Will Ferrell is hoping his new documentary “Will & Harper” will help sway some voters (or at least facilitate some important conversations) in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. The actor appears alongside former “Saturday Night Live” head writer Harper Steele, who recently came out as a transgender woman, in the road trip documentary. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently acquired by Netflix.
“When we sat down with Netflix, we made it clear that we wanted this out before the election,” Ferrell told Variety. “We wanted it to have enough runway for people to get to see it and hopefully start having important discussions in their living rooms.” “Will & Harper” was released in select theaters September 13 and began streaming on Netflix on September 27.
In the Josh Greenbaum-directed film, Ferrell and Steele reunite for a 16-day cross-country drive, during which the duo discuss Steele’s life since coming out as a transgender woman. The documentary includes discussions of hate crimes, taboo questions, and the politics of gender-affirming surgery as the pair met various people during their travels.
“We’ve heard from people who say they can’t wait to see this with friends and family who maybe don’t share the same viewpoint and they’re looking forward to watching it all together,” Ferrell said. “Hopefully it could slowly chip away at some of that.”
Steele said during IndieWire’s Sundance Studio that she “projected a lot of fear on my country” about navigating the world as a trans woman. “I went out there as a trans woman expecting what our media and what politicians are telling us, which is very hyped up. And what we met out there on the road was that Americans by and large either are not confrontational and don’t give an eff about me, or they are happy to talk about it,” Steele said. “Thankfully I found that with help, and not everyone gets help, but I was able to find that. There is still danger out there, absolutely. But I just had to balance that fear with a certain reality that gave me more hope for being in that place that I love, which is all over the country.”
Ferrell added during the same January 2024 interview, “Every day can be, for anyone who is trans in the world, you really just have to take on the day and be comfortable with who you are.”
He later told The Independent in September 2024 that “there is hatred out there” for the trans community. “It’s very real and it’s very unsafe for trans people in certain situations. But I don’t know why trans people are meant to be threatening to me as a cis male,” Ferrell said. “I don’t know why Harper is threatening to me. It’s so strange to me, because Harper is finally… her. She’s finally who she was always meant to be.”
Ferrell continued, “Whether or not you can ultimately wrap your head around that, why would you care if somebody’s happy? Why is that threatening to you? If the trans community is a threat to you, I think it stems from not being confident or safe with yourself.”
