Will Forte Doubtful on Season 2, Optimistic About Future

Will Forte carved himself a fine career as a comedic actor, and his stock continues to soar. Among his biggest signature projects stems from his Saturday Night Live days in the MacGyver parody MacGruber. Playing the title character, the formula was kept simple. He, a male, and a female partner are trapped in a confined space with a bomb, and it’s up to MacGruber to disarm it before it goes off. There’s a typical theme of insecurity he has to deal with that distracts him before it does eventually go off as the two straight characters struggle to keep him on task. The success of the recurring sketches eventually led to a 2010 Universal Pictures film adaptation and the 2021 Peacock TV series sequel with Kristen Wiig (Vicki St. Elmo) and Ryan Phillippe (Dixon Piper) solidified in those roles. While promoting his indie comedy Aliens Abducted My Parents and I Kinda Feel Left Out for Sundance, Forte spoke to Bleeding Cool about how MacGruber came together on Peacock and its uncertain future.

Working on MacGruber

“If it were up to me, ‘MacGruber’ would be the only thing I’d ever work on [laughs],” Forte said. “I’m kidding. I love working on that and everything else I’m in, but it is like a family that after doing the movie and then a whole series together. There were some people who worked on the ‘MacGruber’ movie who then worked on the series. The people who didn’t come back to work on the series from working on the movie and the people who filled in for them were from the show ‘Last Man on Earth.’ It was a real collection of people who have meant a great deal to me over my life. To get to work with all these people again is what I aspire to be every day. We should all be so lucky to get to work with people like this.”

As far as the franchise’s future, whether we’ll see a second MacGruber film or second season on the NBC Universal streamer, “We haven’t heard anything. It’s likely we’ll never do a season two, but at the same time, we’re ready to jump at it if given the chance,” Forte said. “I hope it’s at Peacock if we ever come around to doing it again because they were fantastic. If they don’t want to do it and somebody else does, just do it wherever.”