A Tribute to Adam McKay: How One of Comedy’s Brightest Minds has Seamlessly Transitioned into Making Movies of Substance About the Biggest Issues of Our Time
MarkRaymond is a writer and screenwriter who believes himself to be the only person desiring to work in film who originated in New York and currently resides in Los Angeles. Mark was inspired to write from a young age and has always desired to connect and uplift others through his work, as those that motivated him did for him. Mark feels very strongly that the world could use a lot more positivity and optimism, and is therefore very aligned to the mission of The Hollywood Insiderto not spread hate or gossip, but instead to build each other up and shine a positive light on anyone bold enough to put their heart and soul into a piece of art. In his writing, Mark aims to use his signature wit to highlight the severity of the more serious and pressing issues of our time, to shine a beacon of light through the darkness. A devoted ally to all, he seeks to inspire and use his platform to give a voice to the voiceless and let his readers know that while everything may not be great right now, one day it can and will be.
Sep 4, 2024
Table of Contents
How does one become one of the most celebrated and commercially successful comedy multi-hyphenates of all time? Surely not by dropping out of college before receiving their bachelor’s degree and joining an improv comedy group, right?
WRONG. Thus was the journey for Adam McKay, the immensely talented and successful director, writer, and producer behind such classics as ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,’ ‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,’ ‘Step Brothers,’ ‘The Other Guys,’ ‘The Big Short,’ and ‘Vice.’ McKay has had a fascinating and very versatile career, going from directing Will Ferrell at his absolute best, making people’s stomachs hurt from laughing too hard, to tackling academy-award nominated films revolving around climate change, corrupt politicians, and the recession of 2008.
McKay had a very interesting path growing up as he was born in Denver but was later raised by his single mother after his parents divorced in Massachusetts and then Pennsylvania. After attending Penn State University initially and then transferring to Temple University, McKay dropped out of college before finishing his bachelor’s degree in English.
From there he took his talents and a shot on himself to Chicago where he joined and learned the art of improvisation while participating in an improv comedy group the ImprovOlympic and at the famed Second City, where he was a member of the main cast at the same place that launched the careers of Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Gilda Radner, and other comedy legends. McKay took to the improv scene and became an impressive performer at these shows, quickly making a name for himself performing sketches with the rest of his castmates. He even formed his own improv group, the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) with some of his fellow improvisers from ImprovOlympic. McKay and the other founders eventually moved UCB to New York, and the school is still widely successful and has stages and classes in New York and Los Angeles.
After becoming a decidedly strong and capable improviser, the next logical step in McKay’s career was a try-out for the Holy Grail for improv comedians, ‘Saturday Night Live.’SNL has a strong history of finding and developing talent from these improv theaters, and McKay was ready to take his crack at a chance to make the cast. After auditioning, McKay was denied a space in the cast for SNL, but was hired as a writer based on his impressive script packet that he submitted. McKay’s prowess behind the camera was on full display as he was eventually promoted to head writer for SNL at the very young age of only 27. He would hold this position for nearly six full years, during a time when SNL was rife with talent including Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler amongst others. This was a truly “golden era” for the show, with a writer as talented as McKay teaming up with an impressive cast to create some of the show’s most memorable sketches ever. In fact, it would be McKay’s relationship with Ferrell that would lead to them both achieving incredible mainstream success in their years post-SNL.
Defining Comedy For a Generation With a Sneaky Amount of Heart
McKay and Ferrell were frequent collaborators on SNL, often writing their material for the show together and Ferrell would stand out on screen as an over-the-top, hyperbolic character who seemingly had no place in the real world. This chemistry the two formed and their impressive comedic chops opened a massive door in Hollywood for them to jump through. With 2004’s ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,’ the duo loudly and proudly announced themselves on the scene as a comedy team to be reckoned with.
