How Judd Apatow Got Mel Brooks to Open Up on Self-Doubt, Jewishness and Anne Bancroft in HBO Doc ‘The 99-Year-Old Man!’

How do you chronicle a career as vast, influential and dynamic as Mel Brooks’? By making an epic, two-part documentary that spans nearly four hours, of course. And the right man to tackle that job is Judd Apatow, who has made a habit of beautifully capturing the lives and legacies of iconic comedians in documentaries about Gary Shandling, George Carlin and, now, Mel Brooks.

“The 99-Year-Old Man” finds Apatow sitting across from the 99-year-old Brooks, digging deep into his early life as a young man suffering PTSD and making a move into comedy writing with greats like Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner. The film covers quite literally everything – Brooks’s struggle to break out of the writers’ room, his show-stopping success with films like “Blazing Saddles,” “Spaceballs” and “History of the World,” his decades-long romance with wife Anne Bancroft, and how wearing his Jewishness openly and proudly made him a target of antisemitism.

“I think I always just wanted more from Mel,” Apatow told TheWrap of making the film ahead of its two-part premiere on HBO. “He’s always hilarious and outrageous and he has all these incredible anecdotes, but I think my interest in documentaries and interviews is in just going as deep as I can to ask how did you do it? What was your inspiration? How did you survive the failures? What inspired the successes? How did you manage having this work life and a family life, and what were the challenges? What wisdom did you get?”

Apatow co-directed the film with Michael Bonfiglio, who said he was struck by how candid Brooks got about self-doubt throughout his career despite his success.

“To me, that was just fascinating, because the persona is this brash, loud, confident, swaggery guy, but underneath it, and even after success, there’s this self-doubt,” Bonfiglio told TheWrap.

One of the many revelations in the film is the antisemitism that Brooks faced, especially during World War II and after, as he leaned into his Jewishness in his comedy.

“If you look at the course of his career, with ‘The Producers’ he’s writing a lot of comedy that is attacking power structures. He’s making jokes about the Nazis. It’s all speaking truth to power. Even in ‘The History of the World,’ it’s about governments taking advantage of the citizens. So I think that that morality was in him always. Whether it was conscious or unconscious, he was doing it. He likes to say he was just trying to be funny. But why did he go back time after time to something that was ethical?”

Read on for our full chat ahead of the two-part premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Thursday and Friday.

At the beginning of this process, you say you’re going to make a Mel Brooks documentary, but where do you start? What’s the beginning of this process for you guys?

Judd Apatow: I think I always just wanted more from Mel. He’s always hilarious and outrageous and he has all these incredible anecdotes, but I think my interest in documentaries and interviews is in just going as deep as I can and ask how did you do it? What was your inspiration? How did you survive the failures? What inspired the successes? How did you manage having this work life and a family life, and what were the challenges? What wisdom did you get? I’m just endlessly curious, especially from someone who’s 99 years old, who’s seen so many periods of American history and the culture. So that was our hope, that can we get Mel to go to a place we hadn’t seen him go to before.

And how did you do that? He’s very sharp but he’s still 99 years old. How did you gain his trust?

Apatow: I tried to be honest with him about my intentions. And he certainly is a little suspect of opening up, it’s not his natural state, but he does have a lot of important things to say, and he slowly relaxed into it. And before you know it he was sharing some feelings and telling us about moments that we didn’t expect him to. I think he enjoyed the process. Part of the joke I would say to him — but I meant it — was, “Mel, isn’t it fun talking to me?! We get to hang out and talk! How else would we get to do this if we weren’t making the movie?” So I think he also got a kick out of it, because when you are that wise and brilliant, you do want to give it to somebody. So why not find someone mediocre like me to try to help improve?

I was surprised by how candid he gets in those conversations, talking about his PTSD and feeling personally frustrated when he was a writer, and knowing that he was good, but hitting walls. He had a confidence, and still does, that I think a lot of comedians would really envy, but he opened up in a really surprising way.

