After news broke last week about the death of beloved primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, Netflix unveiled an interview they had filmed several months earlier, which was only to be released posthumously.
It might sound strange, but that’s the entire premise of Netflix’s new interview series, Famous Last Words, a show based on a Danish series called The Last Word. Well-known figures are interviewed in their latter years, and that interview serves as their final goodbye after they die.
The series is hosted by Brad Falchuk, a frequent collaborator with Ryan Murphy (and, maybe more famously, Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband). Falchuk also serves as a co-producer along with Mikkel Bondesen, the original host of the Danish show.
The show kicked off with Goodall’s episode, and The New York Times reports that at least three other interviews have been recorded and stored. But Netflix has not, and will not, reveal the other interviewees. All we know is that many of them are in their 90s.
It could make you play a macabre mental guessing game, akin to guessing who might show up in next year’s Oscars In Memoriam segment. The process is so confidential that only Falchuk and the interview subject are in the room, and the cameras are operated remotely.
The entire premise of Famous Last Words may indeed seem grim, but Goodall’s interview serves its purpose as a celebration of life more than anything. (If I could level one critique at the show itself, it’s that Falchuk is an odd choice for host. He’s not bad, but it’s not necessarily his calling.)
Goodall’s demeanor during the interview is the epitome of calm and hope. In the final moments, she delivers closing remarks while looking 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. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason.”
It might sound simple, but there’s a certain gravitas to her statement. This is what she’s leaving us with. This is the message she most wanted to convey, and you can’t help but feel a little emotional knowing that.
Brad Falchuk and Jane Goodall chat during her private interview, with only remotely operated cameras in the room.
Goodall is also asked about more personal things, like who she really dislikes (she rattles off a list of current world leaders) and any regrets (she alludes to an unrequited romance without naming names).
But Falchuk says that salaciousness or deathbed confessions are not the point. “It’s not to get them to say some secret about their lives that’s a big front-page New York Post story … It’s a service to these people to deliver their last words.”
In Goodall’s case, what feels more revelatory is her spiritual side. We know her to be a nature and animal lover, but she explains that the bond she feels with nature is so powerful that she’s been known to change the weather simply by asking. Despite how implausible this seems, Goodall exhibits such certainty about these powers that it imparts some hope that maybe there is more to this universe we can’t understand.
Famous Last Words is a unique business model. Episodes only air after the person has died, so no one can predict with any real certainty when the next episode will be released.
But as the show’s opening titles state, “When someone important dies, all you long for is just a little more time with them.” And that’s exactly what it delivers. For now, we’ll keep our guesses about who appears in the next episode to ourselves.