McKay and Ferrell co-wrote the film together and, with McKay directing and Ferrell starring, they struck comedy gold in their story about an off-beat, politically incorrect, and behind the times news anchor struggling to hold onto his place of power in a rapidly evolving world. On its surface, ‘Anchorman’ can be taken as a very goofy and raunchy comedy. However, McKay and Ferrell seem to have much more to say in their script about toxic masculinity and the ridiculous stereotypes that exist about women in the workplace. A powerful performance by Christina Applegate as Veronica Corningstone, an up-and-coming news anchor poised to make a name for herself in the news industry, serves to derail Burgundy’s (Ferrell) world and force him to evaluate how he thinks about and treats women.
Again in McKay and Ferrell’s next feature, ‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,’ the two created another hit comedy that has a lot more going on beneath the surface. While one of the most outrageously laugh-out-loud funny comedies of the past 20 years, the film also deals with a central conflict of Ricky Bobby confronting his relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. 2008’s ‘Step Brothers’ again features Ferrell, this time joined by John C. Reilly, as two grown men forced into becoming step brothers after the marriage of their older parents. A ridiculously silly concept once again, but the film silently also seeks to untangle issues of arrested development and how divorce can impact a child’s development.
McKay’s early films are an incredible testament to his ability to juggle comedy, while simultaneously delivering a solid story that features growth and change for his characters. McKay has also attributed a great portion of the success of these movies to his improv background. He has touched on in interviews how they often go into shooting with the story and plot nailed down, but give the performers a chance to riff and heighten the comedy while shooting. He will even chip in from his place behind the camera with suggestions for words or phrases to improve the scene for the different actors. McKay’s talent as an improviser and his desire to make comedic films with actual substance and conflict is what makes these films stand out and why they have remained incredibly popular throughout the years since their release. The bones of the kind of filmmaker McKay will ultimately grow into are laid out on full display in these tremendously successful comedies that helped launch him to stardom.
Testing the Waters to Mixed Results
After massive commercial success in his first three films with Will Ferrell, McKay continued the trend by once again teaming up for 2010’s ‘The Other Guys.’ The film stars Ferrell and McKay, and newcomer Mark Wahlberg, as mismatched detectives both trying to solve a case that may or may not actually exist. ‘The Other Guys’ is a different entry for McKay, as it feels like a parody of the classic no-chemistry detective partner films of the 80s and 90s, while also taking on a bit of a grittier edge to it. While still a comedy in every way imaginable and featuring hilarious performances from both Ferrell and Wahlberg, it feels very different in tone and scope from McKay’s earlier films.
While the film is mainly about the antics of the two detectives trying to solve a case, the case itself is McKay’s way of introducing the audience to the films he is now aspiring to make. A very convoluted and complicated plot unravels in the film involving a billionaire, overseas money, and the NYPD pension fund that is ultimately solved and revealed by Ferrell and Wahlberg.
However, it is in this plot that McKay is working on deeper material than he ever has before. He incorporates this plot to shine a nasty light on the concept of billionaires and big businesses having the ability to be ‘bailed out’ by the government. He highlights in the end-credit sequence all of the atrocities committed by the banks that led to the financial crash of 2008 and the fact that no one faced any jail time for their role in the corruption and malpractice.
Certainly a departure from the ultimately positive and cheery resolutions of his earlier films, McKay uses the ending of the film to indicate reality is not so chipper. McKay is tugging on the thread here that will ultimately lead to his next and currently ongoing portion of his career.
Adam McKay… Academy-Award Nominee?
Adam McKay made waves and caused a lot of people to double take when it was announced that the next feature film he would direct in 2016 would be an adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book about the 2008 financial crash, ‘The Big Short.’ A complicated story to pull off as the protagonists of the film are a select group of people who profited from the collapse of the economy via short-selling stocks while others suffered immense losses.
A very tricky and difficult subject matter to get across to a wide audience, McKay does a brilliant job in this film of breaking down and explaining the banking system in America and how it was able to crumble so spectacularly by using the comedic skills that had led him to such success thus far. He cuts away to asides from different celebrities outside of the plot to break down aspects of the financial system that seem incredibly complicated and have them explain the subject in plain English.