Michael Bonfiglio: Yeah, I think that confidence, though, also comes with an intense feeling of imposter syndrome and feeling that he was no good and that he didn’t have it, and he was throwing up on the way to work between parked cars because he was so nervous and felt so intimidated by the all the other brilliant writers on the Sid Caesar shows. To me, that was just fascinating, because the persona is this brash, loud, confident, swaggery guy, but underneath it, and even after success, there’s this self-doubt. There’s a moment in the film where I think his son Max talks about how he was reluctant to write the songs for “The Producers” musical because he didn’t know if he had it, and his wife Anne said to him, “But you’re a songwriter, you can do this.” I love that sort of duality of the confidence but also the insecurity and the anxiety that he had to really work through in order to make the wonderful things that he made.

Something that’s also particularly revelatory is understanding that early in his career, it was bold of him to own his Jewishness, to be so openly Jewish with these characters. Was that something you guys were aware of coming in? Did he open up about that more than you expected?

Apatow: I think that maybe some of that took him by surprise. Obviously, he was always a proud Jewish person, and talks about being in the Army and having confrontations with people who were antisemitic. He came out of World War II and started working for Sid Caesar on “The Show of Shows” and I think there were a lot of Jewish writers on the show, some of the best writers in the history of comedy were there. Then after that, he did “The 2,000-Year-Old Man” with Carl Reiner, which they kind of stumbled into. It was just a party gag that they would do where Carl Reiner would interview the 2,000-year-old man, and he did it with a Jewish voice because that was what was natural to him. I don’t think he was making a statement. It just made him laugh, because I’m sure it was based on people in his community and a certain type of attitude.

But then, if you look at the course of his career, with “The Producers” he’s writing a lot of comedy which is attacking power structures. He’s making jokes about the Nazis. It’s all speaking truth to power. Even in “The History of the World,” it’s about governments taking advantage of the citizens. So I think that that morality was in him always. Whether it was conscious or unconscious, he was doing it. He likes to say he was just trying to be funny. But why did he go back time after time to something that was ethical?

“May the Schwartz Be With You” too.

Apatow: He made “Star Wars” Jewish!

The heart of this film is Anne, and the footage you guys found is so lovely, and the way you kind of linger and let these scenes play out between the two of them. What went into the decision to let so much of that footage play out and really center their relationship in the movie?

Bonfiglio: They had one of the great, enviable Hollywood romances and love stories, so we always knew that that was going to be a big part of the film. It was so exciting to see that footage. It’s the stuff that you would otherwise never find anywhere, and there were all of these great moments, like outtakes from the episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” that they did, to really see them in their natural state. Not necessarily performing so much, but just being themselves. Anne was so incredibly charming in interviews and stuff, and the way that she talks about Mel — there’s an interview, I think with Gene Shallot, where she says how it made her feel when she would hear the key in the door and say, “Oh, the party’s going to start,” because it meant Mel was coming home. That love and excitement to be together is just inspiring.

It’s heartbreaking too. You can tell that Mel still misses her so much. The film has a number of interviews with people who are no longer with us – you’ve got Carl Reiner in there, but also Rob Reiner and David Lynch. It’s a bit of an emotional jump scare.

Apatow: The Carl Reiner interview was archival footage from the Academy, but we interviewed Rob Reiner about a year ago and David Lynch two months before he died. When we went to visit David Lynch, he was very enthusiastic to do the interview, even though he was ill, because Mel really gave him the opportunity of a lifetime. He watched “Eraserhead,” and while he was watching it, David Lynch had to wait outside of the theater, and that was going to determine if he was going to get this job directing “The Elephant Man.” And David Lynch was like, “There’s no way he’s going to like this movie,” and then Mel came out and said, “You’re a genius!” and then really backed him up and protected him with his final cut. That led to everything that we got after from David Lynch. And the funniest part was when I asked David Lynch about what his favorite Mel Brooks movies were, he’s like, “I don’t even know if I’ve seen all the movies. I don’t care. I love the man.”

Bonfilgio: He had never seen one of those movies, but he loved Mel so much.

