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Paul Reubens — aka Pee-wee Herman — left a heartbreaking phone 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’ incredible career 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 said 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 film — and as a plea for people not to remember the lurid headlines that swirled around him.
In 2002, the Groundlings alum was charged with misdemeanor possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The images were from vintage erotica magazines, which many consider art.
The child pornography charges were later dropped for a guilty plea to a lesser misdemeanor obscenity charge.
“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 said in the message to Wolf.
Wolf tells Page Six in an exclusive interview that he had no idea Reubens was dying of cancer while they were filming the documentary.
“When Paul passed away, I was in total shock,” he said. “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 said filming had been fraught with reluctance from Reubens, a self-proclaimed control freak, over how much to share and cede.
Reubens created the lovable character Pee-wee Herman, which spawned the children’s television series “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” the movies “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 film marking his last reprisal of the role onscreen.
Wolf acknowledges that Reubens “was grappling with the reality of being a documentary subject” and had spent a lifetime bifurcating his personal 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 explained.
Wolf noted that the longtime separation had served Reubens well and led to “his stratospheric rise and major imprint on pop culture” — but then “backfired” because “the world met Paul Reubens through this scary mugshot instead of Paul having the agency to introduce himself on his terms.”
Reubens, who also had roles in the Johnny Depp movie “Blow” as well as “The Blues Brothers,” was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida, in 1991.
He released a statement denying the charges 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 said.
The documentary does not focus solely on the arrests and legal drama, but also explores Reubens’ childhood, college life at Cal Arts and how he developed his iconic character at the Groundlings with the help of “Saturday Night Live” alum Phil Hartman, who co-wrote “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and appeared on the TV show as Captain Carl.
What come across is a portrait of an acerbic yet soft-spoken man who adored his friends and family and never forgot a birthday.
In that phone message, Reubens explained what he hoped people 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.”
English (US)