Will Ferrell has admitted that he regrets dressing up as a woman on Saturday Night Live.
The actor and comedian featured in the Janet Reno’s Fantasies sketch in season 23 of the NBC variety show in 1997/98, which saw Ferrell dress in drag as the late attorney general.
Speaking in an interview with The New York Times‘ The Interview podcast, Ferrell said: “That’s something I wouldn’t choose to do now.”
He went on to say that he’s certain there’s “a fair amount” of sketches from his SNL tenure “where you’d lament the choice”, before joking: “I mean, in a way, the cast – you’re kind of given this assignment. So I’m going to blame the writers.”
Former SNL head writer Harper Steele also expressed regret over Ferrell’s sketch, adding: “This kind of bums me out. I understand the laugh is a drag laugh. It’s, ‘Hey, look at this guy in a dress, and that’s funny’. It’s absolutely not funny. It’s absolutely a way that we should be able to live in the world. However, with performers and actors, I do like a sense of play.”
Steele, who came out as transgender in 2022, went on to talk about Robin Williams and the 1996 movie The Birdcage in which the late actor and Nathan Lane portrayed a gay couple.
“This is an interesting question to me. Do queer people like The Birdcage, or do they not? 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,” said Steele.
“Do people think that’s funny, or is it just hurtful? 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.”
The sketch comedy creator hired Ferrell in 1995, and the pair worked together on the show until 2002.
He said: “I never rank, but Will’s definitely in the top two or three that have ever done the show. There’s no question.”
When describing Ferrell’s very particular brand of comedy, Michaels explained: “There’s a phrase, ‘Some people just spill over’. With being funny, there’s a neediness, there’s an anger, there’s a lot of other things that go with it.
“What Will does is focused, and there’s always something charming and fun about it.”
Meanwhile, Ferrell will play a DJ set alongside Swedish House Mafia in Chicago next month in aid of Cancer For College.
