色多多

Reubens, he says, wanted to direct the documentary, but others advised against it. That鈥檚 when he entertained Wolf as director and began those talks.

Wolf quickly learned, 鈥淗e was very rebellious and slippery. He wouldn鈥檛 follow my lead with questions. He would make funny facial expressions, and it was a competitive dynamic.鈥�

Through 40 hours of interviews, however, Wolf was able to get an idea of who Reubens was and what kind of impact Pee-wee Herman had on him.

In the HBO documentary, 鈥淧ee-wee as Himself,鈥� Reubens discusses his early inspirations, his fame, his foibles and, briefly, his brushes with the law. Arrests for indecent exposure and possession of pornography may have dominated news cycles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but they were not a 鈥減oint of interest鈥� for the documentary.

鈥淧aul wanted to set the record straight, which I always said to him, 鈥榃hat happened to you was definitively unfair,鈥欌�� Wolf says. 鈥淏ut I became aware of how enduring that memory is for so many other people.鈥� Ignoring it wouldn鈥檛 have been right, so Wolf uses television footage from the era to show how it played in the media. He gets Reubens to weigh in, too, and explain how it affected him.

Because the interviews were contentious, Reubens cut ties with the filmmaker at one point and said the project was off. Wolf showed him 45 minutes of the film and Reubens admitted it was excellent, 鈥渂ut there was other stuff going on behind the scenes that I was unaware of.鈥� Reubens had been diagnosed with cancer and didn鈥檛 know how much time he had left.

When the project got back on track, Wolf still had more Q&A sessions to do. 鈥淚 had exhaustive questions that I intended to ask him and I hoped and prayed that I would have the opportunity to do that.鈥�

On the way to Los Angeles to resume the interviewing, Wolf got a call from an HBO official who asked if an Instagram post was real 鈥� that Reubens had just died as the result of cancer.

鈥淚 was in total, total shock,鈥� Wolf says. 鈥淗ow could someone that you鈥檝e spoken to for literally hundreds and hundreds of hours keep a secret like this from you?鈥� Reubens鈥� publicist and friend then called and said the actor had recorded something for the documentary 鈥� 鈥渉e ran out of time.鈥�

Wolf went to the publicist鈥檚 office and she played the audio. 鈥淚t was devastating, but I had to figure out a way to use that, not in a sensational manner,鈥� Wolf says. 鈥淭he week before we were locking the picture on the film, I put that audio where it lives now and we all agreed it was the right way to bridge to the ending of the film.鈥�

As much as the documentary is exhaustive, it鈥檚 probably not the last word from Reubens. In 鈥淧ee-wee as Himself,鈥� Wolf shows a huge warehouse where Reubens鈥� collections are stored. They include film from his early days, set pieces from 鈥淧ee-wee鈥檚 Playhouse,鈥� photographs, a treasure trove of items that amused him. 鈥淲e had an opportunity to film a lot of that stuff,鈥� Wolf says, 鈥渟o I know the estate has plans.鈥�

Of the material included in 鈥淧ee-wee as Himself,鈥� the most powerful concerns Reubens鈥� early relationships and his sexuality.

鈥淧ee-wee鈥檚 Playhouse鈥� emerged in the 1980s, 鈥渢he height of the culture wars,鈥� Wolf says. 鈥淧ee-wee is an anomaly: an experimental performance artist is making a children鈥檚 television show with 100 percent creative freedom on a major network. That鈥檚 remarkable. Pee-wee is a beacon of risk-taking, of doing something that hasn鈥檛 been done before, of building a new world. It鈥檚 becoming harder to do that in our media ecosystem, but we also are operating in times of intense censorship. I hope people can cut through that and still do things like what Paul did in his time.鈥�

鈥淧ee-wee as Himself鈥� airs on HBO.