Will Ferrell and Harper Steele‘s visit to the Lone Star State was not met with southern hospitality.
While discussing their Netflix documentary Will & Harper, the longtime friends recounted an “intense” moment of transphobic microaggression at Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, which didn’t make it into the final cut.
“We gave a little toast, and I said something about passing a trans bill,” Steele told The New York Times. “And the room did a kind of reversal and a little bit of a boo and a woman shouted out, ‘We still love you.’ I hate the phrase. I could be misinterpreting this woman completely, but this is the feeling I had in the room: The ‘still’ is conditional. You still love me when I finally give up being trans and give my life over to Christ. They still love me even though I’m some kind of sinner or something. I felt that.”
Steele explained, “The room started to feel very wrong to me. I was feeling a little like my transness was on display, I guess, and suddenly that sort of made me feel not great.”
Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14, banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the decision in June. Other bills that have passed in the state seek to prevent drag shows in public places and force transgender student athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their biological sex.
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele at the Deadline Portrait Studio during the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 22, 2024 in Park City, Utah.
Michael Buckner/Deadline
Ferrell said he felt “remorse” and “guilt” for putting Steele in that situation, noting, “The saddest part for me is … I just feel … I feel like I let you down in that moment.”
“I didn’t really have a grasp on how intense it was going to be and felt responsible for not properly vetting the situation we were putting ourselves in,” he added. “That felt like it was going to be this benign 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 I was like, ‘Oh, why are we here?’”
Directed by Josh Greenbaum, Will & Harper follows Ferrell as he finds out former Saturday Night Live writer Steele, his close friend of 30 years, is coming out as a transgender woman. The two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship, transition and America.
After meeting on SNL and co-writing Netflix’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020), Steele announced her transition to Ferrell and loved ones in 2022.
Following its Sundance premiere in January, Netflix scooped up Will & Harper in an eight-figure deal.
