Will Forte can play a selfish fool without losing sight of his vulnerability, and he knows when to hold back. We rate the patience as much as the absurdity; too often, the writing settles for repeating itself.
Fi1m perspective
In Strays (2023), Will Forte’s Doug keeps driving his trusting terrier further from home, hoping the dog will stop coming back. Reggie thinks they are playing a game, which makes Doug’s cruelty a fairly severe test of how much of this man we want to see. We laughed more than we wanted to at the gap between Reggie’s trust and Doug’s determination to get rid of him. Josh Greenbaum’s film gets laughs from that ugliness, but repetition wears them out. Forte can make an unpleasant character worth watching; he cannot supply the missing jokes.
His work on Saturday Night Live (2002–2010) established a more absurd version of that selfishness. The sketches about MacGruber, a bomb-defuser distracted by his own problems, led to MacGruber (2010). The quieter turn in Nebraska (2013), playing the patient son opposite Bruce Dern, matters because it lets Forte be the person putting up with somebody else. We rate that restraint: he can hold our attention while leaving somebody else to cause the trouble.
Creating and starring in The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018) gave him space to sustain that difficult company beyond a sketch. His combination of vulnerability and absurd behaviour can carry a series, though the early stretches sometimes went too far. We do not need his characters to become nicer, but we do need their faults to keep producing different jokes.
The Four Seasons (2025) gives him a more familiar set of troubles as Jack, alongside Tina Fey’s Kate in a relationship comedy. There is warmth in the ensemble, but the writing, by a team including Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, too often mistakes a recognisable marital complaint for a fresh joke. Forte is among the capable actors left waiting for sharper material, and the ordinary setting does not by itself make the writing more observant. The series is decent company rather than a strong reason to seek him out. For a different use of his abilities, try Nebraska, where he is allowed to be patient.
Biography
Will Forte is an American actor, comedian, writer and producer. He was a cast member and writer on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live for eight seasons from 2002 to 2010. A recurring character from the show led to the feature film MacGruber (2010) and a limited series adaptation in 2021.
Forte created and starred in the sitcom The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018). He has appeared in films including Nebraska (2013), The Laundromat (2019) as Doomed Gringo #1, Strays (2023) as Doug, and the series The Four Seasons (2025) as Jack. He has also provided voice work for animated films and series such as The Lego Movie (2014) and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009).
Born Orville Willis Forte IV on 17 June 1970 in Alameda, California, he studied history at the University of California, Los Angeles before working as a financial broker. He later trained with the improv group The Groundlings and wrote for series including 3rd Rock from the Sun and That '70s Show before joining Saturday Night Live.
