When actor Paul Reubens died of cancer in 2023 at the age of 70, it came as a shock to filmmaker Matt Wolf, director of Pee-wee as Himself. They had spent many, many hours together in interviews for the HBO documentary, yet Reubens never told Wolf about his cancer diagnosis.
What Reubens kept from people – his sexuality, after he became famous, or much of anything about his personal life – became a central theme of Wolf’s exploration of the gifted comedic performer. Pee-wee as Himself scored five Emmy nominations, tied for the most of any nonfiction film or series this year.
Wolf joins the new edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss his film, shedding light on a project that became a power struggle between filmmaker and subject over control of the narrative. He also shares his earliest memories of encountering the work of Reubens and how it inspired him as a child to obtain a coveted Pee-wee Herman pull-string doll.
On today’s episode we also speak with Katie Walsh, director and executive producer of Simone Biles Rising, the four-part Netflix documentary that is Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Walsh tells how she became part of the small inner circle of the Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, who is universally considered the GOAT in her sport. That trust (in contrast to the Matt Wolf-Paul Reubens relationship) allowed Walsh to create an intimate portrait of the athlete who talks openly about the psychological crisis that prompted her to withdraw from the gymnastics events at the Tokyo Olympics in the middle of the competition.
The Emmy success of Simone Biles Rising and Pee-wee as Himself indicate the willingness of Television Academy voters to recognize nonfiction content that focuses on famous people. The same cannot necessarily be said of the Motion Picture Academy’s documentary branch, which remains somewhat allergic to “celebrity docs.” Doc Talk co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey discuss the proper criteria for evaluating documentaries centering on prominent subjects (another case in point being the Irene Taylor documentary I Am: Celine Dion, nominated for an Emmy in the juried category of Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking). If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that we will not lack for celebrity-oriented documentaries in the foreseeable future.
That’s on the latest edition of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
