Would adding that bit have opened a can of worms? You can’t just take a look at Michael Jackson.
I mean everyone from Beyoncé to Kanye (West), even though he’s worked with all these people, and it’s like you can’t just, if you dip your toe into them, then it’s unsatisfying and it kind of brings more Things like, “Well, what about that? Let’s dig into that story.” And I always see those things as narrative quicksand.
Is that something you had to make a call about?
It wasn’t like I was ever going to interview Kanye.
It wasn’t like Kanye had any (or Puff, another controversial person), Pharrell had never had a deep relationship with either of them.
It’s amazing that this movie is coming out at a time when many of the people involved are part of an industry that is going through some turmoil right now.
The kind of reckoning that is happening in the hip-hop world is long overdue.
Pharrell is almost the complete opposite. He has been married to the same woman for 20 years with her. He has never used drugs. He doesn’t drink. He’s like a health nut.
It is not what is normally included in music documents.
It’s more like, where is the friction in your life?
In that way, from the traditional rock and roll kind of story, it’s not that kind of story. He doesn’t have that kind of history.
How is that solved? Stories need tension, something to overcome, some deep, dark truth.
It takes tension, but for me there was all this dramatic tension around creativity, which I think is real.
My mentor, Peter Guralnick, a fantastic writer, told me early on that the least interesting things in stories about musicians are sex, drugs, and getting ripped off by their record label, because everyone has the exact same story. So what’s interesting after those things?
If you look at every film I’ve ever made, it’s always been the things beyond those things… My Steve Martin documentary, the last one I made, is very similar. It’s not about fame or drugs or anything like that. Steve is squeaky clean. But it’s about how you fight with your voice, how do you stay inspired?
Well, a second ago you mentioned that you felt like you might be done with music documentaries, but the next one is about Paul McCartney. How did you get on that path?
I couldn’t say no. I’ve been a Beatles fan my entire life.
But this is a movie about the period after their breakup, right?