‘I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not’ Director on Going Toe-to-Toe With Chevy

Marina Zenovich‘s “I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not” just isn’t your common superstar documentary. From the movie’s outset, it’s clear that the 82-year-old comic had zero editorial management over the project.

A minute into the TGB doc, Zenovich (“Lance,” “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind”) could be heard off digital camera saying to Chase, “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

His response: “No shit. It’s not going to be easy for you.”

“Why is it not going to be easy?” Zenovich asks.

“You’re not bright enough,” Chase deadpans. “How’s that?” Then the comic grins.

Zenovich says that while she was greatly surprised by Chase’s response, she was also relieved.

“I’d never done an interview where someone was so rude to me,” Zenovich tells Variety. “But I was so worried going into that first interview with him about how I was going to say to him, like, ‘Everyone thinks you’re an asshole.’ I thought if I did, he would throw me out of his house. So the minute he said that to me, I had a way in.”

The doc, premiering Jan. 1 on TGB, charts Chase’s rise from breakout “Saturday Night Live” to main man, his three marriages, his dependancy to cocaine and alcohol, coronary heart failure that led to a coma, childhood abuse, depression, a failed speak present, and the star’s varied on-set disputes with actors like Terry Sweeney and the complete forged of  the NBC comedy “Community.”

“I wanted to figure out who was the real person behind the conflicted, guarded and somewhat fragile man we see on camera,” Zenovich says. “What was behind the surface of his slightly intimidating superstar bravado? Was there any self-awareness there? Having interviewed Chevy at length, I have to say that yes, it’s all there – and a whole lot of pain and heartache too.”

In addition to Chase and his household, the doc consists of revealing interviews with the star’s former collaborators and confidants, including Mike Ovitz, Dan Aykroyd, Beverly D’Angelo, Goldie Hawn, Lorne Michaels, Ryan Reynolds and Martin Short.

Variety spoke with Zenovich and her husband, and long-time producing accomplice P.G. Morgan, about why Chase determined to make the doc and getting somebody, anybody, from “Community” to provide an interview.

You have labored together on fairly a few docs about celebrities, including “Lance,” about Lance Armstrong, “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind,” “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic,” “Jerry Brown: The Disrupter,” and “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.” Where does Chevy Chase price on the difficulty meter?

Zenovich: When I first sat down with Lance Armstrong, he was sitting at the fringe of a seat and able to spar with me. That is thrilling because you don’t know what you’re going get. Then I did Jerry Brown, whom I attempted to do that wit,h however he had no curiosity in any way. So, each individual is different. Chevy was keen to go there, however he would cease himself. He wouldn’t go all the means. The interviews with him had been very onerous.

Morgan: There had been a number of unknowns going into the interviews. Chevy is extremely quick-witted and always on, so you could have to have the ability to go toe-to-toe with him. He’s a bit intimidating as effectively, and we had a number of stuff that we wished to speak to him about – the good things and the sensitive stuff.

When it involves superstar documentaries, the superstar is normally selling one thing like a tour, a vogue line or a ebook. Chase wasn’t selling something. Why do you assume he wished to make this movie, which isn’t precisely a flattering portrait of him?

Zenovich:  Someone wrote a ebook about him, and I don’t assume that [Chase’s] household favored it. I believe they had been attempting to proper a fallacious. I don’t know in the event that they assume that they did because it has been onerous. [The doc] was a tough look ahead to him and his household, however I believe in the end they recognize it.

Morgan: I’m guessing that they felt as a household that he wasn’t getting his due. That there’s been a complete run of these documentaries about other people from his technology. I believe it harm that he hadn’t had the same recognition.

Do you assume that the people who said no to interviews, like Steve Martin and Christopher Guest, had been actually saying, ‘We don’t like the man’?

Zenovich: I can’t reply for them, however I believe that the absences communicate for themselves. Whether it’s scheduling, private, or saving it for their very own doc. In the end, I believe we received the right combination of people. I used to be initially disillusioned that we didn’t get more people from “Community,” however there are issues people don’t need to speak about.

How onerous was it to get anybody from “Community” to take a seat down with you?

Every single individual said no. I bumped into (“Community” creator) Dan Harmon at a screening of “Deaf President Now!” and I received his quantity. I used to be so excited. I believed it was going to occur however then he declined. I used to be so fortunate to get Jay Chandrasekhar (“Community” director). He has such a tremendous supply and he was keen to go there. If Jay had said no, I might have been screwed.

“I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not” premieres Thursday, Jan. 1, on TGB. The movie streams live for pay TV subscribers by way of TGB.com, TGB Connected TV and cellular apps on Jan. 1.