Actor Will Ferrell mentioned he regrets his visit to a Texas restaurant after his trans co-star, Harper Steele, acquired a clumsy response from diners.
It occurred whereas Ferrell and Steele, a former “Saturday Night Live” head author, had been filming their new Netflix documentary, “Will & Harper,” which follows their 17-day street journey throughout the nation “to bond and reintroduce Harper to the country as her true self” after Steele got here out as transgender in 2022.
They acquired what they described as an sudden and uncomfortable response from diners at a Texas restaurant after Steele talked about the state hadn't finished sufficient for trans rights, the New York Times reported.
“I'm from Iowa, but I will raise a glass to your great state of Texas,” Steele mentioned to a receptive viewers of diners on the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, the place Ferrell and Steele deliberate to try the restaurant's well-known 72-ounce steak problem.
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele attend Netflix's “Will & Harper” screening at Paris Theater on September 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/WireImage)
“I wish you guys would do more for trans rights in this state,” Steele added, which silenced the cheers and was met with a few groans from the viewers, Chron reported.
“Cheers to Texas and trans rights, right?” Ferrell added. The toast did not make it into the documentary, however Steele and Ferrell shared their responses to the second afterward.
“The room started to feel very wrong to me,” Steele mentioned within the movie. “I was feeling a little like my transness was on display, I guess, and suddenly that sort of made me feel not great.”
“The saddest part for me is … I just feel … I feel like I let you down in that moment,” Ferrell mentioned in response.
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“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,” Ferrell informed The New York Times. “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?'”
Harper Steele and Will Ferrell (Getty Images)
Steele described the sensation of being “on display” in that second.
“We gave a little toast, and I said something about passing a trans bill, 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,” Steele mentioned. “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.”
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“I wished I'd walked in and said: ‘No. This is going to be terrible. Let's just go,'” Ferrell mentioned in response. “I was feeling that remorse and guilt of even going there.”
Steele had beforehand criticized the New York Times in an interview with The Independent as “generally left-leaning, but also sometimes very anti-trans. It’s odd…”
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele attend Will & Harper NY Special Screening at The Paris Theater on September 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Netflix)
“It’s why I first tend to ask reporters who interview me if they believe in me,” Steele added in that interview. “Do they believe that I exist? That I’m valid? Because that’s not always part of the conversation. I like to start there. Because there are many people in the liberal community who can’t seem to get their heads around it for one reason or another.”
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Ferrell additionally mentioned that “transphobia” comes from folks “not being confident” in themselves.
“There is hatred out there,” Ferrell informed The Independent. “It’s very real, and it’s very unsafe for trans people in certain situations.”
“It’s so strange to me, because Harper is finally… her,” he added. “She’s finally who she was always meant to be. Whether or not you can ultimately wrap your head around that, 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.”
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Fox News' Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
