Comedy legend Will Ferrell and former Saturday Night Live head writer Harper Steele are best friends. They’ve always shared everything. But two years ago, Steele wrote a letter to her closest family and friends that she was coming out as a transgender woman.
“That letter was really hard to send,” Steele said. “I kept rewriting it over and over again to get my point across.”
Steele had always loved driving across the country alone, but was nervous about what it would be like as a woman, so Ferrell suggested they drive from upstate New York to California and see what would happen.
It’s all captured in the new documentary “Will & Harper,” which hits theaters Friday and premieres on Netflix later this month.
To watch the trailer for “Will & Harper,” click on the video player below.
Their friendship began in the mid-’90s, the same week they were both hired by “Saturday Night Live.” Steele helped create some of Ferrell’s most memorable characters. Among Steele’s favorite sketches is one in which Ferrell plays Robert Goulet.
Will Ferrell as Robert Goulet in “Red Ship” on Saturday Night Live (2001):
Ferrell went on to bigger jobs, starring in films like Anchorman. But when he first appeared on SNL, he was far from a superstar. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, I met this guy, he seems nice. He doesn’t seem that funny. I don’t know what he’s going to do on the show,'” Ferrell said. “And it was Harper who was reporting to some of the writers, ‘No, don’t underestimate him. He’s really funny. He’s funny.’ So he was like a guardian angel in a way. He was watching over me without me even realizing it.”
Ferrell himself seems to have become something of a guardian angel when the pair toured together last year, with Steele saying of appearing in the film, “I love this country so much, but right now I’m not sure if this country loves me back.”
What did he expect? “I definitely went into the experience with a little bit of trepidation,” Steele said. “There were times when I wasn’t with Will. … That’s always going to be the part that needs explaining. I’m driving across the country with Will Ferrell. It’s an incredible force field.”
“It’s star power,” Ferrell explained. “It’s A-list.”
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The trip itself was fun and exciting — 17 days of laughter, tears and beer — but it also, perhaps inevitably, brought home the reality of what it means to be transgender and confront the world.
“Transgender people definitely have to be careful. There are hateful people out there. And it’s not necessarily going to be directed at me, it’s going to be directed at people that don’t have the same advantages that I do. So I’m not dismissing all the people that are running around the country, because I swear to God there are people out there that are not good people,” Steele said.
But she found more good than bad on her journey.
And what did they learn about each other?
“Honestly, Will is a sweet guy,” Steele said. “We’ve been friends for a while now. I don’t know what else to say.”
Farrell, meanwhile, said: “I’m a much better driver than Harper. That’s not opinion, that’s fact, that’s science.”
The documentary received two standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
Ferrell explained the film’s response: “People are just ready for civility. They just want to see people being kind to each other! And I think that was really what this film was about, about her experience, the transgender experience.”
“A lot of people across the country have been kind to us,” Steele said, “and I think people were just happy to see that we could still be together.”
More information:
“Will & Harper” is in theaters now and will be available on Netflix from September 27th
Story Producer: Jon D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.
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