Truly for the first time as well, McKay is playing in the big leagues and directs a cast of Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell, all Academy Award-nominated actors. McKay was nominated for both best director and best adapted screenplay in 2016 and won for best adapted screenplay. A far cry from the erection jokes and parodies of Southern Nascar culture, McKay had become an Academy Award-winning filmmaker.
Now a bonafide A-list director, McKay continued to challenge himself by taking on his next project, a darkly comedic biopic of former Vice President Dick Cheney called ‘Vice.’ Teaming up again with Christian Bale, who masterfully plays the soulless former politician, they deliver an outstandingly entertaining and thoughtful film. McKay pulls no punches in studying the rise of Cheney and how his influence on the American political system and behind-the-scenes power played a massive role in our history in the last twenty years.
McKay draws a direct line between Cheney’s political career and aspirations and how America has become so corrupted by the very people trusted to keep it safe. He delivers a film that is immensely critical and points in many ways to the arrogance and evil of Cheney, while also constantly trying to find within the film a moral compass in a man so corrupted by his political party and lobbyist money flowing directly to his bank account. McKay was again nominated for Academy Awards for best screenplay, best director, and the film received a nod for best picture but unfortunately did not take any hardware home that night.
McKay’s most recent film, 2021’s ‘Don’t Look Up,’ is a continuation of him skewering the American political system and the incredible ways in which we have allowed ourselves to be so blinded by politics that we can no longer see reality as it relates to climate change. His film, featuring stand-out performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Meryl Streep amongst others, follows a team of scientists (DiCaprio and Lawrence) that discover an asteroid is heading straight toward Earth and will cause a global extinction event.
In the era of “Trumpism” and corrupt media allegiances, their pleas for the president, played by Streep, continue to fall upon deaf ears. The film has received mixed critical reviews, however, I think it is a brilliant film that’s impact was rendered ineffective due to the Pandemic. The film parodies and mocks the idea that people are so blindly loyal to a party or political identity that they refuse to open their eyes to any form of inconvenient truth.
Unfortunately, our unhinged reality had surpassed any concept McKay has on display in this film by the time the film was released. Dozens of people loyal to Streep’s president in the film wearing “Don’t Look Up” hats and chanting the same phrase doesn’t strike as funny as it could have when these people in reality would have participated in the Capital riot on January 6th of last year. The film has been nominated in the upcoming Academy Awards for best screenplay and best picture, and has been widely praised by climate scientists for its accuracy and desire to wake people up to the reality we face on our planet. Their appreciation en-masse for what McKay has set out to do in raising concerns around climate change and broadcasting it for the masses will hopefully open some eyes to the impending doom that faces our planet and way of life.
Where Does He Go From Here?
After taking on the banking system, the corrupt political arena, and climate change, surely his next step is… sports? McKay’s newest project is ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,’ set to debut on HBO Max on March 6th. The project has a tremendous amount of promise and a star-studded cast and, with McKay at the helm, will dive deep behind the scenes on the issues of race, corruption, and power that led to the Lakers’ championship run in the 80s.
Adam McKay has had an incredibly fascinating and versatile career behind the camera. I have been a fan of his for years and he is one of my main inspirations as a filmmaker as someone who is wholly un-phased by being put in a creative box by the industry. He has been at the forefront of the incredible comedy movement of the mid-2000s and now has combined his wit, comedic talent, and thoughtfulness to make some of the most defining films of our time. I can’t wait to watch everything he has coming down the pipeline and would encourage all to tune in as well.
