In her final months, renowned conservationist and scientist Jane Goodall secretly sat down for an interview with producers of a newly greenlit show for Netflix—with an agreement in place that the content of the discussion wouldn’t be shared publicly until after her death.
The interview turned out to be the first episode of “Famous Last Words,” which was released last Friday—two days after Goodall’s death at the age of 91.
Goodall used the interview as an opportunity to reflect on her life and work as a groundbreaking primatologist, to send a message of hope to those left on “this beautiful planet Earth,” and to unload her deep dissatisfaction with some of the world’s most powerful people.
When asked by producer Brad Falchuk whether there was anyone she did not like, Goodall at first did not name names, but said there were “absolutely” people whom she would like to put on one of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s spaceships, “and send them all off to the planet he’s sure he’s going to discover.”
“Would he be one of them?” Falchuk pressed.
Goodall replied that Musk, the world’s richest person and a megadonor to US President Donald Trump, would “host” the expedition, with Trump among the passengers.
“And then I would put [Russian President Vladimir Putin] in there and I would put President Xi [Jinping of China],” said Goodall. “I’d certainly put [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu in there and his far-right government. Put them all on that spaceship and send them off.”
The interview was filmed amid compounding global crises that are still ongoing—the climate emergency; Western governments’ allegiance to and capture by corporations and the ultrarich, including fossil fuel giants that continue to threaten Earth with planet-heating emissions; worsening global inequality; and violent conflicts like Israel’s bombardment and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
But Goodall urged viewers to resist giving in to a feeling of hopelessness, which would cause them to “become apathetic and do nothing.”
Describing herself as “somebody sent to this world to try to give people hope in dark times,” Goodall warned:
In the dark times that we are living in now, if people don’t have hope, we’re doomed, and how can we bring little children into this dark world we’ve created and let them be surrounded by people who have given up? So even if this is the end of humanity as we know it, let’s fight to the very end. Let’s let the children know that there is hope if they get together.
“Even if it becomes impossible,” she said, “for anybody, it’s better to go on fighting to the end than to just give up and say, ‘Okay.’”
She added that everyone on Earth “has a role to play.”
“Your life matters and you are here for a reason,” said Goodall. “Every single day you live, you make a difference in the world and you get to choose the difference that you make.”
But the message Goodall wished to send to the world “above all,” she said, was that “when we’re on planet Earth, we are part of Mother Nature.”
“We depend on Mother Nature for clean air, for water, for food, for clothing, for everything,” she said. “And as we destroy one ecosystem after another, as we create worse climate change, worse loss of diversity, we have to do everything in our power to make the world a better place for the children alive today and for those that will follow.”
“Don’t give up. There is a future for you,” she said. “Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful planet Earth that I look down upon from where I am now.”
Scientists, climate advocates, and political leaders were among those who shared an outpouring of gratitude and mourning last week when Goodall’s death from natural causes was announced.
Goodall’s pioneering work with chimpanzees led to greater understanding of the primates, other species, biodiversity, and the need to protect the natural world.
“Jane Goodall was fearless in all things,“ Falchuk toldVariety as the episode was released. ”She deeply loved humanity and the natural world. It was clear to me in our conversation that she was approaching her final adventure with the same fearlessness, hope, humor, and joy that she approached everything else in life. She was one of the world’s greatest and most beloved champions of good.“