Will Ferrell remembers being rejected by some “SNL” peers: 'He doesn't seem that funny'
The "Saturday Night Live" star revisits his old stomping grounds at 30 Rock alongside fellow alum Harper Steele in new doc, "Will & Harper."
Any ranking of Saturday Night Live's most memorable cast members is incomplete without the name Will Ferrell, but the man who gave us "More Cowbell" reveals some of his peers were skeptical of his comedy chops.
"I was trying to get to know everyone and there was a group of people who were looking at me and were like, we don't get what this guy does. He doesn't seem that funny," the Anchorman star recalled of his first week at the NBC sketch show in the Netflix documentary Will & Harper (out now).
The new doc sees Ferrell and former SNL head writer Harper Steele embarking on a cross-country road trip after Steele comes out as a trans woman. The longtime friends met at SNL when they started on the same week back in 1995. Before hitting the road in the doc, they returned to their old stomping grounds at 30 Rock to reminisce about their past and how they instantly gravitated toward each other.
Netflix
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele in 'Will & Harper'"That first week we went downstairs to lunch and there was just something about the two of us where we were kind of on the same wavelength in a lot of different ways," Steele said, also confirming Ferrell's suspicion of their peers' perceptions. "They all thought Will Ferrell was a dud. But you know, I just, I knew that Will was not the dud," declared Steele, who penned such sketches as "Oops, I Crapped My Pants" and Tim Meadows' recurring "The Ladies Man" series.
"You were just an ambassador for me to be like, 'No, don't write him off. He's actually really funny,'" the Elf star said of his old pal.
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Returning the favor decades later, Ferrell served as an ambassador for Steele in the film as they stopped in cities across the U.S. where the comedy writer has hesitated to revisit since transitioning at age 61. The Step Brothers actor used his fame to help break the ice with strangers in tense situations throughout their trip, during which the friends also got into emotionally heavy discussions — with Ferrell occasionally fumbling despite meaning well — as they got reacquainted now that Steele is living as her true self.
"We've been around each other in a lot of circumstances that are very strange," Steele noted during their visit to SNL, before discussing her creative past and referencing her deadname — which, as she admitted in the doc, is painful to hear others use. "My whole writing career, my whole creative life, I performed as a character named Andrew. That's the way I think about it at least. And so coming out to my friends was especially hard and I really can't tell if they think I'm Harper. I think they might think that I'm still Andrew and now I wear dresses."
Following Ferrell's seven-season run at SNL, he and Steele continued to collaborate on projects including Eurovision Song Contest, Casa de Mi Padre, The Spoils of Babylon, A Deadly Adoption, and the HBO sketch series Funny or Die Presents, among others. As the Old School actor noted up top in the documentary, "If you've ever scratched your head and said, 'Why did Will Ferrell make that?' there's a good chance" it was in partnership with Steele, who he described as having a "super weird, creative sense of humor."
Other Saturday Night Live alums who appear in Will & Harper include Fred Armisen, Tina Fey, Will Forte, Colin Jost, Tim Meadows, Seth Meyers, Tracy Morgan, Paula Pell, Molly Shannon, Kristen Wiig, and show creator Lorne Michaels.
Will & Harper is streaming now on Netflix.
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