Not Ron Burgundy!
Christina Applegate was worried about the state of Will Ferrell’s marriage to Viveca Paulin when they were filming 2004’s “Anchorman.”
The former co-stars looked back on the misunderstanding on Tuesday’s episode of Applegate’s “MeSsy” podcast.
“Christina, do you remember how you thought I was having marriage problems?” Ferrell, 56, asked.
“When we were shooting the movie, we would go out a lot socially,” he recalled to Applegate, 52. “We would all go out as a group, like, on the weekends or whatever, grab a dinner. And, I was like oh great, let’s do it! And then Viveca kept having to cancel. You verbalized it later. I could tell you were like, ‘What’s going on? His wife’s not coming again.’ “
Ferrell, who married his wife four years before “Anchorman” came out, said that Viveca “wasn’t feeling good” because she was pregnant at the time with their oldest son Magnus.
“We finally could announce that she was pregnant halfway through filming,” he explained, reminding Applegate, “You were like, ‘I knew something was up!’ “
“It’s coming back to me a little bit,” said Applegate. “I remember you guys had something you weren’t sharing yet. A pregnancy.”
The “Dead to Me” actress praised Ferrell and Paulin, 55, and said they’re “couple goals across the world.”
She also noted how “incredible” it is that their other “Anchorman” co-stars, Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, are both still married to their respective wives.
After Applegate complimented Ferrell’s spouse, the “Succession” producer shared that the couple will celebrate their 24th wedding anniversary next month.
“We’ve known each other since like, since the summer of ’91,” he said. “It’s one of those stories of, we met at first, we were both like, wait a minute, I really like this person. But it was too much, too fast, too young. The intensity level was like, oh, whoa.”
“We were just friends, we kind of dated, but then we were just friends for five years and then kind of circled back to each other,” the “Barbie” actor added.
Ferrell told Elle in 2012 that he was dating someone else when he met Paulin.
“I was in another relationship,” he said, “and Viv and I would talk as friends for two hours, and it would feel like five minutes, and then my girlfriend would call and after 15 minutes I’d be like, ‘God, it’s really late here on the East Coast. I should get some sleep.’ For me, Viv was the one that got away.”
The “Despicable Me 4” star recalled that he knew he would marry Paulin after she invited him over for beers when he was on hiatus from “Saturday Night Live.”
“What I love most about Viv is very simple. She totally got my sense of humor,” Ferrell told the outlet. “I sent her flowers every day for a week with a card like, ‘You’re the fifth-prettiest woman in the office.’ She loved it. We had a shorthand with each other.”
Ferrell and Paulin have three sons: Magnus, 20, Mattias, 17, and Axel, 14.
