Will Ferrell is a well-known name in comedy circles. From Elf to Anchorman, Ferrell’s been making audiences laugh since the mid-90s, and he’s built a name and a reputation as a funny and somewhat irreverent actor and producer. However, his newest project, a documentary called Will & Harper, tells a more heartfelt story of how he learned to support his friend Harper Steele after she came out as transgender in 2022. The documentary, according to Ferrell, was meant to fill in the gaps in his knowledge about the trans community to help him better understand his friend.
Will Ferrell And Harper Steele Make A Documentary On Friendship & Transition
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele first met on the set of Saturday Night Live, where they both began working in 1995. Nearly thirty years after they first met, in 2022, Harper came out as a transgender woman. Initially, Ferrell said that the news was “surprising” and that her coming out made him realize that he had “zero knowledge” of the trans community, a gap that he immediately tried to fill by searching for ways to support his longtime friend better. Or, as Ferrell told Variety at this year’s Sundance Film Festival:
We were all, of course, excited to hear the news and surprised to hear the news. All of us were extremely supportive and expressed love…but that sort of opened the questions like, how can we help you? What do you need us to do?”
Will Ferrell
After Harper came out, she and Ferrell embarked on a cross-country road trip to “to process this new stage of their relationship”, per The Advocate. Will Ferrell and Harper Steele decided to turn their road trip into a documentary called Will & Harper, which the movie’s official synopsis calls an “intimate portrayal of friendship, transition, and America.”
In the same interview with Variety, Ferrell said that he had known trans people before Harper came out but not personally, which means Will & Harper was uncharted ground for him but he was happy educate himself with it.
So this was all new territory for me, which is why I think this film is so exciting for us to kind of put out there in the world. It’s a chance all of us in the cis community to be able to ask questions and also just to listen and be there as a friend to discuss this journey.
Will Ferrell
Harper also added that the documentary is about a trans person’s cis friend who has to “transition himself.” Will & Harper is currently making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, but does not have a release date or distribution plans beyond that.
