It was fitting that the New York City premiere of Josh Greenbaum’s new documentary, Will & Harper, had a last-minute delay of an hour thanks to the maelstrom of traffic chaos that hits the city each year when the United Nations General Assembly is in session. This is a movie that’s about a lot of things, and one of them is the importance of diplomacy.
In attendance at the event, in addition to the film’s subjects Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, were their Saturday Night Live alumni Kristen Wiig, Paula Pell, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows and Rachel Dratch. Sam Rockwell, Leslie Bibb, Antoni Porowski and documentarians David France and Kimberly Reed were also in the audience.
Will & Harper, which Netflix is giving a strong awards push, highlights a cross-country drive taken by Ferrell and Steele, a comedy writer who created many of Ferrell’s memorable characters back at SNL, as well as some of his weirder projects, like the Spanish language Casa Di Mi Padre, the Lifetime film A Deadly Adoption and the more recent Netflix film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. The twist is that after 30 years of friendship, Steele has undergone gender transition—most of her comedy credits were under a previous name—and a lengthy car ride seems like a good opportunity to reorient themselves.
There’s also a more specific goal. One of Steele’s great passions in life has been exploring the country’s blue highways, its dive bars and racetracks. How would she navigate those spaces as a trans woman that, as she says ruefully, does not pass? The ability to deploy the zany, beloved Will Ferrell to smooth out tensions in locations far from New York or Los Angeles is a handy tool, which works most of the time. (Alas, not even Will Ferrell in a Sherlock Holmes outfit can overcome a troublesome encounter in Texas.)
Paula Pell, Will Ferrell, Harper Steele, Kristen Wiig, and Tim Meadows
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for NetflixThe film, which premiered at Sundance and also played this year’s Telluride Film Festival, went over like gangbusters at the Netflix-owned Paris Theatre in New York. Laughter and sniffles were heard at the appropriate moments, as well as cheers at the end. After the movie Will, Harper, and Josh Greenbaum (whose comedy credits include dirty dog picture Strays and Netflix’s Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, and also documentaries like the George Lazenby-focused Becoming Bond) were joined by moderator Seth Meyers for a Q&A.
As in the film (and, we get the impression, even in life when the cameras aren’t on) Ferrell started doing schtick (speaking in faux French at “The Paris Theatre”) and Steele grumbled that his Dad jokes were dumb. This bickering is peppered throughout the movie, necessary comic relief in between the more serious sequences. Indeed, much of the post-screening conversation highlighted the abundance of gags and stunts captured in 250 hours of footage from the long drive that was ultimately left out of the final cut.
A recurring bit was Ferrell calling every personal injury attorney who advertised on billboards. (“Some of them were long conversations,” Ferrell confessed.) Also excised was an ongoing argument over whether Ferrell is an A-lister or B-lister. It apparently got so heated they FaceTimed some of their famous friends, like Kevin Hart, who Ferrell was convinced would confirm his A-list stature. (It did not go as planned.)
Seth Meyers led the team through some of the mechanics of making a film like this—everyone agreed that after the third day you kinda forget the cameras are there—and also the project’s wider goals. “It’s not my audience that’s going to bring people into this film,” Steele said. “It’s Will’s audience—the Ricky Bobby audience, that Dad in Iowa who has a trans kid and is looking to have a conversation. The people who like Will’s movies,” she continued, adding the zing “you know, the ones he made a long, long, long time ago.”
One of the film’s most touching scenes is when Steele goes back to the Iowa City house she grew up in. It’s also one of the strangest, because she used to ride a unicycle and, wouldn’t you know it, a teenager on a unicycle rides by. “Coming out as trans made me a super-person, as in Marvel. I made a unicycle appear,” she deadpanned to the crowd, then added “the best thing was that kid had no idea who Will Ferrell was.”
“Oh, I chased him down and gave him an old Zoolander poster I keep in my pocket,” Ferrell joked.
Kristen Wiig
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for NetflixThe most remarkable story from the panel came when Steele discussed a key moment early in her transition. Outside her home near New York City a drunk couple was arguing. All her life, being “caught” wearing women’s clothing was one of her deepest fears, but she bit the bullet and came out to her front porch, wearing what felt natural, to call out, “Uh, can I help you?” When the woman in the street shouted back “shut the fuck up, you old hag!!” she took the gendered slur as a huge personal win. “Yeah, it’s fun being trans,” she joked.
A story arc in Will & Harper is how the two recruit Kristen Wiig to record a theme song for their journey. The night concluded with Wiig, accompanied by her co-songwriter Sean Douglas on piano, backup vocalist Paula Pell, and guys on guitar and sax crooning her way through the funny and tender original number “Harper and Will Go West.” I can assure you that all you need to do is hear the song once to get it stuck in your head. Hearing it twice ensures it plays on a loop all night.
Will & Harper debuts on Netflix this Friday.
