Netflix's 'Will & Harper' Could Be the Trans 'Will & Grace'

TORONTO — Will Ferrell is gaining momentum.

Sitting in the nondescript hotel conference room that has been taken over for our interview — a setting that gives our conversation the feel of “Between Two Ferns” — the actor has addressed the issue of transphobia in Hollywood movies like “Ace Ventura” and is using it non-stop.

“Entertainment culture has taught us to have a flippant attitude about trans people not being real people,” Ferrell says. “It’s nonsense. It’s fiction. Obviously, we’re getting closer to educating everyone…”

“Are we?” his friend, former “Saturday Night Live” colleague and now touring movie co-star Harper Steele, interrupts him hilariously. Her deadpan expression is tinged with truth.

That’s the question that animates their new documentary, “Will & Harper,” which follows the pair on a cross-country road trip as they unpack Steele’s 2022 coming out as a trans woman. Along the way, Ferrell and Steele meet Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a supporter of anti-trans legislation; connect with the trans community in Peoria, Illinois; endure hateful harassment in Texas; and experience the unexpectedly warm embrace of dive bar patrons in Oklahoma. Within the structure of an absurdist buddy-comedy that brought you “SNL” sketches like “Oops! I Shit My Pants!” and “More Cowbells,” the film, which debuts Friday on Netflix, offers one of American pop culture’s most successful portraits to date of the contemporary trans experience, unafraid to answer “all the questions you’re not supposed to ask trans people.”

“If you go up against someone as fast as Dave Chappelle, you're going to get ripped apart,” Steele says. “It's like going on Fox News with [former host] Tucker Carlson: Why would I put myself through that when I'm going to be eaten up in ways I don't enjoy?

(Raul Romo / For The Times)

You could even call the translation “Will & Grace” “Will & Harper”.

“The impact that a comedy like Will & Grace had on the queer and gay community is huge,” says the film’s director, Josh Greenbaum. “It’s certainly not what you would call art, but it speaks a little bit to something we were trying to achieve with our film. I love the expression that laughter is the shortest distance between two people. I’m a big believer in that. We talked about making sure our film was funny and accessible and easy to access.”

Yet, as with the landmark NBC comedy (praised by then-Vice President Joe Biden for doing “more to educate the American public than almost anything else anyone’s done before” but criticized by some LGBTQ+ observers for oversimplifying queer identity for straight viewers), this saccharine approach is a double-edged sword. For Steele, who admits to loving an “aggressive approach” when it comes to discussing trans rights, “‘normalizing’ is a reductive word that puts queer people in a place. It makes me feel like the goal is gay marriage, not mainstream liberation.”

“Will & Harper’s” ability to walk a fine line between the uplifting and the didactic, the entertaining and the superficial, is woven into its very structure, and the connection between its protagonists deepens little by little until they reach the town of Trona in the Mojave Desert, where Steele, in a shattering moment, reveals the depths of her self-hating past. At every moment, she threatens to leave important stones unturned, life context unaddressed, and at every moment, instead, she directly confronts the viewer’s skepticism.

A scene from the documentary “Will & Harper.”

(Sundance Institute)

Not that they planned it that way. Scrapping an initial idea to build the film around comedic bits, Ferrell, Steele and Greenbaum found themselves subject to the vagaries of nonfiction storytelling, and so stumbled upon the trip’s most thought-provoking scenes. They didn’t expect, for example, that a joke involving Ferrell trying to eat a 72-ounce steak in less than an hour at a Texas steakhouse would expose him and Steele to awkward stares from other patrons and a subsequent wave of social media abuse. Nor did they know that Holcomb would be at a Pacers game they attended in Indianapolis, where the governor and Ferrell were introduced courtside, leading the actor to an on-camera reckoning over the rudiments of an effective alliance.

“If we were to live through a moment like this again, I would not hesitate to… [ask]“By the way, what are your thoughts?” Ferrell says. “Just because I have no problem with pushing it a little bit further. Especially if I had some prior knowledge. Literally last night at dinner the waiter got the gender wrong. [Steele]“He said, ‘Hello, gentlemen.’ And I said, ‘No.’ That’s how I react now because it feels natural.”

