Ahead of Big Slick, actor Will Forte dishes on his ascension as accidental KC royalty
Courtesy Big Slick
Actor/Comedian Will Forte has played a lot of roles over the years, but “Kansas City royalty” was not one of the early career objectives.
Still, hang around Big Slick long enough, and the city tends to adopt you whether you applied for membership or not.
The annual celebrity-packed fundraiser for Children’s Mercy Hospital—which is happening this weekend—has a way of doing that. Forte, who is not from KC, has somehow become part of its extended mythology, an honorary local who shows up, works the rooms, raises money, and eats enough gourmet sammiches to blur the line between guest and institution.
“It’s very nice,” Forte says of the royal treatment. “My great aunt Rose lived in Kansas City her whole life. She was in Shawnee Mission, so I’d been through Kansas City several times before I started going to Big Slick, but I always liked it. I’ve just grown this really strong bond with the city over the years.”
Affinity may be underselling it. Forte now speaks about Kansas City like a man who understands the subtle taxonomy of JoCo geography. In fact, he knew the subtle differences between Mission Hills and regular garden-variety Mission.
It is the kind of self-effacing civic classification that plays well in a place like Kansas City, especially during Big Slick weekend, when the line between fundraiser, reunion, and controlled chaos dissolves entirely.
A Spectacle … But Make It All Caps
“I was always very close friends with Jason Sudeikis back at Saturday Night Live,” Forte says of how his Big Slick alliance began. “When they started doing Big Slick, I got there too late to actually be part of the first poker tournament, which is fine with me because I suck at poker.”
Courtesy Big Slick
What started as a low-key card game-centered charity event has evolved into something much larger (and harder) to describe without raising your voice slightly.
“It’s a spectacle, all caps spectacle,” Forte laughs. “They have you going from place to place. They’re really jamming it in, and it works. It makes so much money for Children’s Mercy, and everybody has such a great time doing it.”
Over the years, it has also taken on the feel of a reunion. Forte now recognizes doctors, nurses, and hospital staff when he comes back, faces that have become familiar across more than a decade of visits.
For all the celeb razzle-dazzle, Forte is quick to redirect attention to the hospital visits, which have become the emotional anchor of the weekend.
“I don’t think anybody would disagree that the highlight every year is getting to go to the hospital and meet the kids and their families,” he says. “It’s so inspirational to see these kids dealing with major things in the way that they’re dealing with them.”
From SNL Neurosis to Controlled Joy
If Big Slick is the civic ritual, Saturday Night Live is where Forte built the comedic vocabulary he still speaks today. He spent eight seasons at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, surrounded by what he still describes with something close to awe.
“I got to work with Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jason Sudeikis, Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Kenan Thompson, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey,” he says. “Getting to bask in the shine of all those people was an amazing experience in itself.”
Ask him about standout work, and he does not hesitate to revisit MacGruber, The Last Man on Earth, and a handful of sketches that have outlived their original airtime.
The Peyton Manning-inspired motivational coach sketch, in particular, still has a life of its own nearly two decades later. Forte remembers it as something that almost did not become what it became.
“I’d always wanted to do a coach motivating his team with a dumb song,” he says. “And at the very end, John Lutz said, ‘Why don’t you do a little dance or something?’ So, we almost didn’t even do the dance.”
There was no choreography, no blueprint, just instinct.
“We just kind of started small and did whatever in the dress rehearsal,” he says of the most interpretative of interpretative dances.
By the time it hit the live show, something clicked. “It just kind of locked in,” Forte says. “And I went for so much longer than I was supposed to.” By the time it finally ended, the Studio 8H audience was frothing at the mouth with laughter.
The Serious Part Underneath the Funny
Not everything in Forte’s world is comedy, though the line between the two is often thinner than it appears from the outside. He speaks with quiet intensity about Huntington’s disease, a condition that has touched his family directly.
“My father-in-law passed from the disease a couple of years ago, and my brother-in-law currently has it,” he says. “It just slowly takes you down. There is nothing you can do.”
What has stayed with him most is not only the severity of the illness, but the importance of awareness and connection around it. He has used his platform to help raise visibility for the disease and support the communities affected by it, something he says feels deeply personal.
“That feeling of community is something I always feel at Big Slick,” he says.
Courtesy Big Slick
Coyote vs. Acme Lives!
