Next year’s Oscars have a surprising original song contender: Kristen Wiig
LOS ANGELES — “‘Talented musician’ might be a little strong” to describe Kristen Wiig, the “Saturday Night Live” veteran demurs when complimented about her chops. So another label will have to do.
How about “Oscar nominated musician Kristen Wiig”?
It’s now a distinct possibility: Netflix will campaign for Wiig and co-writer Sean Douglas in the original song category for the folksy comic ditty “Harper and Will Go West,” from the forthcoming documentary “Will & Harper,” the company confirmed exclusively to The Times. The film, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, arrives on Netflix on Sept. 27 after an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run.
“Will & Harper” follows former “SNL” star Will Ferrell and his friend, longtime “SNL” writer Harper Steele, on a cross-country road trip after Steele comes out as a trans woman. Along the way, they meet trans people carving out a life in small-town America, discuss the challenges Steele faced pre- and post-transition and much more. They also park their classic Jeep Wagoneer to conscript Wiig, via FaceTime, to write a “tear-to-your-eye, fun, uptempo, jazzy with a little country” theme song for their journey.
The resulting number, filmed in Wiig’s backyard and accompanied by ukulele and saxophone, combines humor — the opening verse rhymes the song’s title with the phrase “a couple brand new breasts” — and heartfelt emotion (“A friend is a friend is a friend … ‘til the end”) in a way that reflects the film as a whole.
“It was kind of like this funny thing when they called me saying they wanted it to be all these different types of music,” laughs Wiig, who studied piano and sang in church and school choirs as a child, before taking up the ukulele in recent years. But instead of a full-on spoof, she, Douglas and the film’s director, Josh Greenbaum, decided to “steer away from something too jokey”: “We just wanted a nice song for the two of them.”
Songs with humorous elements have previously broken into the Oscars’ original song category. The film academy famously nominated the satirical, profanity-laden “Blame Canada” from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” in 2000 and has more recently tapped the likes of “Husavik,” from the 2020 comedy “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” and “I’m Just Ken,” from last year’s blockbuster “Barbie.” The most recent winner, also from “Barbie,” was “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell.
