--- title: Will Ferrell at USC Graduation: 'Trust Your Gut' description: "Trust your gut, keep throwing darts at the dartboard. Don’t listen to the critics and you will figure it out," he said canonical: https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-12T22:30:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:54:36.924Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Read Will Ferrell's University of Southern California Commencement Speech og:description: The actor delivered the commencement speech at USC on Friday og:url: https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt415470fcb090cb90/6988cd2c196cf4456a04018b/will-ferrell-usc-song.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: will-ferrell-usc-song og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Will Ferrell's University of Southern California Commencement Speech twitter:description: The actor delivered the commencement speech at USC on Friday twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt415470fcb090cb90/6988cd2c196cf4456a04018b/will-ferrell-usc-song.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read Will Ferrell's University of Southern California Commencement Speech by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff May 12, 2017 10:30 PM UTC  YouTube by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff May 12, 2017 10:30 PM UTC _Will Ferrell delivered the commencement address to the University of Southern California’s graduating class of 2017 on Friday._ --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/"},"headline":"Read Will Ferrell's University of Southern California Commencement Speech","datePublished":"2017-05-12T22:30:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:54:36.924Z","description":"The actor delivered the commencement speech at USC on Friday","url":"https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/","keywords":["Education","advice","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt415470fcb090cb90/6988cd2c196cf4456a04018b/will-ferrell-usc-song.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt415470fcb090cb90/6988cd2c196cf4456a04018b/will-ferrell-usc-song.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"will-ferrell-usc-song","caption":"","creditText":"YouTube","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4778112/will-ferrell-usc-university-of-southern-california-commencement-graduation-read-transcript/","name":"Read Will Ferrell's University of Southern California Commencement Speech"}}]}] ```