Fully Farrell

As well as being a sultry singer, Jackie also relishes his role as owner and coach of the fictional Flint, Michigan team called the Tropics. Calling any Michigan team tropical, considering it's geographical position and its frozen winters, is a gag in itself.

When the NBA announces a plan to merge with the ABA, the complication is that they will only take the four teams with the best records, disbanding the rest of the ABA squads forever. Jackie is devastated, but nevertheless he decides to rally his team for an unlikely 11th-hour pursuit of glory.

Actor Woody Harrelson is a close friend of Ferrell's, and their mischief onscreen is nothing compared to the mayhem they can get up to when they're off. They have an ease and complicity between them that can turn the poshest New York hotel into a personal playground.

"I'm carrying on the long standing and important tradition of the straight man," Harrelson tells me, his voice full of sarcasm. In the film Harrelson plays Monix, a former benchwarmer for the Boston Celtics who is acquired by the Flint Tropics in a trade for a washing machine.

Says Harrelson, "I have a championship ring from my days on the Celtics, but I've been dropped down to the ABA and playing for the Kentucky Colonels," says Harrelson. "I get the golden opportunity to come to Flint, Michigan and play for The Tropics. That's my character's trajectory."

I turn to Ferrell and ask which was the harder to master, his singing for the disco tracks or his basketball moves?

"I'm just finishing my caricature drawing of Woody," replies Ferrell. "I'm sorry, I totally forget your question."

I ask again. "Well it definitely wasn't basketball, I'm a pretty gifted athlete. I always wanted to do a basketball movie so this was a dream come true. But I've never been a '70s pop singer before, so that was new.

"For that I went to a funk camp, directed by Isaac Hayes, which is located up in Vermont. You just sing and he watches you from the other room. It's a very creepy camp actually. Nothing bad happened!"

Andre Benjamin, the musician and actor who is one half of the acclaimed music duo Outkast plays Clarence Withers, the flamboyant superstar of the Tropics.

"I guess he's the most athletic of them all," says Benjamin. "He has this natural ability from the neighborhood or from the playground style of playing. He likes to go for all the shots and doesn't like to pass the ball. He doesn't even run down the court to play defense."

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