Will Ferrell recently opened up about how he regrets some of the sketches he did while on ‘Saturday Night Live.’
One of his biggest regrets is dressing in drag, especially when he played former Attorney General Janet Reno. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ferrell said, “That’s something I wouldn’t choose to do now.”
Ferrell admitted that he looks back on some of the sketches with regret. He said there’s probably a lot of material from his ‘SNL’ days that he wouldn’t want to perform now. “I’d have to go back and review shows, but I’m sure there’d be a fair amount where you’d lament the choice,” he stated.
He also mentioned that as a cast member, he didn’t always have control over the sketches. “I mean, in a way, the cast — you’re given this assignment. So I’m going to blame the writers.”
Harper Steele, who wrote for ‘SNL’ from 1995 to 2008 and recently came out as trans, also has regrets about some of the sketches she worked on. She admitted that she wouldn’t write certain sketches today, including the ones with Ferrell dressed as Janet Reno.
Steele explained that the humor in drag sketches like the Janet Reno one was based on laughing at a man in a dress, which she now finds inappropriate.
She also pointed out that not all comedy about queer subjects is always bad. “Robin Williams, at least as far as we know, was not a gay man, and yet he spent about half of his comedy career doing a swishy gay guy on camera. … I’ve heard from gay men that it was funny, and I’ve heard from gay men that it was hurtful. I am purple-haired woke, but I wonder if sometimes we take away the joy of playing when we take away some of the range that performers, especially comedy performers, can do.”
Ferrell and Steele have been friends since meeting on ‘SNL’ in the mid-1990s. Their latest project is a documentary called ‘Will & Harper,’ which tells the story of their cross-country road trip after Steele came out to Ferrell. The documentary will be released in select theaters on September 13 and on Netflix on September 27.
