Paul Reubens — aka Pee-wee Herman — left a heartbreaking telephone message for filmmaker Matt Wolf the day before he died.
The two had been collaborating on “Pee-wee Herman as Himself,” a documentary about Reubens’ unbelievable profession and life, that premieres Friday on Max.
“More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn’t,” Reubens mentioned the day before he passed away of cancer on July 23, 2023, at 70.
The message serves as an emotional coda to the two-part movie — and as a plea for folks to not keep in mind the lurid headlines that swirled round him.
In 2002, the Groundlings alum was charged with misdemeanor possession of obscene materials improperly depicting a baby underneath the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The photos had been from classic erotica magazines, which many think about artwork.
The youngster pornography expenses had been later dropped for a responsible plea to a lesser misdemeanor obscenity cost.
“I wanted to talk about and have some understanding of what it’s like to be labeled a pariah, to have people scared of you or unsure of you or untrusting or to look at what your intentions are, through some kind of filter that’s not true,” he mentioned within the message to Wolf.
Wolf tells Page Six in an unique interview that he had no concept Reubens was dying of most cancers whereas they had been filming the documentary.
“When Paul passed away, I was in total shock,” he mentioned. “The day after, I started reading the 1,500-page transcript of our 40-hour interview. And in it I found all sorts of things that had a kind of enhanced significance with the context, now that I understood he was sick and perhaps contemplating his mortality while we were working together.”
Wolf mentioned filming had been fraught with reluctance from Reubens, a self-proclaimed management freak, over how a lot to share and cede.
Reubens created the lovable character Pee-wee Herman, which spawned the kids’s tv collection “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” the films “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Big Top Pee-Wee,” and a live tour.
He subsequently co-wrote and starred in “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday” on Netflix, with the 2016 movie marking his final reprisal of the function onscreen.
Wolf acknowledges that Reubens “was grappling with the reality of being a documentary subject” and had spent a lifetime bifurcating his private life and his alter ego.
“To integrate these two things and to speak up authentically as himself was a pretty unfamiliar process for Paul,” the director defined.
Wolf famous that the longtime separation had served Reubens nicely and led to “his stratospheric rise and major imprint on pop culture” — however then “backfired” as a result of “the world met Paul Reubens through this scary mugshot instead of Paul having the agency to introduce himself on his terms.”
Reubens, who additionally had roles within the Johnny Depp film “Blow” in addition to “The Blues Brothers,” was arrested for indecent exposure at an grownup theater in Sarasota, Florida, in 1991.
He launched an announcement denying the costs and later pleaded no contest.
“He really wanted to do the documentary to set the record straight, to tell the factual details of his life,” Wolf mentioned.
The documentary doesn’t focus solely on the arrests and authorized drama, but additionally explores Reubens’ childhood, school life at Cal Arts and the way he developed his iconic character on the Groundlings with the assistance of “Saturday Night Live” alum Phil Hartman, who co-wrote “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and appeared on the TV present as Captain Carl.
What come throughout is a portrait of an acerbic but soft-spoken man who adored his family and friends and by no means forgot a birthday.
In that telephone message, Reubens defined what he hoped folks understood.
“My whole career, everything I did and wrote was based in love and my desire to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone.”
