Success on the cards for Will Ferrell’s new role in The House

YOU realise you’ve spent your daughter’s college fun and need some money fast.

What do you do? Get a second job, perhaps? Maybe sell some treasured possessions? Get a loan?

In The House, out this week in cinemas, Scott and Kate Johansen — played by Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler — decide instead to set up an underground casino in their neighbour’s home.

It’s all going to be plain sailing, of course . . . maybe not, but with Will — who has previously starred in Blades of Glory and the Anchorman films — on board, there will be plenty of laughs.

But it may very well move you to tears, too, with Will saying that he cried for real while filming his favourite scene.

Yet that part of the film had nothing to do with gambling.

Rather, it had everything to do with the emotional moment Scott and Kate drop their daughter Alex off at college.

“We have this really emotional scene where we say goodbye to her — it’s one of my favourite scenes I’ve ever done,” reveals Will.

“We played that very real, and we were both crying.”

Will realised that one day, his own son, Magnus, 13, may very well be the one going to college.

“I put myself in that situation, just imagining that day…” he says. “He probably won’t let us drop him off, but I’ll be crying like a baby at some point.

“The whole scene was definitely enhanced by having my own family.”

Will says that while there are a lot of similarities between Scott and the other characters he’s played previously, he really enjoyed exploring Scott’s darker side.

“I don’t know know if this part is radically different,” he says.

“I think it’s in the same family as a lot of the things that I’ve done.

“If anything, the one thing that’s different is that Amy and I establish ourselves as the suburban family that’s so proud of their relationship with each other and with their daughter.

“She’s going off to college and life is great, and then, as we get deeper into the lie of what we’re doing, the dark side of both of us gets to come out.

“That’s the fun turn.

“We dissolve into De Niro and Sharon Stone from Casino. That’s probably the different part.”

So did Amy enjoying being a little bit naughty, too?

“We both get to be crazy, but the partnership in the movie is really sweet,” she says.

“I like that they are on each other’s side. They are members of the same team. That’s what you need sometimes, in life and in comedy.

“You have to take big risks and chances, and they both act like maniacs. It’s really fun to be that way with Will.”

With her co-star getting emotional about his son going off to college, did The House make Amy think of her own life, too?

Would she ever contemplate doing the same for her children?

“In real life?” she says. “I don’t know. It’s that fun structure of a couple putting themselves in harm’s way and challenging themselves to see what kind of lengths they would go to for their kid. So, maybe.”

The House is in cinemas from Friday, June 30.