“I’m not trying to exploit our friendship,” Will Ferrell says to Harper Steele, his longtime collaborator. “I’m not trying to exploit your exciting, wonderful, joyous news.” His tone isn’t defensive; Steele, sitting beside him, smiles at this echo of a conversation they’ve obviously had many times before. Really, Ferrell is answering my question: when one of your closest mates comes out to you as a transgender woman, how do you wind up making a film about it?
The film in question, Will & Harper, is not a typical one for Ferrell, best known for his elaborate goofball antics in the likes of Anchorman, Zoolander and last year’s megahit Barbie. It’s a Netflix documentary, for one thing, and one in which Ferrell, albeit on screen throughout, isn’t quite the focal point. That would be Steele, former head writer of Saturday Night Live (SNL), and close friends with the actor since they both started work on the long-running sketch TV show in 1995. Two years ago, aged 61, she wrote to Ferrell with some news: after a lifetime of unspoken gender dysphoria, she was transitioning to become the woman she was always meant to be.
