turned into two months. So we were going to do something based loosely on that, and just as Chris was putting on his jacket to leave, he said, Wait, lets take one more look at that postapocalyptic thing. Suddenly, something just clicked. We couldnt get the jokes down fast enough.
Were you worried that audiences wouldnt watch you wandering the earth by yourself for 13 episodes?
Thats been one of the best parts of writing the show: I get to think of these stupid little things thatd Id do if nobody else was around and then I get to go do them. I get to run over things with a steamroller. I get to use a flamethrower. Some are born out of necessity, like the toilet pool, of course. And a lot of things are just messing around and being a jackass. Nothing is better than throwing bowling balls at fish tanks in a parking lot.
But we throw some twists and turns in theretheres basically a reveal at the end of each episode. I like the fact that it ends up being different that what most people think its going to be. I would compare it to MacGruber, in that Im sure a lot of folks were like Wait, is it just going to be some guy getting blown up every two minutes? Its the same thing with this: Oh, Im going to get sick of watching this dude goof around all by himself. Its more than that. [Pause] Actually, hardly anybody saw MacGruber, so maybe thats the wrong thing to compare this to. Forget I said that. [Laughs]
How painful was the less-than-stellar reception that MacGruber received?
I mean, I was really proud of itI know that sounds crazy, because its just a bunch of dick jokes. But Im as proud of MacGruber as I am of Nebraska, even though you could not pick two more dissimilar projects in the history of movies. Im sure Alexander Payne would agree with that statement as well. [Laughs] It was painful, but I learned that when youve done something you like, it doesnt hurt as much if it fails.
Did you ever bomb big on Saturday Night Live?
When Josh Brolin was the host, I did this really stupid, over-the-top sketch called Fart Face, in which Bill Hader and I are businessmen, and he keeps calling me Fart Face. It just tanks in dress rehearsal not even crickets are chirping at it. Actually, its like the crickets that usually signal a bad joke had been sucked into a vacuum. Were talking dead silence. Bill and I walked offstage, and it was like, okay, well: better luck next time. Then we went into Lornes office to see whats staying in and whats getting cut for and he picked it to be in the show! We were like, how cool is this? It bombed and he still stood behind it. It meant a lot.
So you did it live and then it just killed, right?
No, it bombed even worse on air. The episode supposedly had the biggest audience in years because Tina Fey was doing Sarah Palin, and then Palin herself showed up and I gave the world Fart Face. It was the MacGruber movie of SNL sketches. If youre going to bomb, bomb hard!
Your character grabs a Van Gogh painting and the Oval Offices rug; what would you nab if you were the last man on earth?
Am I stuck in North or South America? If not, Id grab Jimmy Pages double-necked guitar. I could go shopping in the Smithsonian for hours. Or Id try and find all those classified government documents, to see how many of those conspiracy theories are correct. Honestly, though, the kind of dumb shit you see my character do in the show Id be more into doing that. It doesnt take a lot to make me happy. Just a bowling bowl, a parking lot and some fish tanks.