50 facts about Will Forte: was voted "Best Personality" by his graduating class, and served as class president

Will Forte's full name is Orville Willis Forte IV. Learn 50 interesting facts about Will Forte.

1. Orville Willis Forte IV is known professionally as Will Forte.

2. He is best known for his work in television as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and as the creator and star of the sitcom The Last Man on Earth.

3. He obtained a history degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.

4. Became a financial broker.

5. Forte changed his career path to comedy and began taking classes with the improvisational comedy group the Groundlings in Los Angeles.

6. He soon found he favored writing best, and he worked as a writer and producer on That '70s Show before he auditioned for Saturday Night Live (SNL).

7. He joined in 2002, spending eight years as a cast member on the show. He was well known for his more offbeat sketches.

8. His most famous role on the show led to a feature film adaption, MacGruber (2010), that preceded his departure from the program.

9. Forte took various roles in comedy films before his turn to drama in the film Nebraska (2013), which attracted critical acclaim.

10. In 2015, Forte created and stars in his own television sitcom The Last Man on Earth, which premiered on Fox and is nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

11. Orville Willis Forte IV was born in Alameda County, California, to Patricia C., an artist and former schoolteacher, and Orville Willis Forte III, a financial broker.

12. He was raised in Moraga, California, before moving to Lafayette, California.

13. He went by Billy in his early years until he was teased at school for it also being a girl's name, at which point he decided he would from there on be known as Will.

14. Forte has described himself as a "really happy kid," whose parents were "wonderful" and created a "very loving environment."

15. He was interested in comedy from a young age, growing up idolizing comedians Peter Sellers, David Letterman, Steve Martin, and the sketch-comedy television series Saturday Night Live.

16. He often pranked his parents, and would record himself performing imaginary radio shows.

17. He did aim to be a comedian, however, and he initially wanted to become a football player.

18. Forte was a "a laid-back teen with a lot of friends," and a member of the varsity football and swim teams at Acalanes High School, from which he graduated in 1988.

19. He was voted "Best Personality" by his graduating class, and served as class president.

20. He had no ambitions for a television or film career, though his mother noticed a "creative streak" in him.

21. Planning to follow his father, he became a financial broker at Smith Barney Shearson in Beverly Hills, but felt "miserable" during his time there.

22. He started writing while he was at Shearson, and he co-wrote a feature-length script.

23. On the subject of writing, Forte remarked, "I discovered that I loved it more than anything I had ever done in my life."

24. He had been encouraged to attempt comedy during his years at university, and he decided to change his career to become a writer-performer.

25. He began taking classes at the Groundlings in Los Angeles, an improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school, while tutoring children to make ends meet.

26. Forte's first successful foray into comedy was 101 Things to Definitely Not Do If You Want to Get a Chick, a comic book he produced that details incompetent men.

27. The comics landed him his first professional job writing for The Jenny McCarthy Show, a short-lived variety show starring Jenny McCarthy.

28. Shortly thereafter, he was asked to submit a packet to the Late Show with David Letterman and was told Letterman responded favorably to the cartoons. After only nine months at Letterman, he was "let go" from the job.

29. He returned to Los Angeles, where he began performing with the Groundlings' Main Company, alongside comedians such as Maya Rudolph, Cheryl Hines, and Jim Rash.

30. He tried stand-up comedy three times, mostly at open mic nights, but quit when he was voted into the Main Company.

31. He joined the writing teams of two unsuccessful sitcoms, including The Army Show and Action.

32. Eventually, Forte got jobs writing for 3rd Rock from the Sun and That '70s Show, two successful programs.

33. He loved writing but had mostly given up on acting, aside from his performances with the Groundlings.

34. Forte began work on The Last Man on Earth, a sitcom, with longtime collaborators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in 2013. Though it was the duo's idea, Forte attached himself to the concept, crafting a treatment over a weekend. The series was pitched around Hollywood to positive responses, and was picked up in 2014 by Fox.

35. Forte serves as the series' co-creator, a writer, the lead role, and showrunner for its' first season.

36. He felt odd being in charge of its writing team (composed of longtime friends), and awkward at delegating tasks, so much so that he would end up doing the work himself.

37. Being a showrunner "truly was an amount of work I never knew existed," he said, which involved him working a "minimum of 12 hours" daily. The series premiered in 2015 to positive responses, and was renewed for a second season.

38. Forte is a supporter of the camp Wampler's Kids and recorded a promotional piece at SNL with Will Ferrell.

39. Forte was a childhood friend of founder Steven Wampler and previously the national spokesman for SciEyes, a non-profit organization created to support research, training and public education in stem cell biology and to further the field by recognizing and supporting its potential for creating new therapies for the treatment of blinding and debilitating eye diseases.

40. He was a primary donor towards the establishment of a research fellowship for third-year medical students at Duke Medical Center.

41. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness.

42. Forte is especially close with his family. His mother has visited every film set he's worked on and made an appearance on the Mother's Day episode of SNL in which he sang a song to her on Weekend Update.

43. Forte officiated his sister Michelle's wedding and filmed the birth of his niece and nephew.

44. During a conversation with Scott Aukerman on the podcast, Comedy Bang! Bang!, Forte discussed his parents' divorce and the family's decision to have Christmas together after his father's second divorce.

45. Forte currently resides in Santa Monica, California.

46. He purchased his home just two weeks before joining SNL and being forced to move to New York City; "It was not the greatest timing," he later said.

47. Forte took his first dramatic role for the 2013 film Run & Jump.

48. Forte decided to leave SNL shortly before the beginning of the show's thirty-sixth season in 2010. He felt it the "right time to go," considering his eight-year tenure there, his expansion into film with MacGruber, and his age.

49. He soon regretted the decision, calling the following year an "emotionally trying period," as he felt "devastated" that he would no longer be on the program.

50. He also took a role as Paul L'Astname, the cross-dressing boyfriend of Jenna Maroney on the critically acclaimed sitcom 30 Rock.

Source: Wikipedia.org