By: Mark Raymond
Click here to read The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase’s love letter to Cinema, TV and Media. An excerpt from the love letter: The Hollywood Insider’s CEO/editor-in-chief Pritan Ambroase affirms, “We have the space and time for all your stories, no matter who/what/where you are. Media/Cinema/TV have a responsibility to better the world and The Hollywood Insider will continue to do so. Talent, diversity and authenticity matter in Cinema/TV, media and storytelling. In fact, I reckon that we should announce “talent-diversity-authenticity-storytelling-Cinema-Oscars-Academy-Awards” as synonyms of each other. We show respect to talent and stories regardless of their skin color, race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, etc., thus allowing authenticity into this system just by something as simple as accepting and showing respect to the human species’ factual diversity. We become greater just by respecting and appreciating talent in all its shapes, sizes, and forms. Award winners, which includes nominees, must be chosen on the greatness of their talent ALONE.
I am sure I am speaking for a multitude of Cinema lovers all over the world when I speak of the following sentiments that this medium of art has blessed me with. Cinema taught me about our world, at times in English and at times through the beautiful one-inch bar of subtitles. I learned from the stories in the global movies that we are all alike across all borders. Remember that one of the best symbols of many great civilizations and their prosperity has been the art they have left behind. This art can be in the form of paintings, sculptures, architecture, writings, inventions, etc. For our modern society, Cinema happens to be one of them. Cinema is more than just a form of entertainment, it is an integral part of society. I love the world uniting, be it for Cinema, TV, media, art, fashion, sport, etc. Please keep this going full speed.”
MarkRaymond is a writer and screenwriter who believes himself to be the only person desiring to work in film who originated in New York and currently resides in Los Angeles. Mark was inspired to write from a young age and has always desired to connect and uplift others through his work, as those that motivated him did for him. Mark feels very strongly that the world could use a lot more positivity and optimism, and is therefore very aligned to the mission of The Hollywood Insiderto not spread hate or gossip, but instead to build each other up and shine a positive light on anyone bold enough to put their heart and soul into a piece of art. In his writing, Mark aims to use his signature wit to highlight the severity of the more serious and pressing issues of our time, to shine a beacon of light through the darkness. A devoted ally to all, he seeks to inspire and use his platform to give a voice to the voiceless and let his readers know that while everything may not be great right now, one day it can and will be.
MarkRaymond is a writer and screenwriter who believes himself to be the only person desiring to work in film who originated in New York and currently resides in Los Angeles. Mark was inspired to write from a young age and has always desired to connect and uplift others through his work, as those that motivated him did for him. Mark feels very strongly that the world could use a lot more positivity and optimism, and is therefore very aligned to the mission of The Hollywood Insiderto not spread hate or gossip, but instead to build each other up and shine a positive light on anyone bold enough to put their heart and soul into a piece of art. In his writing, Mark aims to use his signature wit to highlight the severity of the more serious and pressing issues of our time, to shine a beacon of light through the darkness. A devoted ally to all, he seeks to inspire and use his platform to give a voice to the voiceless and let his readers know that while everything may not be great right now, one day it can and will be.
MarkRaymond is a writer and screenwriter who believes himself to be the only person desiring to work in film who originated in New York and currently resides in Los Angeles. Mark was inspired to write from a young age and has always desired to connect and uplift others through his work, as those that motivated him did for him. Mark feels very strongly that the world could use a lot more positivity and optimism, and is therefore very aligned to the mission of The Hollywood Insiderto not spread hate or gossip, but instead to build each other up and shine a positive light on anyone bold enough to put their heart and soul into a piece of art. In his writing, Mark aims to use his signature wit to highlight the severity of the more serious and pressing issues of our time, to shine a beacon of light through the darkness. A devoted ally to all, he seeks to inspire and use his platform to give a voice to the voiceless and let his readers know that while everything may not be great right now, one day it can and will be.
Limited Time Offer: Join for FREE today and get unlimited
The Hollywood Insider is against gossip and scandal, fully focused on substance & meaningful entertainment.
We choose quality over quantity, compassion over oppression, wisdom over intelligence.
Newsletter Subscription
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
