Will Forte's Grooming Habits

By Jenna Marotta

On last night’s episode of The Last Man on Earth, Will Forte’s character eradicated the last beard on Earth—his own. Forte had spent eight months growing out his hair for his doomsday look, quite a feat considering he wasn’t allowed to sport facial fuzz during his eight seasons on Saturday Night Live. The whiskers-free actor will soon begin growing out his locks yet again to play an outlaw in The Ridiculous Six, Adam Sandler’s upcoming western, but first he shared exclusive footage of his beard-shearing with Esquire and also walked us through his low-maintenance grooming philosophy.

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Beards

"We decided to try to take out some of the stuff on the bottom; then you could kind of comb down the sides and make it look a little more kempt. And then when I go crazy, we just poof out the sides, and I look like a real 19th-century president."

"You get a lot of dirty looks. Basically have to be wearing a tuxedo with that facial hair to get any level of respect. I would go for runs at night—I’m a night runner—and then I’d be walking up and stretching and people are walking down the street. I live in Santa Monica, and the street that I’m on is not the best-lit, so they’d be seeing this silhouette of what they think is a potentially dangerous person. The choice to have a beard like that, that’s not a choice that a sane person makes. I would see a lot of street crossing."

"The older I get, the more grays are popping out. They’re definitely all over my beard. My hair has not gotten that gray, but the temples and sideburns have. The shorter I can keep those, the more I can trick people into thinking that I’m younger than I am. The wrinkles are not helping."

Mustaches

"I love mustaches with all my heart. There’s just something about sketch comedy and mustaches. If I love a sketch, I’ll love it plus-20 percent with a mustache. It’s just the way it is."

"I did get to do a movie called Life of Crime where I had a mustache. I forgot that I had to wear this thing around in my private life all the time for months [laughs]. And as much as I love mustaches in a sketch scenario, in a personal life scenario it’s kind of a bummer. There were a couple days where I really pulled it off and I felt really good and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m almost handsome right now.’ But it was only a couple days, and it also mattered that I had some scruff below it. I cannot pull off a look where it’s completely shaved except for the mustache. I look really dorky."

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Hair Care

"My hair is actually holding up pretty good. [It’s] probably a little higher up there on the forehead. When I graduated from college I thought I was losing my hair. And I started looking into hair transplants. I was talking to my mom, my mom said, ‘You’re crazy. You have so much hair.’ It was a real lesson in your mind playing tricks on you. You can make your mind think anything is happening."

"I wash my hair with that Nioxin stuff. It’s for thinning hair, but back when I was first starting at SNL [I was] still hanging onto that fear that I was losing my hair. And somebody told me about Nioxin and how good it is for you. Now I’m 44. I feel like we’ve made it long enough that it’s not a big deal if I lose my hair—it’s expected."

"I had a bowl cut, God, even when I went to SNL. I used to cut my own hair [until age 32]. When I first got to SNL, they do all these pictures, and there are just a million little things you have to do—taking the cast photo, taking a photo for the hallways, stuff like that. I remember going out to take those pictures and then there was this big huddle that I was not a part of, and then they broke the huddle about a minute later and said, ‘Okay, we’re giving you a haircut.’ It must have just been like, ‘This guy’s hair is the worst hair I’ve ever seen. What is his deal?’"

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Body Hair

For his role as Jenna Maroney’s “gender dysmorphic/bi-genitalian/pansexual” partner Paul L’Astnamé on30 Rock, Forte’s costumes included “little low-cut numbers,” as he puts it. “I would shave my chest, I would shave my legs. I’m a hairy person—so to have an excuse to shave all the hair off and be kind of like aPlaygirl-type, hairless person was a riveting experience, because Playgirl has never come a-callin.’”

"I have a pretty fair amount of back hair, but it’s not like a bearskin rug. If my back hair was on the top of my head, people would feel sorry for me because of how little hair I had. I don’t do anything about it. But the fact that it’s my back, it’s still a gross amount of hair. But it’s just like, you know, I can deal with it. I’m 44."

Skin Care

"I don’t really have much of a skin care routine. I take a shower every day, but I don’t wash my face before I go to bed or anything. I’ll try every once in a while to put some moisturizer on my face. In fact, I would probably have better skin if I was religious about it, but I’m not. Like every week or two I’ll put some lotion on before I go to bed."

"I’m bad about sunscreen. As [I] get older I’m better, but I was part of a skiing family growing up and I would be very bad about it, so I think that the wrinkles that are setting in now are kind of a combo of all the nicotine gum I chew and early sun exposure. God, I go through this editing process with The Last Man on Earth and I get queasy just how wrinkly I am."

"I quit smoking a long time ago. Ten years, probably. Every once in a while, I’ll have a cigarette. And I didn’t even smoke that much when I did smoke. I chew way more Nicorette than I ever did smoking. It’s really hard to get off the Nicorette because the Nicorette is not as bad for you as smoking, obviously. I have some friends who’ve picked up the stuff about how it could actually be good for you and your mental acuity. I probably chew 10 pieces a day [of the 2 milligram dose]. I’ve quit the gum a couple times and gotten back into it out of some kind of stressful situation. Every time I quit the gum, I go through a couple days of, like, severe fogginess. But I think I chew more than I need to."

Nail Care

Forte has never had a manicure. “I had an old girlfriend who they clipped her nails too close, to the point where she bled, and then they sneezed on her open wound, and I just remember thinking what a bummer that was.”

Manhood

"I’m willing to do whatever is asked of me for jobs. Like if I was forced to have a penis enlargement operation for a job, that might be a bonus."

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