Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell switch places for late-night appearances with the Jimmys

Audiences of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon—as well as the hosts themselves—got a surprise on Wednesday night when Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell swapped their talk show host duties at the last minute.

Kimmel was supposed to be interviewing Reynolds and instead got Ferrell, and Fallon was supposed to be introducing Ferrell and instead got Reynolds. Both actors, who played up the moment as a genuine surprise, dressed as if they'd literally walked in off the street (with Ferrell in Star Wars pajama pants) which Reynolds claimed was the reason for the last-minute switch.

Since Reynolds lives in New York and Ferrell lives in L.A., the friends thought it would be an easy way for each other to "save the day."

"Will called. Said he was running a little late. Asked me if I would jump in for him," Reynolds told Fallon, adding that Ferrell would be arriving "half past never."

"Ryan couldn't make it. I got a text from him that said he was running late, which usually means he's not going to show up... he just asked if I would fill in so I just rolled down the hill," Ferrell told Kimmel respectively.

After ragging on his friend for not showing up, Reynolds answered a few questions about his wife Blake Lively and his kids and then Fallon asked a few questions on his own. Of course, they were all tailored to Ferrell's new AppleTV+ movie The Shrink Next Door, just as Kimmel's questions were all tailored to Reynold's new Netflix film Red Notice.

Luckily, both actors were game to answer questions about each other's projects—or at least guess what they were about enough to try to promote them. Reynolds attempted to explain the plot of The Shrink Next Door, which mostly involved him likening it to an Ant-Man film since Ferrell's co-star in that film is Paul Rudd (the recently crowned Sexiest Man Alive.)

As for Red Notice, Ferrell admitted he "hadn't seen a tick of it," but he still succeeded in plugging it pretty well, even getting the release date right.

"I think it's going to be good," the Anchorman actor said, before asking, "Is it about something getting kicked out of their apartment, they have 30 days' notice and they're all classy real estate agents?"

The switch was both a clever way to shake up a press tour for the actors' current projects, as well as give a bit of early press to Spirited, the upcoming holiday movie musical they both star in. It's also not the first time Ferrell has "stolen" Reynolds' moment—while filming Spirited, Ferrell had some fun crashing Reynold's TikTok performance of Mika's Grace Kelly cover.

Watch both interviews below.

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