Jane Goodall,with interviewer Brad Falchuk,in the Netflix show Famous Last Words.
In the 55-minute episode,Goodall,known for hergroundbreaking work documenting the lives of chimpanzees,offers a candid assessment of the “dark” times she says we are now living in. She reserves some particularly choice words for world leaders,including President Donald Trump.
But Goodall,who died at 91,also says repeatedly that she believes she was put on earth to advance a particular mission. And in a final message,she calls for hope. “If you want to save what is still beautiful in this world,” she says in the episode,which was edited down from roughly four hours of footage,“then think about the actions you take each day.”
“Don’t give up,” she adds. “There is a future for you.”
Famous Last Words was adapted from the beloved Danish TV seriesDet Sidste Ord (The Last Word) which debuted in 2020. Netflix licensed the format for use outside of Scandinavia.
The executive producer ofFamous Last Words,Brad Falchuk,who is also the interviewer,first spoke about the series in June. By that time,he had already been working on the show for more than two years,he said,and Netflix had around four episodes ready to release. Another four were in the works (neither Netflix nor Falchuk would disclose the subjects of the pending episodes).
If Falchuk had one overarching takeaway from the interviews he had conducted so far,he said,it was this:“Nobody says,‘Wow,I really should have spent more time at work.’”
Jane Goodall with a gorilla at Melbourne Zoo in 2008.Credit:Craig Abraham
The TV and radio host Mikael Bertelsen,who created the original Danish series,said the germ of what would becomeDet Sidste Ord began several years ago,when a Danish comedian he had been interviewing suddenly died.
Then,one evening after an event at the Royal Danish Library,the head of the library began complaining about how none of the interviews on modern television were well suited for cultural heritage purposes.Might Bertelsen consider trying to make something longer that could last?
“That made me want to start up,” said Bertelsen. But,he added:“It took me,I mean,eight years to get somebody to believe the idea.”
Mikkel Bondesen,Falchuk’s producing partner,became captivated immediately byDet Sidste Ord. He approached Bertelsen,and eventually Bondesen and Falchuk took the idea to Netflix. “I had never seen something that was so opposite of TV,” Bondesen said. “No cutaways to clips. No photos. Just two people in a room talking.”
The concept of the Netflix series is almost identical to that of the Danish version. The cameras are remotely operated,so no one but the subject and the interviewer is on the soundstage. Even those in the control room do not have earpieces and cannot hear what is being discussed.
Falchuk asks some of his questions in the past tense. He reminds subjects,he said,that “they are dead”.
From the start,Falchuk felt he needed to do the interviews himself. That would keep the circle of people involved tight and ensure the guest was always the star. He also felt confident,as the husband of Gwyneth Paltrow,that he understood why famous people “lock up”,he said,and he might sometimes know how to get them to let their guards down. (Falchuk has traditionally worked in scripted television,creating multiple series with Ryan Murphy includingAmerican Horror Story,Pose and9-1-1.)
Falchuk wants the show to give viewers a chance to spend a bit more time with people they have grown to love. “The idea of this show is,we’re giving you just an extra hour,” he said.
Famous Last Words is “not transactional,” he said. “It’s not to get them to say some secret about their lives that’s a big front-pageNew York Post story.”
“It’s a service to these people to deliver their last words,” he added. “We’re almost bringing them across the threshold into death. If they don’t want to talk about something,we don’t talk about it.”
For the interviews,Netflix relies on a studio in Los Angeles and also a mobile studio that can travel,said Brandon Riegg,who heads nonfiction programming for the streamer. Many of the interview subjects are in their 90s,after all.
Jane Goodall with her first husband Hugo van Lawick,a camera and a friend in 1974.Credit:AP
For Goodall’s episode,she brought along Mr H,a cherished stuffed monkey given to her 34 years before. After being seated,she takes a sip of whisky,which she continues to sip throughout the conversation.
At one point,Falchuk notes the reverence so many people have for Goodall and her work and the measured,thoughtful temperament she has long deployed in her fight to save the planet. But then he probes:Who is the fight against,exactly? Who does she dislike?
“Absolutely there are people I don’t like,and I would like to put them on one of Musk’s spaceships and send them all off to the planet he’s sure he’s going to discover,” Goodall says,referring to Elon Musk. “He’d be the host” of the party,she says,noting that she would add Trump,President Vladimir Putin of Russia,President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“Put them all on that spaceship,” she says,“and send them off.”
Death is an explicit theme. Goodall describes the way a chimp she was close to reacted after losing its mother. She says she hopes her own mother;her childhood dog;and another of the chimps – whom she named David Greybeard – will greet her when she dies.
For Goodall’s concluding message,Falchuk leaves the set;she speaks directly to the camera. “I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play,” she says. “You may not know it,you may not find it,but your life matters,and you are here for a reason.”
This article originally appeared inThe New York Times.
Famous Last Words is now streaming on Netflix.
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