Known for playing Pee-wee Herman, Paul Reubens died of cancer in 2023. The actor and comedian didn’t tell Matt Wolf, director of the documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” that he had cancer.
The documentary, which is available on HBO Max, explores the life and career of Paul Reubens.
In an interview with Forbes, Matt Wolf, the director of the production, commented on not being informed that Reubens had cancer.
“I was scheduled to do a final interview with him the week after Paul Reubens died, and we had a conversation a week before he passed away,” said Wolf.
“I could tell something was going on with his health, but I didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation,” confessed the filmmaker, saying he didn’t believe Reubens was terminally ill.
The actor and comedian died at the age of 70 in 2023 after battling cancer for six long years.
+Check out the trailer for “Pee-wee as Himself”
“I left that conversation feeling it had been intense, but I didn’t think much about it,” the director continued.
During their final talk, Reubens and Wolf discussed the actor’s childhood, his complicated relationship with fame, ambitions, and his 1991 arrest for indecent exposure in an adult theater.
After learning of Paul Reubens’ death, Matt Wolf decided that the actor’s final words should close the documentary. To the director, it was clear that Reubens was “privately reflecting on mortality.”
“All these different emotions, all these different influences and factors, things I saw when I was a kid—I felt like I could somehow give that back,” the actor reflected.
“I felt like I was a good collector of all that. I was like a good vessel for all of it.”
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