Will Forte Missed Three Calls in a Row from Barack Obama
Apparently, it’s easier to win two presidential elections than it is to get a comedian to pick up the phone on the first ring.
After leaving office in 2017, President Barack Obama had to decide what he was going to do with the post-Oval Office career that left his famously handsome face too wrinkled and worn to ever pursue entertainment work in front of the camera. So, Obama and his wife Michelle had to settle for behind-the-scenes roles by founding their entertainment company Higher Ground Productions, which helped to create the recently released Netflix dark comedy series Bodkin, starring Saturday Night Live veteran Will Forte as an American podcaster who stumbles upon a conspiratorial cold case in his ancestral homeland of Bodkin, Ireland.
However, when Forte was asked to speak with his producer and the former president of the United States of America in a scheduled phone meeting, he missed the first call — then the next, and the one after that.
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Forte might as well have made it an even six in honor of the Seal Team that was going to make him answer for the snub.
“It was the most thrilling phone call to get,” Forte said of his chat with the commander in chief on last night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. “You’re told to expect a phone call from the president at a certain time. I was told, ‘Oh, be ready at 5:30.’” Simple enough instructions, but, sadly, something went awry when Forte was supposed to accept the presidential phone call.
Forte explained, “I’m staring at my phone, like, ‘Okay, it’s not coming (in),' and then it turned to 5:31. And I’m like, something’s wrong. So I went over to my missed calls and saw three missed calls from the Washington, D.C. area.” After suffering a minor cardiac event, Forte tried to call back the president, saying, “I pressed that number and, thank God, it went to the right place and I had this wonderful call with him, and he was very sweet, and I kept it together.”
However, there was one slipup during the talk with Obama. As Forte recalled, “He said something nice, and I said, ‘Thank you really much!’ That was dumb.” And, before Forte even missed the meeting, he made an equally quizzical decision, telling Meyers, “I did — this is really dumb — I did get dressed up for the call. It was just a call over the phone, but I was like, ‘What if they have technology that can see me?’”
I’m sure, if Obama ever scheduled a follow-up call with Forte, he would tell the actor that he had nothing to worry about — and that his suit looked great in the first meeting.
