Will Ferrell Admits He Was ‘Such a Bad’ Bank Teller Before Becoming Famous (Exclusive)

Will Ferrell is having a laugh about a nightmare pre-fame job he had.

PEOPLE has an exclusive clip from Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, in which the actor, 56, admits to host Willie Geist he was “such a bad bank teller” as he and Geist, 49, commiserate over their first jobs out of college.

“My first day, I remember leaving the house, I said to my mom, ‘I would rather do standup comedy on The Tonight Show naked than go to work today. I am so nervous about making a mistake,’ ” Ferrell says.

The Saturday Night Live alum says he “would make one transaction and then shut my window down” between helping each customer for fear of making mistakes, and he estimated he probably helped one customer “every 15 minutes” his first day on the job.

“We get to the end of the day and you cash out, and I was like $300 short, and the manager’s like, ‘That’s okay. So-and-so was $300 over, at the other window. Maybe you guys just traded money.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe we did!’ ” he says with a laugh. “That’s bad management.”

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The You’re Cordially Invited actor, on his second day on the job, was off by “the weirdest number, like $258.37 and [the manager]’s like ‘What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I’m very nervous.’ ”

“And then I was good, but the first two days — maybe someone was pranking me this whole time,” he jokes.

Ferrell has shared anecdotes from this time in his life before. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue comedy full time by the time he reached his mid-20s, but as he emphasized to Geist, “you have to know I was so nervous” on the job at the bank.

“The nerves never calmed down to the point where, there was a regular customer who would come in every Thursday to cash their check or whatever, and I couldn’t do the thing he wanted,” Ferrell says.

“He said ‘Call your manager over.’ He said, ‘This is your worst teller. He’s awful. He’s sweaty and weird.’ She’s like, ‘Hey, that’s not nice.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s true.’ But he berated me in a really calm way to her and she was defending me and I was like ‘I can’t argue with anything he’s saying.’ ”

“So those are character-building moments,” he adds.

Tune in to the full interview this Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on NBC’s Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist.