'The Interview': Change Can Be Beautiful. Just Ask Will Ferrell and Harper Steele.
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From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. How well do we know our friends, our neighbors, ourselves? In the new documentary Will and Harper, Will Ferrell and his best friend and frequent collaborator Harper Steele take a cross-country road trip together to try to answer those questions. Hitting the highway on a quest for meaning is a classic American story. But this time there's a fresh angle.

Harper is a trans woman who came out to her friends, including Will, two years ago. That was after years as a comedy writer, many of them at Saturday Night Live, where they both worked and where Harper eventually became a head writer. They both have mixed feelings about their work at SNL, as they explained to me. They also had some ups and downs on their road trip, which was ultimately a chance for them to talk through what Harper's transition means for their friendship and for them both to get a clearer sense of how their fellow Americans really feel about transgender identity.

The film's soul-searching often comes wrapped in laughs. But given how politicized trans rights have become, especially in the past few years, even situations set up for comedy can turn tense. There's a scene in the movie where Harper and Will stop for what they hope is a silly, fun dinner-slash-steak-eating challenge at an Amarillo, Texas steakhouse, and things get... well, no one is laughing by the time they leave. ♪

That steakhouse scene and this emotionally wide-ranging film evoke feelings in me that work by Will Ferrell hasn't before. And I say that as someone who will argue vehemently for the deeper resonance of the gloriously idiotic Step Brothers. That's the movie I've seen most in my life. But the point, and this was underscored by my conversation with these two, as well as by their movie, is that while change can be pretty tricky, if we're lucky, it can also make life a lot better.

Here's my conversation with Will Ferrell and Harper Steele. Thank you guys again for taking the time to do this. You're welcome. Absolutely. I never know how much has been explained to the people I talk to what it is we're doing. Can I give you a little context about what this is? The history of the New York Times? Ridiculous. Whoa. Started in 1892, right? Sorry. Okay. This is going to happen a lot to you. Okay. Yes, please.

Sorry. I need to compose myself to sound professional. Yes, come on. This isn't the New York Times, for God's sake. This isn't... It's hard-hitting. The planes dealer. The very hard-hitting first question. How did you guys become friends? We became friends at Saturday Night Live. We were hired in the summer or fall of 1995. And...

We were all this brand new group, so no one knew each other. And one day, Harper and I went to lunch. A very pivotal lunch. Yes, it was. For me. Tell me about it. Already, even though there was a brand new cast and a brand new group of writers, cliques had started to form. And I was kind of on the outside looking in.

And subsequently, I found out later, a lot of other people were like, who's the tall kind of maybe sort of handsome guy? What does he do? He doesn't seem funny. And Harper and I had lunch and she reported back to the gang. Hey, by the way, that guy, he actually is funny. He's just kind of quiet. And I think in some ways that like.

open the door to people accepting me a little bit. Will, if you don't, if he's not on camera. Here it comes. He's kind of boring. He's boring. Wait, Harper, do you remember the first sketch you wrote for Will?

No, because I probably wrote a few for him. But my best moment early on at SNL was I wrote a sketch for Will called Zipper Boots. Yes. And I was not doing well on the show. I was not getting stuff on the show. I hadn't figured it out. I was just kind of losing the competitive battle in that environment. When I'm losing, I generally go, oh, fuck it. And so then I'll write something that I guess makes me laugh more.

So I wrote this sketch called Zipper Boots. It's just the talk show guy who stops every interview to show off this new pair of zipper boots he's got. Anyway, Lauren did not pick it for the show. It's not a good sketch. But it did get laughs. But it did get laughs. Will, I'm sitting in rewrites. I'm the lowest you can be on Thursday with nothing on this show. You're a failure. Yeah.

And Will walks in with a box for me, and it's my very own pair of zipper boots. And I know, like, it's funny, but it really was sort of like—because Will had started to do pretty good on the show. And so I—sad to say, I needed that validation. And yeah, I still have them. You know, you just—

referred in passing to SNL being kind of competitive. And I think that's, from the outside, people have a perception of the show as maybe not the easiest workplace environment. You know, I don't think of comedians as like, I think of them as people who like to tease, maybe not the gentlest with displays of vulnerability. I wonder for you, Harper, given the intensity

internal disconnect you were feeling. What was the workplace environment like for you? I mean, maybe you found it to be a place of escape or maybe you did find it inhibiting. I also realize I've just drastically changed the tone of this interview on a dime. We can do that. We'll bring it back to our tone. Don't worry. We'll mess it up. No, that's a good question. I think if you look in a comedy room, period, you're looking at a lot of dissociation

And people who are hiding things, we know that because people are drug addicts. Daryl Hammond said that he was cutting himself. I mean, he has this in his book. So people are dealing with things that comedy helps cover. So, yeah, you're walking into that environment and you don't want to let a lot of your vulnerability out.

come out. I can't say I was sitting around there thinking I was a woman. I just know that it's a scary environment. So I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. Without a doubt, I used comedy from a very early age to deflect. So it's a professional deflecting environment, you know? You're walking in there and as soon as anything got too real, like we're doing today, you

You gotta find a laugh. Yeah. But in the film, will you say you basically had no idea that Harper was struggling, especially at the time? In retrospect, do you feel like you understood or had a sense of what your friend was going through? No. No. She hit it really well. Once again, through the mask of...

doing bits and joking around and everything like that. You know, that's, we were always pretty much on the surface level. I, it's not like I can think back and, aha, so that's what, I mean, you know, in retrospect, this could be a thing. I, Harper to me was, she was this lovable curmudgeon, you know, who was kind of grumpy and very grumpy, even though

I always saw your silliness. So I would purposely come up to Steele and be like, how you doing? Come on, give me a little hug. And you would hate it. Oh, I hate it. You would hate it. And I would, like, hug you as hard as I could. Do not get close. Now, in retrospect, that is...

That's something. Now, in this moment, I'm thinking, oh, okay. Yeah, you did not want to be... No. You did not want to be... Don't come in. Engaged in that way at all. But that's what Drew... I would always... Oh, I'm going to give Harper a hug here. She hates it. But I don't know. That's... Funny. Yeah. I think the 50th anniversary of the show is just... is next year. Uh-huh.

Do you feel like the show has, in as much as you pay attention, has it changed since you've been on it? What's your sense of how the show has evolved over time? I think the show has stayed exactly the same in the sense that it's just forever generational. The older generations reminisce how it used to be so much better. And anyone in high school or college thinks it's the greatest thing.

But I think we both kind of check it out every now and then, but not... Yeah, I don't watch it that much. I feel like it's more inclusive. I mean, I just know the staff and the cast feels a little more inclusive than in our era. That's changed, for sure. But to echo Will's point, I've always said this, there are two or three good sketches in...

Every show, sometimes just one, and the rest of them are shit. However, we all don't agree on what those three sketches are. Go back and watch a whole show from 78. There's a bunch of shit. It's very meandering. Yeah. And there's some classics. And so that's what I think every era does.

You mentioned that the show is more inclusive now. Yeah. And that seems to be inarguable. Yeah. But do you ever think back to material, this for both of you guys, material that you wrote or were in and thought, well, that was a...

bad way into that joke or I wouldn't have handled that subject like that today. Is there anything sort of makes you cringe a little? A good third of my comedy? Yeah. Yeah. I would say I wouldn't, I wouldn't write that today or I wouldn't handle it that way today. No, there were a few times even while seeing the sketch mounted, I would go, ugh. And, and I think that that is a fear-based thing.

where you feel like you've got to please an audience or you're losing your job and you make a decision that is not... I can't say this for Will. I feel like he was more secure in who he was. But for me, I probably felt a lot of fear, imposter syndrome. I might have overstepped bounds that even I was uncomfortable. I know I did. Yeah, I think I'd have to go back and actually review shows and...

but I'm sure there'd be a fair amount where you'd lament the choice or, I mean, in a way, the cast, you're kind of given this assignment, so you're, so I'm going to blame the writers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's not culpable at all. Just following orders. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the,

I wrote Monica Lewinsky stuff I wasn't proud of. I wrote some good Britney stuff and some stuff that I'm not as proud of, you know, Britney Spears. And so, you know, I wrote some Clinton things I wasn't proud of. Yeah, I would not approach it in the same way at all, and I don't. So, you know, I'm just moving on. I have to.

The Janet Reno character hits a false note now. Yeah, that's something, yeah. I wouldn't choose to do now. This kind of bums me out, though. This is something that I actually feel a little bit differently about it. I understand the laugh is a drag laugh. It's the, hey, look at this guy. He's got in a dress and that's funny. And it's absolutely not funny. It's absolutely a way that we should be able to live in the world.

However, with performers and actors, I do like a sense of play. I do think people should play with characters...

This is an interesting question to me. Do queer people like the birdcage or do they not like it? Robin Williams, at least as far as we know, was not a gay man. And yet he spent about a half of his comedy career doing a swishy gay guy on camera. Do people think that that's funny or is it just hurtful? And I've heard from gay men that it was funny and I've heard from gay men that it was very hurtful.

And I understand both. I just sometimes I wonder if and I'm the most woke. I am accusably purple haired woke. I'm telling you. But I do wonder if sometimes we take away the joy of playing when we take away some of the range that some performers, especially comedy performers can do.

So now I've got some questions about the movie. Harper, you say in the film that one of the things you've always loved to do is sort of take these cross-country drives. Yeah. Just explore the country by yourself. And you like to go out of the way bars and diners and stuff like that. Whose idea was it that Will would go along with you on your first of these cross-country drives after transitioning?

Well, it was Will's idea. Most definitely it was Will's idea. I wouldn't have never thought of something like that, nor when he suggested it to me did I think it was a good idea. So it took a little bit of a thought process for me a couple months before I actually thought, well, there might be something here. It wasn't my first time crossing as Harper. I had crossed, but I was intensely fearful of

Like I would stay in, I slept in my truck, which is something I did all the time anyway. And I would not go into like my favorite kinds of places, the restaurants, the truck stops, the bars. I didn't do any of that, but I don't know. So it was a different thing with Will.

So, Will, can you explain to me what your thinking was? I mean, if Harper said initially she wasn't jazzed about the idea, what was your sort of pitch to her about why to do it? I don't really know. Because I told her, like, I'm not trying to exploit our friendship. Please, I hope you know that. But this is a crazy enough idea, like...

And by the way, this is all... This is the first time we'd seen each other. Oh, yeah. We were having coffee in my backyard, and it's... We're both nervous, you know? So we're sitting down, and we're kind of like, how's it been going? Oh, my God, da-da-da, just catching up. And that's when I kind of sprung out on her. I... Because I'd heard from a mutual friend of ours that she was lamenting the fact that I don't know if I can do these same type of road trips the way I used to. And...

I said to Harper, what if we went on a road trip? I went with you and we film it. And I'll be kind of like your offensive lineman, so to speak. And, you know, a chance for me to actually kind of ask all the questions that I have. And we can kind of examine what's changed, what's not. But I totally get it if you don't want to. But I think Harper finally landed on the square that

We could help people possibly. But I don't know. It didn't come from a social justice warrior kind of place at all. I mean, we're both producers and writers and he's kind of an actor. I'm a mid-level actor.

I'm either a mid-level A-lister or I'm a top-tier B-list actor. We both create a lot of shit. And so— I'm falling to top-tier B-list as the years go on. Yes, I'll take that. Get the paycheck still. No, I think we both make a lot of crap. So I think that's how we think sometimes, too. Just like, we want to go do something fun. What can we make out of it? Yeah. I just think that's part of our process. Right.

But I had to talk myself into doing it. And again, I can't really pin down the motive. There is a social justice movement

Part of this, because I'm reading the newspaper every day and more and more trans bills are being offered up to every state in the country. And it's making me think like, well, you're a fucking old lady. You can do something. And so I'm thinking about that. But then I'm also thinking like, hey, I would like to go across the country with the best bodyguard of all time who everyone wants to meet and love and

I mean, it's a little cowardly, but that's, yeah, I want to do that. So the motives are all, you know, they're everywhere. I did think, like, if you had been traveling with someone who wasn't recognizable, there would have been, I assume, a lot more anonymity. Traveling around with Will Ferrell, you know, isn't exactly an unmediated experience. Did you feel like there was any tension in that idea at all for you?

It's hard to say. Probably not because I've been around Will for 30 years, you know. And so that part felt comfortable. I know. I didn't see any of the negative side effects except for obviously, you know, we show in the film a few places where social media is responding to us and they wouldn't respond to me in some way.

other non-celebrity friend of mine at all you know they wouldn't that wouldn't come up they've got will is putting a spotlight on this whole thing so you've got people calling me the best the wonderful the best possible names that they can come up with there in their basements with because they don't have any time to do anything else constructive right whatever yeah i love them all

So there's one scene in particular in the film. Uh-oh. It takes place at a steakhouse in Amarillo, Texas. That's the one you just referred to after I think people were saying some pretty nasty things on social media. And so that scene happens and it's an upsetting experience. And then in the car after, Will, you say you felt like you let Harper down. Can you sort of unpack that a little bit for me? Let her down in the sense that

you weren't able to diffuse the tension in that moment or that you invited that moment at all? Yeah, I think both of those, you know, didn't really have a grasp on how intense it was going to be. And yeah, I felt like we just didn't, yeah, we didn't do our due diligence and we found ourselves in this

this situation that was felt like it was going to be just this benign kind of, you know, uh, place where you eat a big steak in the amount of time. And then you walk in and it's a thousand people seated in this room. And, and I was like, Oh, why, why are we here?

Also, just to paint the picture for people, you were dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, that was a bad choice, too. I thought it was going to be so fun. Do you think the people in the restaurant thought you were making fun of them somehow? Like that you had turned the thing into a spectacle? Like, why were the vibes so off there?

Well, you're up, you know, you're just up on this raised platform. And I mean, the vibes were just so off because, to put it bluntly, there was a trans woman sitting next to Sherlock Holmes. To your earlier question, I would say that was a moment where

the Will Ferrell factor actually worked against me because that was a fishbowl and the room was really zeroing in on a lot of photographs, a lot of selfies, a lot of, and, um, and, and I was sitting up there on a sort of on display and, um, here I'll say something that wasn't in the doc. Yeah. Um,

We gave a little toast and it was funny. I said something about passing a trans bill and the room did a kind of reversal and a little bit of a boo. And I pulled myself out of it. And a woman shouted out, we still love you. And I hate the phrase. I could be misinterpreting this woman completely.

But this is the feeling I had in the room. But it felt condescending, for sure. The still, it's the conditional. You still love me. When I finally give up being trans and give my life over to Christ, then I'm worthy of, then they will love me more and I will have hidden a bit. But they still love me even though I'm some kind of a sinner or something. I felt that. And I think I kind of

wished I'd walked in and said, oh no, this is going to be terrible. Let's just go. Why are we here? Now, we both kind of stuck it out because, you know, I guess it's the function of having cameras there and we're making this thing. And this was one of the places we were talked about going. So we need to follow through. And it leads to one of the more compelling sections of the piece.

But yeah, I think I was just feeling that remorse and guilt of even going there. I want to go back to another moment in the film that...

I don't know if tense is the right word, but it's sort of the implications of it were interesting. So you guys go to an Indiana Pacers game. Yes. You have courtside seats. And during the game, or I don't know if it's after the game, but while you're at the game, the Governor Holcomb of Indiana comes up to you and basically does a little photo op. And then after the game, I guess it's the next day or something, you guys are trying to figure out what his stance on

trans issues were and turns out he doesn't have the most progressive stance on them. And, you know, it sort of feels in the film like, you know, you guys are wondering whether you should have taken the photo, if there was a missed opportunity in some sense to not raise something with him. Did you think about like trying to go back to him or trying to talk to state politicians or, because it didn't necessarily have to be like a one and done, right? Yeah.

I guess it didn't. No, that didn't come up. It would have been interesting, I'm sure. Yeah. It would have been interesting. It would have been...

A little more confrontational than we had planned. But yeah, maybe we can go back for part two. I think what we both, what I felt there, maybe even more than Will, because Will gets it all the time, is a little bit of an ambushing. Sometimes at SNL, you'd be walking through the hall. And I remember walking to the hall and Donald Rumsfeld was there and he stuck his hand out and I shook his hand and I was like, oh, wow.

I don't think I like you. What happened? Another thing that we didn't include in the doc at all is how lovely and supportive Rick Carlisle was, the coach of the Pacers. Because we have all this, we meet everyone kind of before the game starts and...

He literally pulled you aside and was like, this is great. I wish you the best and congrats. Like, he couldn't have been sweeter. That could have been what the governor said. That would have been neat. Yeah, the governor did not quite say that. No. And in your heart of hearts, do you have like a goal for the movie? Do you want it to change people's feelings or make them rethink their politics? Yeah. Sure. I think that's,

In the end, that's why we did it. It's a funny movie. Will is a funny guy. And, you know, when he asked me to do the project, he was very clear, I don't want to make an opportunity out of our friendship. On the other end of that, I did want to make an opportunity out of my friendship. I want to be very clear about something, though, that I get in trouble with, I think, with myself personally, is there's a process of normalizing friendship.

queer people for America. And this movie does that. It makes the trans experience more understandable. It's in a language, a comedy language that they know from Will and me. It's a good project. It's representation in a good way. However, to be quite honest, I'm not that interested in normalizing for people who have hated me for

centuries. I don't want to sound mean, but I do want the movie to do that work. I want it to make other people be gentler and softer and caring. And maybe if you're a father who loved Anchorman and you've got a trans kid, now maybe you're going to open yourself up to this. Now you're willing to sit down and have a conversation. It's not a closed off future. There's a bright future ahead of you.

I happen to think it's a better future. But I think that's the work I want the movie to do. I don't necessarily care as much about it. The conversation is too tricky for me, quite honestly. But I don't particularly care about making myself normal to people who don't like me.

Near the end of the film, this is not a spoiler in any way, although I don't think it's really a spoiler type of film. We get to California. The car doesn't break down. Spoiler! We discover oil, though. We discover oil in Beverly Hills. But you say towards the end of the film, Harper, I think the way you put it is you should have transitioned four years ago.

But if you had, none of your life would have happened the same way. Which is a very sort of profoundly ambivalent emotion. And I'm just wondering if you could talk through it with me a little bit more. How do you think about those two facets? That's an ever-fluid situation. I land on the side of good fortune of being able to come to this transition when I was 59 years old.

But, of course, there's a lot going on there. If one, if I transitioned when I was 20, my life would have been probably different, maybe wonderful, but probably tough. I don't think I would have gotten the opportunity to get a comedy job at Saturday Night Live eventually or anything.

I think I would have been looked a little more on as an outlier as a human. But if I had transitioned into an environment like today 40 years ago, yeah, I mean—

Of course. Of course I would have wanted to start my hormonal treatment at 16, you know. Yes, there are mornings where I wake up. Or when I see young trans people today and how easily they walk through the world, not everywhere, but in the coastal cities or something, there's a kind of jealousness there, like, oh, that would have been wonderful. Yeah.

Will, this is purely constructive criticism. Yeah. In the film, you keep, you got this hankering for Dunkin' Donuts. Oh, boy. You keep pestering your friend about who's going through this emotional. Yeah. Cutting to the core experience. Right. And you just fixate on you want your Dunkin' Donuts.

Yeah. It's insensitive. Just something for you to think about. Well, can you... Answer that. Why don't you walk in my shoes for a little while? You're on this trip. You've been nothing but accommodating to your friend. You've gone everywhere she wanted to go. You've done everything. Like, you've barely done anything you wanted to do at all. And...

The one thing you wanted was Dunkin' Donuts? I mean, I don't know. I think it was a small complaint. You know, on the scale of everything, she got to go through and experience and then

I literally wanted one thing. Pathetic. They are tasty donuts. I want one now. Not the one I got when we finally got it. Yeah. It was cold. It was not good. It wasn't even room temperature. It was like cold, a cold, weird donut. You know, there's a lesson in there. There is. So you guys finished filming last year at some point? I guess. I don't. Yeah. Yeah.

But, Harper, how are you feeling now about being out in the world as a woman? Do you feel different than even a year ago? I feel ecstatic. I feel ecstatic. I mean, I don't—I look. There's stressors in life. My kids, making money, you know, things that are still there. There's still anxieties. There's still some mornings where you wake up and go—

oh, shit, I got to do that. But I basically wake up every morning happy, which is something I didn't do for, I don't know, mostly 59 years. I feel amazing. After the break, the lines around comedy can be fuzzy these days, even to the ones thinking most deeply about them. I walked away from that first interview saying, did I just defend drag as comedy from a straight perspective?

Fist, swipe, mail. Did I just defend that? Planning for retirement and all the things that go with it can be stressful. That's why Fisher Investments partners with you to understand your goals and needs so that they can build a tailored plan that helps you achieve a comfortable retirement. Whether you need help with financial planning, estate planning, or social security, Fisher has specialists to help. Fisher Investments. Now that's clearly different money management.

