Last October, Netflix premiered a new interview series, Famous Last Words. It’s based on a Danish series called The Last Word, in which well-known figures are interviewed, but the footage isn’t released until after their deaths. The premiere episode was an interview with beloved primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, filmed several months before her death and released posthumously. Today, episode two has dropped, featuring actor Eric Dane, who died this week after a battle with ALS.
When the series first premiered, it felt like the premise would be an opportunity for people who have lived long, rich lives to share their wisdom. That’s what makes Dane’s episode all the more emotional. The actor, best known for his role as “McSteamy” on Grey’s Anatomy, only announced his ALS diagnosis in April 2025, and he died at age 53. It all seemed to happen so fast to someone who seemed to be in the prime of his life.
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. The episode featuring Goodall, who was 91 when she passed away, felt like a celebration of a long and full life. Dane’s episode feels different — he appears in a wheelchair, paralyzed by ALS, and expresses that one reason he chose to do the interview in the first place was to leave something behind for his two daughters, and he uses the interview as an opportunity for them to know him better. (At times it’s not an easy watch, given his raw, occasionally tearful revelations.)
Dane’s episode goes deep into past emotional trauma as he reveals the effects of 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 in spite of all the hardships thrown his way, And ultimately, his is a message about the importance of living in the present.
While we now know the identities of the first two interviewees, The New York Times reported that at least three interviews have been recorded and stored, but Netflix has not, and will not, reveal their identities. 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.
While Goodall’s interview was often juicy, like when she rattled off a list of current world leaders she dislikes, and alluded to an unrequited romance without naming names, Dane’s is more somber, as he reflects on how his challenges shaped him, and how he laments leaving his daughters, Billie and Georgia, behind.
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.
