A road trip with a purpose, “Will & Harper” chronicles a dramatic change in the friendship between Will Ferrell and comedy writer Harper Steele and the questions it can provoke.
Friends since they both began on “SNL,” Harper had gender transitioned during the COVID lockdown and informed her friends.
Ferrell saw an opportunity to discuss what this means and maybe offer insight to those who had never met a trans woman.
“One of her great loves is taking cross-country road trips. She’s done it as long as I’ve known her. She did it college,” Ferrell, 57, said, seated next to Steele in a virtual press conference. “It’s a great way to get out there, see this country and meet people.
“She was lamenting the fact after her transition as a trans woman, Can I feel safe enough to go to a funky bar? Or even a rest stop?
“I had this crazy idea: What if we do a road trip and I can ask all these questions I have about your transition? Like, what does it mean?
“At the same time we can go to these places and I’ll be your buffer and we’ll film it. And she eventually said yes.”
“We come from a humor background,” Steele said. “Life is messy but as long as you keep it funny you can talk about any subject. As long as you’re kind to each other and make each other laugh.”
At the Grand Canyon on their 17-day trip, the two were approached by a woman who explained that she was a therapist and back in the early 1970s she had a patient who wanted to transition. She had been negative – and regretted it all these years later.
That confession, “Demonstrates the evolution of her thinking,” Steele said. “Her and my evolution were very similar. We came from the same era. I feel that there needs to be a lot of forgiveness.”
As to what viewers might take from their film, “We learned it’s such a big country,” Ferrell said. “There is forgiveness out there. People want to engage.
“There’s a lot of stuff made up in the media that we have all these differences. We have a lot more in common than we don’t.
“That being said, it’s still not safe for trans people in a lot of areas. There’s a lot of hate. Definitely, there’s a lot to push through.
“At the same time we met lovely people who were not threatened by Harper in any way and were fantastic. ‘Come back again!’ they’d say. They were just super happy we visited their community.”
“Will & Harper” streams on Netflix Sept. 27
