Will Ferrell explains Ron Burgundy’s feelings on man hugs in ‘Anchorman 2’

When Drew McWeeny sat down with Will Ferrell and David Koechner to talk about “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” quite naturally, the Champ Kind-Ron Burgundy relationship came up. Champ’s feelings for Ron were there in the first movie, made more explicit in “Wake up Ron Burgundy” and are even more obvious in “Anchorman 2.” As Drew noted, and the actors agreed, the new movie picks up more from the “1.5” movie than from the original.

Ferrell noted that he loves both the fact that Kind is really aggressive about it and that Burgundy never picks up on it “he’s like ‘Why are you hugging me again!?!'” Both actors seem to truly like playing those moments, with Koechner loving to really go for it and Ferrell insisting that getting to be the straight man is the better part. 

The far-ranging discussion between the three men also touched on more serious issues, like director Adam McKay “smuggling” into the movie a commentary on what the news has become over the course of the past few decades. Said Ferrell, “It is literally smuggling in these things that… the observant viewer sees right away, [and] other people pick up later.” He then went on to talk about how one focus group for the film spent the entirety of the time talking about “what they learned about the news.”