Will Ferrell issues brilliant response to Oscars snubbing trans film Will & Harper

Actor Will Ferrell has responded to his documentary Will & Harper being snubbed at the 2025 Oscars.

Feature-length Netflix documentary Will & Harper follows Elf star Ferrell on a cross-country road trip of America, alongside his best friend of nearly 30 years, former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele.

Steele came out to Ferrell as a trans woman during the pandemic, and the documentary sees the pair work out their new friendship dynamic, ask each other important questions, and visit some of Steele’s favourite pre-transition haunts to see if she’s still welcome.

The documentary was widely praised online following its release, with Ferrell lauded as a top class trans ally. Many fans expected it to be nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Film category at the 2025 Academy Awards, but it was left in the cold.

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show recently, Ferrell broke his silence on the doc being snubbed, jokingly suggesting that those who decided the shortlist can “suck it”.

Ferrell appeared on the late night talk show to promote his new Reese Witherspoon-starring comedy You’re Cordially Invited, but Colbert took a a moment to praise the “beautiful” documentary.

“Ask me if we got Oscar-nominated,” Ferrell coaxed, with Cobert lathering on more praise.

“It’s such a good documentary, it’s one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in years. It was beautiful, it was timely, it was heartfelt, I was inspired by it. How [about] the Oscar nomination,” the presenter asked.

“We didn’t get it,” Ferrell said, with Colbert quipping in jest: “F**k the Academy!”

“Especially the doc branch,” Ferrell added. “You don’t want to hang out with the doc branch. What a bunch of losers.

“In fact, I hope there’s some of them here tonight,” he added, looking at the The Late Show audience. 

“If you’re a member of the doc branch, suck it,” he joked.

Had Will & Harper been nominated by the Academy, it would’ve marked Ferrell’s first ever Oscar nod.

Fans were heartbroken to learn it hadn’t made the shortlist, despite it making the longlist at the tail end of 2024.

Instead, documentaries Black Box Diaries, No Other Land, Porcelain War, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and Sugarcane will battle it out for the title of Best Documentary Feature Film at the Oscars on 2 March.

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