His excitement about the long-delayed animated feature Coyote vs. Acme, finally set for release in August, carried an unexpected emotional charge. There was both a hoot and a holler from Forte.
“It’s coming out for sure,” he says, immediately brightening. “They cannot stop it this time.”
“This is maybe the thing I am the most excited I have ever been about,” he adds, laughing at how big that sounds but not backing off it. “I really thought it was gone. I thought it was over.”
He remembers how abruptly the news came when the studio initially pulled the plug.
“The producers said the film is done and we’re going to show the cast next week,” he says. “Then the next day my agent and manager called me together. That’s never good. And it was the worst thing. They said it was basically shelved.”
Even now, he still sounds stunned by the whiplash.
“They let us see the movie anyway,” he says. “And I went in thinking it probably wasn’t going to be as good as they were saying.”
He takes a beat.
“And it was the exact opposite. It was even better than I thought.”
That relief quickly turns to exasperation at what almost happened.
“It was so frustrating,” he says. “Knowing it might never be seen. Like nobody would get to watch it.”
Then the personal stake lands simply. “And I have kids,” he says. “I kept thinking this is something I can actually show them. Not one of my gross, dirty movies.”
He breaks into a grin.
“So, yeah,” he says. “I’m just excited for people to finally see it.”
Cameras Rolling In KC — and Tiffany Haddish in the Mix
Forte’s relationship with KC has evolved from an annual visit to a near-constant rotation. Big Slick remains the anchor, but it is no longer the only reason he finds himself in town. Benefit shows, recurring events, and now a full-scale film production have turned Kansas City into something closer to a second base of operations.
This August, he returns for a month-long shoot that he describes with obvious excitement and just enough understatement to keep it grounded.
“It is a crazy comedy,” he says. “Very futuristic. Think dystopian-punk-comedy.”
The cast alone reads like a collision of comedic universes: Eric André and Tiffany Haddish among them, all landing in KC for what Forte clearly hopes will be a frenzied, collaborative stretch of filming.
For Forte, the project is also a chance to finally experience the metro beyond the compressed rhythm of charity weekends and scheduled appearances.
“I obviously love Kansas City with all my heart,” he says. “But a lot of my trips are so focused. I come in for Big Slick, or for other events, and it’s always packed.”
This August, he gets something different: time.
“I’ve been coming for, like, 16 years,” he says. “I feel like I know the city so well, but at the same time, I don’t know it at all. So, I’m excited to finally do a deep dive when I am out there.”
It’s the kind of line that sounds like travel writer optimism until you remember he’s already halfway there, with an evolving list of sandwich shops and barbecue stops that now function as informal Kansas City field notes.
“I have basically had all the barbecue,” he says, “but only in situations where they are coming to us. Now, I actually get to go to the places.”
Oh, and he’s an acclaimed sandwich aficionado. (Our words. Not his.)
“At King G Deli, I once ate multiple different sandwiches,” he says. “Well, like six halves of sandwiches. So good.”
Eddie Vedder at 4:30 a.m. and Other Acceptable Life Choices
For all the structure of Big Slick and SNL, Forte’s most vivid memories tend to arrive unannounced. The biggest highlight, you ask?
At SNL 50, it was Eddie Vedder at 4:30 a.m., inviting him onstage.
“He says, ‘Come do ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ with me,’” Forte recalls. “And I’m, uh, a little drunk and I’m, like, yes, of course.”
There was one problem.
“I only know traces of the song,” he admits. “Mostly the chorus.”
So, they improvised the only reasonable solution: Vedder did the heavy lifting, Forte handled the chorus. “Brandi Carlile got up there,” he adds. “Man, it was just the coolest, coolest thing.”
The Birthday Strategy
For all the managed bedlam of his professional life, Forte’s birthday plan in July is almost aggressively normal.
“I’m going to La Cabaña,” he says. “That is what I do every year.”
No spectacle. (No spectacle, all caps.) Just a table full of friends at a Venice restaurant outside Los Angeles. “It really is the only time your best friends are all forced to be in a room together,” he says. “You’ve got to take advantage of those situations.”
This weekend, however, he’ll be back in KC for Big Slick, slipping once again into the familiar whirl of late-night laughter, jam-packed philanthropy, and the kind of circus energy that only makes sense when it’s happening for a good cause.
Somewhere in between the appearances and the inside jokes, Forte will find himself right back where this whole unlikely connection started—as a beloved adopted local in a city that long ago decided he was one of its own.
