Maybe probably the most stunning factor about Pee-wee as Himself – a brand new documentary tracing the life and profession of Paul Reubens, now streaming with a Max subscription – is that the movie acquired made within the first place. The actor and comic, who handed away in 2023 on the age of 70, was a deeply personal one who, as defined within the doc, purposely hid behind the world-famous man-child character he created for years.
Reubens even saved just a few revelations about himself for the doc, equivalent to his true sexuality and the way concerned Phil Hartman was in Pee-wee’s growth. He additionally stored one main secret from the makers of the two-part 2025 film because it was being made, which director Matt Wolf mirrored on in a current interview.
A caption in the beginning of Pee-wee as Himself signifies that the filmmakers weren’t conscious throughout the making of the doc that Paul Reubens was being handled for myelogenous leukemia and metastatic lung most cancers – a prognosis he had stored personal for years, in response to Folks. The truth is, Matt Wolf would solely discover out that the topic of his movie had handed (which impressed an outpouring of tributes from celebrities and mates) in the identical method a lot of the general public did, as he revealed within the following quote from his current interview with Gold Derby:
I used to be scheduled to finish a last interview with Paul the week after he died… I came upon that Paul died on Instagram, the day he died, together with everyone else.
I can solely think about what it should have been prefer to be taught that an individual you spent hours with discussing probably the most intimate particulars of their life had been nearing their final moments your entire time. The truth that Wolf was planning to fulfill with Reubens as soon as extra earlier than his passing is all of the extra heartbreaking. Nevertheless, the actor was in a position to go away one last audio message that’s used within the doc and brings the movie to a poignant, if somber, conclusion.
Matt Wolf Struggled To Earn Paul Reubens’ Belief Whereas Making The Doc
The truth that Wolf was not knowledgeable about Reubens’ prognosis and found he had handed via a social media submit is definitely not arduous to imagine when you think about how vital the actor’s private life was to him. In one other snippet from his Gold Derby interview, the filmmaker explains how this facet of Reubens’ character created a rift in his relationship with him whereas making, for my part, among the best documentaries on Max:
It was a continuing wrestle of making an attempt to earn Paul’s belief, however to additionally settle for that there have been limits to how a lot he was keen to belief someone… I empathized with the place he was coming from, however belief is a basis of what we do as documentary filmmakers… And Paul was someone incapable of taking a leap of religion.
There are literally a number of moments all through Pee-wee as Himself that make clear Reubens’ reluctance to reveal particulars about himself. The movie even opens with Reubens making up a narrative about rising up in Nineteen Thirties Mississippi earlier than displaying him confront Wolf about his considerations over how his profession highlights and lows can be portrayed within the documentary. Close to the top, a caption explains that Reubens stopped cooperating with the manufacturing after a yr of filming, adopted by audio from a telephone dialog between him and Wolf addressing their battle.
Pee-wee as Himself could not have come collectively precisely as Matt Wolf meant, however, so far as I’m involved, he nonetheless achieved with it an exquisite tribute to one of the crucial distinctive and influential voices within the historical past of present enterprise.