Last October, Netflix premiered a new interview series, Famous Last Words. Based on the Danish series The Last Word, the show features interviews with prominent figures that are released only after their deaths.
The premiere episode was an interview with beloved primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, filmed several months before she died and made available posthumously. Today, episode 2 has dropped, featuring actor Eric Dane, who died this week after a battle with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Famous Last Words 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.
When it first aired, the series felt like a space where those with decades of experience could pass down the hard-won wisdom of their long lives. That’s what makes Dane’s episode all the more emotional. The actor, best known for his role as “McSteamy” on Grey’s Anatomy, announced his ALS diagnosis in April 2025 and died at age 53. It happened so fast to someone who seemed to be in the prime of his life.
The first episode with Goodall, who was 91 when she passed away, felt like a celebration of her legacy. Dane’s episode feels different. Speaking from his wheelchair, he reveals that this interview is a gift for his daughters, a way to ensure they really know who their father was. At times, it’s not an easy watch, given his raw, occasionally tearful revelations.
Episode 2 unpacks past emotional trauma from the effects of Dane losing his father and grandmother at a young age, and struggling to form a meaningful bond with his mother. Where Goodall’s episode felt uplifting, Dane’s is more about his ability to achieve peace of mind despite the hardships thrown his way. Ultimately, it’s a message about the importance of living in the present.
One could say that Goodall’s interview was juicy and candid. She didn’t hold back as she critiqued several current world leaders and hinted at a past unrequited romance. Dane’s is more somber as he reflects on how his challenges have shaped him and on leaving his daughters, Billie and Georgia, behind.
While we now know the identities of the first two interviewees, The New York Times reported in October that at least three interviews have been recorded and stored. Netflix has not, and will not, reveal any identities in advance.
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.
Falchuk says that salaciousness or deathbed confessions are not the point of the show. “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.”
Famous Last Words is a unique 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.