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This is the interview. I'm David Marchese. Harper, are you here? Yes, I am. Hi, Harper. Ta-da! Do you not see me? I do now.

Harper, you had said that when I was asking about the Saturday Night Live experience and if it was fraught in any way, you know, the way you put it, which I thought was really sharp, was that, you know, if you look in a comedy writer's room, you're like looking at a room full of people hiding things or disassociating. Now that you are no longer hiding something that's so central, has your comedy writing changed?

Weirdly, I don't think as much as

People might think, I think my feeling about being around people has changed radically. Obviously, my satirical pen is aimed at different things. I don't know. For lack of a better word, without a doubt, I've become more woke. But I think comedy has in general, not always. You know, I'm in a comedy room right now, and it's a radically different experience now.

than a comedy room say when i started at the john stewart show it's not as aggressive it's not it's definitely not as male it's got diversity going on so that's a change for the better 100 and and i don't know if that's me becoming different or me feeling welcome in a in this environment which i didn't feel welcome at the john stewart show whether i thought so or not i you know i'm

I've said it before, you could be a woman in a late night comedy room. There were very few when I started, but it still was a boy's room no matter what. So that's changed.

What you just said about how your writing has maybe gotten more woke connects to something else you had said earlier. The way you put it was that you wonder sometimes about whether being woke means we might sometimes take away the joy of play for comedians or take away some of the range that comedians have. Do you have any sense of how we're supposed to draw lines between calling out stuff that is harmful and

And also allowing comedians to play around with subjects? You dirty bastard. The answer is nope. That's the quick answer. But yeah, I walked away from that first interview saying, did I just defend drag as comedy from a straight cis white male? Did I just defend that?

And I was like, I don't know if I did or didn't. It was pretty vague, I hope. But I think it was, I would say, ambivalent. I hope at the very least it was ambivalent. My short answer to that question is always no, I wouldn't write it again. And I don't think it's right. But I'm just going to be honest. I can't answer all these questions in my present state. My career is

Where my sweet spot is and where I enjoy it the most is creating silly, funny characters. And that's my favorite kind of comedy. And generally, I think that's Will's sweet spot too. And I have always thought punching down was wrong. What I have been discovering, like most of us, is that we were punching down sometimes when we didn't think we were. Yeah. One of the things I was...

wondering was whether there was any apprehension on your part, Will, about sort of making your private life or your personal life into a documentary, because I don't really, you know, you're not a confessional comedian. I don't think of your comedy as you're working out your stuff on film. Was that like sort of a little hurdle for you?

It definitely, you know, it occurred to me, oh, okay, this will be an audience will be seeing a different, having more of an insight into who I am and getting to see me on more of a day-to-day kind of existence. And no, I think I've done, I've had a long enough career at this point that I'm very secure in exploring the subject matter with my friend and

I know there could be, you know, I don't know. We'll see what the reaction is towards me. And it's going to be some is positive, some is going to be negative or whatever. But I'm at a place where I can take any of it. Harper, there was something you said that it's stuck with me, which was that you don't care so much about making yourself normal to people.

And to me, that sounds clearly like sort of an emotionally necessary place to get to, but also a very hard thing to actually achieve. This is a big question, but like, how did you get there? I don't think I'm quite there. I mean, I think it's, you know, if I walk into a particularly what I'm perceiving as a particularly male space, I still am self-conscious about who I am and how I'm dressed and

I think when I started this process, I was looking in a lot of forums and the goal was to pass as a woman, but I can't pass. And I'm also not going to change my voice. I think some trans women, especially older ones, find this odd, you know, but I'm like, if I was breaking down my classification, I would say,

I'm a human being and then I am a trans person and then I like to be identified as a trans woman. So I think I'm trans first and I feel like that's the thing that's been inside me. Not that necessarily that I needed to be a woman. I just am very happy to be trans. And the longer I walk through the world that way,

um yes it makes me feel better or just more uh myself when you say normal or not normal being trans is normal you know i almost wanted to ask you the first time we talked it's a question i think i feel like i need to ask reporters before they ask me anything do you believe trans people exist

Well, can I tell you, Harper, then, that I do believe trans people exist. Okay, thank you very much. It's just a thing that, you know, you go into an interview, you don't know, especially the ones asking skeptical questions like, how did you start feeling this way? Or why do you think you're a woman? You know, and it's like, some of these things can't be explained to cis people, and they get very frustrated by that. They just do. There's no way that I'm going to be able to answer those kinds of questions.

