What did Will Ferrell say about transphobia?

Will Ferrell is back on Netflix  — with the comedy giant’s most personal work yet. Will and Harper, a documentary following Ferrell’s decades-long friendship with close friend and former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele, who came out and transitioned as a transgender woman, hits the streamer on September 27th.

In 2022, at the age of 61, Steele sent a letter to Ferrell in which she came out to him as trans, asking for his support. Although Will was more than happy to oblige, the comedian understood that he knew little to nothing about the experiences of transgender people.

The pair, who met during their joint first week at SNL in 1995, became closer than ever, after Ferrell pitched a road trip through the midwest — an activity the two had enjoyed many times before — but this time, with Harper living as her most authentic self.

Will Ferrell calls out transphobia

In a recent interview with The Independent to promote the film, Will Ferrell offered his insight as a cisgender man (a man whose gender is the same as the one assigned at birth) on where transphobia stems from.

“I think we fear what we don’t know,” Ferrell told the publication when asked about where transphobia comes from.

“It’s so strange to me, because Harper is finally… her. She’s finally who she was always meant to be. Whether or not you can ultimately wrap your head around that,” Ferrell continued, “Why would you care if somebody’s happy? Why is that threatening to you? If the trans community is a threat to you, I think it stems from not being confident or safe with yourself.”

In the interview, along with Harper Steele, the pair discussed the current wave of transphobia in our culture, one that Steele says also comes from spaces meant to be progressive, such as The New York Times, and the lack of freedoms in traveling the world and exploring new spaces that Harper now faces in comparison to her life prior to transitioning. “There is hatred out there,” Ferrell continues. “It’s very real and it’s very unsafe for trans people in certain situations.”

With this, Ferrell points out that the idea that trans people pose a threat to cis people is nonsensical to him. “I don’t know why trans people are meant to be threatening to me as a cis male. I don’t know why Harper is [supposedly] threatening to me,” Ferrell told the publication.