Actor Will Ferrell said he regretted his visit to a Texas restaurant after his transgender co-star Harper Steele received an unpleasant reaction from diners.

It happened as Ferrell and Steele, a former head writer for “Saturday Night Live,” were filming their new Netflix documentary “Will & Harper,” which follows their 17-day road trip across the country “to connect Harper with the country and him to re-introduce”. as her true self” after Steele came out as transgender in 2022.

They received what they called an unexpected and unpleasant reaction from diners at a Texas restaurant after Steele mentioned that the state had not done enough for transgender rights, The New York Times reported.

“I’m from Iowa, but I’m going to raise a glass to your great state of Texas,” Steele said to a receptive audience at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, where Ferrell and Steele planned to host the famous 72-ounce steak challenge.

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele attend the Netflix screening of “Will & Harper” at the 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, silencing the cheers and eliciting a few groans from the audience, Chron reported.

“Cheers to Texas and trans rights, right?” Ferrell added. The toast didn’t make it into the documentary, but Steele and Ferrell shared their reactions to the moment afterward.

“The room felt very wrong to me,” Steele said in the film. “I felt a little bit like my impermanence was on display, I guess, and suddenly it didn’t make me feel great.”

“The saddest thing for me is… I just feel… I feel like I let you down in that moment,” Ferrell replied.

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“I had no real idea of ​​how intense it was going to be and felt responsible for not properly vetting the situation we were entering into,” Ferrell told The New York Times. “It felt like it was going to be an innocuous place where you go and eat a big steak in time and then you walk in and there’s a thousand people sitting in this room and I thought, ‘Oh, why are we here? ‘ ?’”

Harper Steele and Will Ferrell (Getty Images)

Steele described the feeling of being “on display” in that moment.

“We made a little toast, and I said something about passing a transgender bill, and there was kind of a reversal in the room and a little booing, and a woman yelled, ‘We still love you.’ “I hate that phrase,” Steele said. “I could totally misinterpret this woman, but that’s the feeling I had in the room: The ‘still’ is conditional. You will still love me when I finally stop being trans and give my life to Christ. They still love me,” even though I’m some kind of sinner or something.

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“I wish I would have come in and said, ‘No. This will be terrible. Let’s just go,’” Ferrell replied. “I felt remorse and guilt for even going there.”

Steele had previously expressed criticism in an interview with the New York Times The Independent as “generally left-leaning, but sometimes very anti-trans. It’s strange…”

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele attend the special screening of Will & Harper NY at the Paris Theater on September 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Netflix)

“That’s why I tend to first ask reporters who interview me if they believe in me,” Steele added in that interview. “Do you believe I exist? That I am valid? Because that’s not always part of the conversation For one reason or another.

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Ferrell also said that “transphobia” comes from people “not being confident.”

“There’s hate out there,” Ferrell told The Independent. “It’s very real and very unsafe for trans people in certain situations.”

“It’s so strange to me because Harper is finally…her,” he added. “She is finally who she was always meant to be. Regardless of whether you can ultimately imagine it or not, why should you care if someone is happy? Why is this a threat to you? If the trans community is a threat to you, I think it comes from not being confident or secure about yourself.”

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Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.