Our conversation, ahead of the film’s screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, takes place the morning after the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, in which Trump raised the specter of “transgender surgeries on illegal immigrants in prison.” (“That sounds like a line written in an ‘SNL’ skit,” Ferrell jokes.) But the scapegoating of transgender people by politicians and pundits wouldn’t be possible without their historical mistreatment — or outright erasure — in popular culture. As for the 60% of Americans who don’t know a trans person, according to Pew, “Will & Harper” hopes to be an introduction: “Now you know Harper,” Greenbaum says.

Steele and Ferrell with “Will & Harper” director Josh Greenbaum.

(Raul Romo / For The Times)

These positive messages will compete for attention with transphobic rhetoric from high-profile figures like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, even on the same platform. (Netflix, which is releasing “Will & Harper,” also hosts numerous projects from the incendiary comedians in which trans people are treated as the butt of jokes.) But Steele refuses to take their comments seriously — or to alter his own creative process simply to combat them.

“When egos are hurt, people turn to trolling,” she says. “And I see that a lot of these people enjoy being harassed by people.” She hopes Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, an Olympic gold medallist in the women’s welterweight division, “will sue JK Rowling” over tweets in which the “Harry Potter” author falsely described Khelif as a man. “These people need help.”

“I want our voice and my example to be stronger, in the end,” Steele adds. “I just hope that it drowns out the voice that is weaker, and that is my method. I don’t like to confront. On the one hand, if you quickly confront someone like Dave Chappelle, they will tear you apart. It’s like going on Fox News with a voice that is weaker. [former host] Tucker Carlson: Why would I put myself through that when I'm going to be eaten up in ways I don't enjoy?

“Will & Harper” actively seeks to neutralize cries of “cancel culture” from cable news hosts and stand-up comedians by not taking any topic of conversation off the table. With Ferrell as his curious, everyday interlocutor, Steele explains his choice of a new name, discusses his physical appearance and sexuality, acknowledges his bouts of suicidal ideation; introduces his children, visits his sister, shares his most painful letters, diaries and memories. As a result of this vulnerability, he offers a remarkable invitation to viewers who might otherwise judge or avoid the conversation altogether, for fear of saying the wrong thing, or causing offense, or finding out that their experience is not in fact universal.

“One of the many things I loved about her transition is her constant desire to talk about it,” says Steele’s friend and former “SNL” collaborator Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote and performed an original song for the film.[It fostered] “This open dialogue to maintain those connections, make them stronger and really explain what she had been going through for years that many of us didn’t know about.”

“Will & Harper” has helped Ferrell learn to be a more vocal ally: “I’m OK with poking the bear a little bit more,” he says.

(Raul Romo / For The Times)

According to Greenbaum, the film has already succeeded in sparking that dialogue among viewers. At a screening at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere earlier this year, she recalls meeting a woman and her son, a trans man, who had been estranged since her transition but reconnected when she bought them tickets to “Will & Harper” as a kind of cinematic olive branch. Steele, for her part, admits she’s more nervous about “Will & Harper’s” resonance with trans audiences than she is about persuading cis audiences — perhaps because she understands firsthand the damage done by Hollywood’s powerful mirror.

“Klinger probably destroyed my life,” he says of the cross-dressing “MASH” character played for laughs by Jamie Farr. “He was literally looking to get fired for being crazy about it. That was his whole character.” By contrast, James Caan and Alan Arkin’s 1974 buddy cop film “Freebie and the Bean” became one of his favorite movies, thanks to its female thief impersonator. “Seeing a man that beautiful was confusing,” he says.

Amid that confusion lies the other question animating “Will & Harper” and, indeed, LGBTQ+ popular culture more broadly: What story would we tell, or should we tell, about ourselves if we could tell any story we wanted? Some will argue that self-expression is the goal, others, moral suasion; some will prefer soft power to storming the barricades, and others, the opposite. Advocates of populism will confront those who champion high art, while the diplomats among us will try to herd them into the narrow middle ground of our society. And anyone who tells you that theirs is the only true path is either misinformed or lying.

“I guess I have some fault with it, but it was a fun show with talented actors,” Ferrell says of “Will & Grace,” gently contradicting Greenbaum’s earlier assessment. “An important, landmark show, in a way, yes, of course, I acknowledge that at the same time. But it’s also a great ensemble comedy. A fun script. Great premises.”

It’s worth noting that Steele doesn’t speak out on this issue. He doesn’t need to. “Will & Harper” — as “Will & Grace” was for gay men of a certain generation — is just one of countless possible varieties of trans representation. There is no shortage of stories to tell and no shortage of unanswered questions to ask.