Can you share with me the last thing that the other one did that really made you laugh? I mean, I laugh every time I'm around Will. There's just no limit to what he will challenge himself to do. Real quickly, I'll go back because I do think you have to imagine

When Will said, let's do this project, like all of our projects, there is a little bit of us going like, yeah, that's fucking nuts. Like, that's the part that both of us love. Yeah, I think we're both drawn to holding our hand over the flame for as long as we can. And for some people, that means controversial.

Not to us. It just means how silly can we be and not explain it. My last year on the show, we would just have blue note cards of just broad sketch ideas. And every week or every other week, it'd be like, Harper, you have to write a sketch called Taco Time. Go. And there was this sketch I wrote. What?

called the old prospector. But no, I remember old prospector. I just saw it recently. I was like, this is madness. And, uh, I'm really just trying to make Harper laugh. You're, you're forgetting a key element that, that speaks to this perfectly. Um, like taco town is a perfect example or unicorn mountain. Yeah. Um, you don't know what these sketches are, by the way, for good reason. Um, it's,

I would write the first half and then hand it to Will, and I wasn't allowed to see it. So I don't know what he's going to do with the sketch. It was always a left turn, too. David, sorry, just for our benefit, I just want to describe to you what Unicorn Mountain was about. Please, yeah. Unicorn Mountain was a three-page song that led off the sketch, and it was all about

It basically set the premise of like being a children's show. It's Unicorn Mountain where unicorns are, you know, live in unity and harmony and they bring joy and they're magical and they're fun. And let's all go to Unicorn Mountain. And then we open on myself and Tracy Morgan and maybe I forget who else. And this is Harper's Half and we're eating a unicorn.

And we're talking about how delicious the unicorn was and how easy it was to trap it and kill it because it was so benevolent and sweet and kind. And I felt a little bit bad when we killed it, but God, this is good unicorn. And now that's Unicorn Mountain. Yeah. So there's, I think I can detect a through line from the answers you gave to the film you just made. You know, you're on some level just trying to make the other guy laugh. Oh, for sure.

Say that again. Make the other girl or guy laugh. Yes. I'm sorry. Sorry. Don't worry. Sorry. It's just a, it's a verbal tick. I have that I need to solve, but you know, it's like, I have two daughters. I say like, come over here guys. You know, it's, I apologize. Please don't worry about that. I say guys all the time, dudes, bros, those are a little bit more transgressive, but guys is something. I mean, I say it to my kids and they're all girls, but,

See, look what happened. Two of my girls want him today then. So here we go. It's a universal experience. Yes. So the movie really paints this

Lovely picture of your friendship as continued support and closeness. But there must be some way in which this experience has changed your friendship because all friendships change over time, I think. And, you know, change isn't always easy. Has anything about sort of your shared experience challenged or evolved your ideas about what friendship is or what it can be? Yeah.

I think a lot of my friendships, there was an element of fear. And the biggest change for me is that I'm not afraid of my friends. And I think that's pretty huge. So for someone who's hiding something like I was transitioning can open up a world that I just didn't live in. That was a big change for me. I mean, it brought us closer for sure. There's no question for the entire time that we've known each other.

We never talked as deeply or intensely as we did those 17 days. So that's without a doubt, you know, a change there. You know, I mean, we're about to go through an intense period of press, of reflection, of analysis over all this stuff. And at the end, maybe Harper might go, I hate you. Now I hate you for dragging me through all this.

We are no longer friends. Which my comedy brain says at the end of this, we should announce we're no longer friends. I agree. I mean, I don't think it's a maybe. That's Will Ferrell and Harper Steele. Will and Harper will be in select theaters starting September 13th and available on Netflix on September 27th. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon. Mixing by Afim Shapiro.

Original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yalkin. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew and Seth Kelly is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Bareilly, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Maddy Macielo, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik.

If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. And to read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash the interview. And you can email us anytime at theinterviewatnytimes.com.

Next week, Lulu talks to Demi Moore about her new body horror film, The Substance, and how the culture has changed since the height of her career in the 80s and 90s. If you look at any advertising, everything was very clean and perfect, and there wasn't any body inclusivity. There was a more extreme standard of beauty that existed. And I did personally experience being told to lose weight.

I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times. ♪

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