Apatow: Rob Reiner and Carl Reiner were just the best of the best, just kind hilarious artists always fighting for people and for issues that mattered to them. So it’s devastating to be in this moment with what occurred. What they’re talking about is grief. Rob is explaining what Mel’s grief was like when Carl died, and part of the documentary is about grief. It is about Mel’s experience as a man about to turn 100 losing a lot of the people he loved, and how he soldiers on. He really believes that you’re not supposed to suffer and have it completely take down your life. What are the words he uses, Mike?

Bonfiglio: You don’t have to pay for losing somebody.

Apatow: I think that’s how he goes on. Because these are beloved people, just irreplaceable people. It’s s unspeakably tragic, but I am glad that in the documentary, you get to see how wonderful Rob Reiner was. He’s so funny and open and giving in those interviews. I hope people can also enjoy having some moments with him.

The whole film is really a heartfelt tribute in celebration of these brilliant comedians who, as artists, have shaped culture for over half a century now. It’s also very sweet the way that you, Judd, talk to Mel about being present when Carl died. He was able to be there with his best friend at the end, when he took his last breaths.

Apatow: I didn’t know that story. It just came up because we were talking about something that Rob Reiner said. I asked him, “What is the core of their friendship? Why are they so close?” And he said, “I think Mel sees my dad as a father figure.” So I asked Mel about that, and he said, “Yeah, because he’s, he’s tall and he’s kind and he’s warm and he’s giving.” Mel had lost his dad when he was two years old, and I never would have thought his relationship with Carl was father-son-like in a million years, because when you watch them, you think Mel is dominating. He’s the one with the energy and the crazy, but it makes perfect sense. He’s more like the wild, hilarious kid trying to make his dad laugh. And then suddenly it all makes sense. They were friends for over 70 years.

The documentary is epic, but was there anything left that you wish you could have put in?

Bonfiglio: There were things that I think are interesting to scholars of Mel, like the short film “The Critic” that he won an Oscar for, or in the early ‘60s. But we’re always interested in keeping a narrative together and having it be an entertaining narrative that keeps you engrossed. There were things that we had to leave behind, but nothing that was terribly painful that I can think of.

I don’t think anyone would ever complain about a Mel Brooks documentary being too long.

Apatow: That’s my theory about everything. All things should be longer. I’m trying to teach the young people to have an attention span by making everything almost four hours long. It’s a gift to America.

Judd, I know you have this Maria Bamford doc that’s playing at Sundance and up for distribution. Both of you are working in the doc space, and it’s hard right now to get docs made and sold. How are you feeling about being able to tell these kinds of stories and the market for docs overall?

Apatow: There was a little run where all the streamers were making a lot of docs, and now it feels like they’re being more selective, and have decided what kind of docs they think people watch. I think generally, you do get a repetition of the types of material that you’re seeing, and I enjoy all of it, but you will see an enormous amount of crime. You’ll see an enormous amount of celebrity and sports. For me, I like seeing documentaries that break the forms, and I don’t need them to be about famous people, and they can be strange stories and told in unique ways. I think a lot of those documents are getting made. I think it’s harder for them to get the type of distribution where they’re widely seen.

When we did the Maria Bamford doc, my intention was to spend a lot of time following her around, and we did for almost three years, and to go really deep. How I handled it was just by self-financing it, because I didn’t want it to be watered down in any way, and I wanted it to have its own original approach, because Maria is so unique. So that was my solution. So now I’m going to show it at Sundance, and hope I can get distribution at the end of it, but I just wanted it to be as authentic as her. Hopefully the streamers will continue to embrace documentaries even more, because I love them. There’s been so much amazing work, and I just hope that that market gets more and more healthy and not all on the same subjects.

You’ve done Mel, you’ve done Gary Shandling. Is there another white whale subject you’re hoping to tackle?

Apatow: I just finished a documentary about Norm Macdonald for Netflix, and that will be on, I think, closer to the end of the year. Then I’m working on one about the Bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings that we’re in the middle of. I’m directing that with Chris Wilcher.

“The 99-Year-Old Man” debuts Thursday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO followed by part two debuting Friday, Jan. 23 on HBO. Both parts will be available to stream beginning Thursday, Jan. 22 on HBO Max.

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