Will Forte was “a laid-back teen with a lot of friends” and a member of the Acalanes varsity football and swim teams at ACA, he graduated in 1988. He was voted “Best Personality” by his graduating class, selected as Football Captain and served as Class president. Will loved being a Don and growing up in Lamorinda.
While many Acalanes graduates go on to accomplish great things, few over the course of the school’s history have achieved true fame. None, perhaps, have achieved the level of stardom as Will Forte, Acalanes class of ‘88, and former SNL cast member. Forte will return to Saturday Night Live, tonight which added him to the cast in 2002. He was a featured player and stayed through 2010. Outside of SNL, Forte has made his mark with his MacGruber and The Last Man on Earth. His additional credits include Fox’s HouseBroken, Bob’s Burgers and The Great North. The next SNL installment will mark Forte’s hosting debut.
“It was the most fun time being at Acalanes”-Will Forte
Forte reminisced with former Blueprint Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor, Adam Blake and Sam Frase (in 2015) about his time growing up in Lamorinda and going to Acalanes, and discussed his thriving comedy career.
Blueprint: What did you think of growing up in Lamorinda?
Will Forte: I loved growing up in Moraga and Lafayette. I was born in 1970 and I lived in Moraga until ‘83 then went over to Stanley in ‘84 and was at Stanley for eighth grade and then Acalanes for all of High school. And I loved it, I thought it was the perfect place to grow up. I had a great group of friends.
BP: So you managed to avoid going to Campo, fortunately?
WF: I have so many friends from JM and I was bummed when I moved over to Lafayette just cause I missed them, but I can’t imagine it being any different and I’m a proud Don. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
BP: How often do you come back to Lafayette?
WF: My Mom moved to Danville and my Dad’s up in Tahoe and my sister who’s also a Don, class of ‘86, is in San Francisco. So I don’t come back to Lafayette that often. Every time that I’m staying at my Moms, I’ll drive over and sometimes I’ll walk around the campus a little bit. And it hasn’t changed too much, there’s definitely some stuff that’s changed. Do you guys still have cheese and sausage …. zombies?
BP: We do.
WF: You do? Oh my God. I gotta come back and have a zombie. I lived on zombies. I would have two or three zombies a day.
BP: When you were in high school did you always know that you wanted to go into comedy?
WF: No I had no idea what I wanted to do. I took a drama class my sophomore year with Mr. Eggertson, I don’t know if he’s still there. He’s great. So I took a drama class sophomore year, but I never did any plays. The closest I ever got to performing was we MCd the talent show, me and a couple buddies and so we got up and we did the dumbest things. We threw out slices of cheese into the audience at some point. I forget why we even did that. But I grew up loving David Letterman so we tried to do our own little David Letterman rip-off. That was the closest I came to performing. Then I went to UCLA and I just thought I was going to do what my Dad does and that was go into the financial industry, but I started doing that out of college and it didn’t feel right. I think all along I was drawn to comedy as a viewer and I just thought ‘Why shouldn’t I give it a thought?’ I had no idea. For everyone who has no idea what they want to do in high school, you are doing just fine. that’s where you’re supposed to be. Keep an open mind. People are really lucky if they know already what they want to do cause then they can start working towards it, but it’s very very normal to not know.
BP: If you were to give the commencement speech at Acalanes, hypothetically, is that the message you’d want to send to students? What’s something you think teengers should know going into college?
WF: Oh man, I don’t know. Just personally I would say, work really hard and don’t stress out about it. I would always get so stressed about stuff and your life is really really long and you have so much time to get stuff done. Everything just works itself out in the long run and as long as you’re working hard, good things will eventually come to you. I didn’t get my SNL job until I was 32, I thought I was never going to be an actor. It’s what I had wanted to do, but then I started writing and it just kind of happened cause I kept working at it. I got really lucky, but you do see that the people around you that succeed do work very very hard.
BP: Prior to SNL you had written for several shows, but after you landed the gig as a cast member, did you feel like you had made it? How did it feel?
WF: I was so excited when I got the job, but I was also terrified. My goal going into comedy was to work at SNL so it should have been such an exciting time, but I was terrified that I was going to be bad at it, and I wasn’t able to live in the moment enough. About four or five seasons in I started to relax a little and enjoy it, and now I look back and it’s one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. I wish I could go back and have those first couple years over again and just tell my myself, ‘Don’t stress out just have fun’ because I should have had a lot more fun, but I would just overthink stuff and stress out.
BP: Any memories you’d like to share about your time at Acalanes?
WF: I won’t tell any partying stories, I’m sure that doesn’t go on anymore. I was always a pretty well behaved young man. We had fun, we had a really fun group of friends. It was the most fun time being at Acalanes. I don’t know what it’s like there now, I assume it’s the same. You just gotta treat everybody with respect. That’s the main thing. I just remember my parents really instilled that in me and my sis. You would see people that were mean to other people at school, and it’s just such a bummer to see that. I would pass that on. A lot of the people who get made fun of are the coolest people who you’ll run intears later and they are the people who you become close with.
BP: Well you were class president and captain of the football team.
WF: I was class president, and on the football team and the swimming team. My senior year we started up the Spanish Honorary Club which had been defunct for a while. It was just a desperate ploy to have more stuff to put on your college application. We had my Mom came in and made a bunch of food one day. That was the only thing we did the whole time. But I was the President of the Spanish Honorary club.
BP: We were just reading up about some of your philanthropic causes, like SciEyes and the Fellowship at Duke, so we were wondering what got you involved with these organizations? Was there any personal connection?
WF: I feel like I have been very lucky my whole life, growing up in Moraga and Lafayette, and then I got the good fortune to do this career that I always wanted to do, so why not help people that are less fortunate? Usually that stuff comes from personal connections that I have. I do stuff for Camp Wamp, or it may be called Wampler Kids now. Steve Wampler was a year ahead of me in school and he’s this amazing guy, he’s got cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, and he used to go to this camp up in the Sierra Nevada that was specifically designed for kids in wheelchairs. But then it got shut down, and he found out about this and took it upon himself to raise all of this money to reopen the camp so that other kids could have the same experience he had. So being friends with Steve, he approached me about helping out.
BP: If you could do anything, what would you say would be your dream project?
WF: I’ve been so lucky. I got my dream job, SNL was my dream, and then working at Letterman was another goal and I got to do that. Everything after SNL was just gravy, and I never thought I’d get a chance to do a movie like Nebraska, so I’m pretty happy with how everything has gone so far. If it all ended and I never got another job, I’m pretty satisfied.
BP: What project would you say you’re the most proud of?
WF: I’ve gotten a chance to do a bunch of varied things. Being in Nebraska was the most exciting thing ever, because I never thought I’d get to be in a movie like that, but I also got to be in MacGruber, which is about as different a movie as you could get, and I’m just as proud of that movie.
BP: We were somewhat joking earlier about you doing a commencement speech, but people would be thrilled if you swung by Acalanes at some point
WF: I would love that, I definitely want to come by at some point. If I ever come up there I’ll call you guys, I’ll take you to breakfast.
BP: That would be incredible, we’d love to take you up on that offer. Thank you so much for giving us your time.
WF: It was my pleasure, I have to do a lot of interviews for this job, and this is the best one I’ve done. We’re all a family, we’re Dons!
Read More about Will Forte growing up in the Bay Area: https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/SNL-Will-Forte-Bay-Area-Acalanes-Sunvalley-Extra-15084409.php