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Will Ferrell On PBR, Career Decisions And 'Everything Must Go'

'Just an old, classic, working-class beer,' he tells MTV News of the creative choice.

Nick made a few bad decisions on a business trip -- drinking a frat party's worth of booze, sleeping with another woman even though he's married -- and now he's found himself without a job or a wife. He doesn't have anywhere to live either, because his spouse has tossed all his belongings onto their front yard, locked him out of the house and cut off his bank account.

At least Nick's still got his beer, his dearly beloved Pabst Blue Ribbon. Will Ferrell, who plays Nick in the indie drama "Everything Must Go," swills more PBR during the course of the film than is likely consumed in hipster-happy Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during a typical weekend. That brand of brewski was one of Ferrell's special requests for the character, and the fact that writer/director Dan Rush said OK was just one of the reasons the actor signed on.

"We should have a PBR tour of the movie, but that might send a mixed message, considering the tone of the film," he told MTV News while promoting the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. "But I did specifically ask for PBR. Just an old, classic, working-class beer."

The main reason Ferrell joined "Everything," though, was the simple fact that he felt the script was original and that the story hadn't been told before on the big screen. It had been told within the pages of a book. "Everything," which Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions reportedly bought for more than $3 million, is based on a Raymond Carver short story. In the film, Nick decides to stage a yard sale to raise some beer money. As he sells off his gear and takes trip after trip down memory lane with yearbooks and old sports trophies, Nick starts to think that maybe he can turn his life around.

Ferrell himself has never experienced a midlife crisis akin to what Nick undergoes, but the comedian did decide to join the drama at a time when he was changing the way he chooses each of his projects.

"I've been lucky in that I haven't had [a midlife crisis] yet," he said. "In terms of work, I had come out of a period where I thought, 'I really want to make choices that are important to me and not so much about trying to make a hit movie.' This was a byproduct of that kind of decision-making."

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