Will Ferrell and Harper Steele reflect on the enduring impact of ‘Will & Harper’

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele have been meeting people in the trans community for two years. The documentary Will & Harper chronicled their road trip across the country after Steele’s transition. It premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and later on Netflix in September. Still, long after the cameras stopped rolling, people continue to approach them, the pair shared at a Netflix Documentary Spotlight FYC event on Sunday.

“If it’s not a day-to-day occurrence, it’s an every-other-day or it’s a once-a-week occurrence,” Ferrell said, sharing a note a passenger handed him on a flight, written on an airline airsickness bag. “This was handed to me on a flight: ‘Mr. Ferrell, thank you for making Will & Harper. I’m the mother of an adult transgender son. Your movie meant an awful lot to our family. My son is living and thriving in L.A. but grew up in Mississippi. We are grateful to you and Harper for sharing your beautiful friendship.’”

Steele, a former Saturday Night Live writer and Ferrell’s longtime comedy collaborator, said families of queer people frequently thank her for helping them begin conversations after watching the film together. After the panel, Steele told Gold Derby she expects Will & Harper to continue reaching people indefinitely, thanks to its availability on Netflix.

“This’ll last the rest of my life — people who say, ‘I just watched it two days ago,’” Steele told Gold Derby. “It’s not like an opening and it’s gone. It’s on Netflix. It’s going to sit there forever.”

Since the film, Steele has also taken more road trips on her own. She said few people express anti-trans hostility to her face.

“Up close, people have a hard time hating,” she said. “I took a much more southern route, in fact, through more red states. I felt perfectly safe. Any woman crossing the country late at night or in dangerous spots has to be careful, so I’m a little more careful. I didn’t experience it.”

Director Josh Greenbaum echoed that sentiment, quoting the adage “it’s hard to hate up close” both on the panel and in his conversation with Gold Derby. He added that they brought a security guard on the trip, who was never called into action.

“[Steele] said she believes that human beings’ resting place is kindness, which I know Will and I also share,” Greenbaum said. “Where the bulk of that hate is, is in the anonymous world of online and social media. Once you’re out and you meet somebody face to face, it seems very, very hard to show that level of hate that you see online.”

During the panel, Ferrell addressed the social media backlash. In the film, Steele and Ferrell read a pile-on of anti-trans tweets the morning after they dine at a Texas steakhouse.

“Our direct contact with most everyone on the road trip was positive,” Ferrell said. “And yet that’s an important part of the film—to read some of the social media, to see the undercurrent was following us wherever we went with a lot of negativity. So that’s always there and that will continue to be there but hopefully diminish as we continue to be advocates and fight for our friends.”

Greenbaum added that Ferrell’s audience comes to the film and ends up learning about trans issues — including members of his own family.

“Will Ferrell is a wonderful on-ramp for people who may not engage in what they feel is a trans story,” says Greenbaum. “Members of my family who come from a more conservative or religious background that thought they understood the trans experience, then realize they didn’t and met Harper through the film. It really changed their hearts and minds.”

A 30-year journey

Steele and Ferrell’s story dates back to 1995, when they were both hired by SNL. Steele announced her transition to friends and family in an email during the COVID-19 pandemic. During their road trip, Steele asks Ferrell if he’s worried about saying the wrong thing about her transition and assures him that nothing is off limits between friends.

Ferrell said his strategy was to “just listen to everything she says and shut up.”

Steele teaches Ferrell simple ways he can help her in social situations. After a waitress misgenders Steele, she tells Ferrell he can preempt that in the future by saying something like, “And this little lady will have…” when ordering.

“I think that’s probably the most vital thing a person who’s not trans can take away from the film,” she told Gold Derby. “Someone like Will obviously radiates out in a grand way, but literally anyone in their friend group—if they’re talking about a trans person and they’ve made the switch to the respectful way to talk about that person — people hear. That’s how those changes happen.”

Greenbaum shot 250 hours of footage to cut down to just under two hours. He also shared some of Ferrell and Steele’s comedy bits that didn’t make the final film.

“Every day we would drive past billboards for injury attorneys,” says Greenbaum. “Crossing America, you see them all the time, everywhere. Will and Harper called every single one of them that we drove past—a lot of cases, hypothetical cases that they had that they wanted to talk through.”

One conversation that remains in the film is Ferrell asking Steele how she feels about dating as a woman. Steele said she hasn’t begun dating yet, as she is focused on writing a show for Ferrell as well as her memoir.

“I’m writing so much that my brain. … I don’t think I can even leave my house quite honestly,” Steele said. “But yes, I will be dating at some point.”

Nonfiction films making an impact

Netflix’s other documentaries also showed quantifiable impact. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin reconstructed the World of Warcraft friendships a Norwegian gamer made before he died at 25 of a degenerative disease. A video showed more gamers reaching out to his parents and the filmmakers to share their stories.

Another video showed that since filming American Murder: Gaby Petito, new legislation has been adopted requiring law enforcement to ask 11 questions to assess the lethality of domestic abuse situations. Filmmakers from Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing and Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killers spoke on panels about the impact of their series.

Kidfluencer co-director Jenna Rosher said parents and young content creators are continuing the conversation sparked by their exposé on child TikTok and YouTube stars. “Where this story left off, they’ve continued it,” Rosher said. “They’ve continued to show the abuses they went through.”

Co-director Kief Davidson added that content creation isn’t regulated like acting. There’s no agency preventing children from being forced to work for hours without on-set schooling.

“People are now aware of what’s actually happening behind the camera,” Davidson said. “When you watch this content — smiley kids having fun — they don’t know what’s underneath it.”

Gone Girls chronicles the murders of sex workers from 1993 to 2011 — crimes for which Long Island architect Rex Heuermann stands accused. Director Liz Garbus said the families of the victims are grateful their stories are being told, though justice is still pending.

“I think that they feel well represented,” Garbus said. “They’re still waiting for a trial. They really just want the trial to happen. That’s how they really feel.”