There have been quite a few documentaries, over the years, about the life and work of Andy Kaufman, the offbeat comedy genius who starred on Taxi and Saturday Night Live, reinvented himself as a pro wrestling heel, and then died of lung cancer in 1984. The documentaries have focused on Kaufman’s wrestling career, the biopic in which Jim Carrey played him, and other aspects; there was even a different one, Thank You Very Much, that arrived just a couple of months ago.
But Andy Kaufman is Me, which had its world premiere on June 6 at the Tribeca Film Festival, has something that the others didn’t: The cooperation of Kaufman’s surviving family members, some audio diaries never before heard, and even a fantasy novel that the entertainer was working on before his untimely death. Also, unlike just about every other Kaufman project of the last 40 years, the new documentary does not bother indulging in speculation that Kaufman might have faked his own death.
On the eve of the film’s Tribeca premiere, we talked with its director Clay Tweel (Print the Legend, Gleason) about the film, dealing with the Kaufmans, WWE, and Jerry “The King” Lawler, and how his movie differs from all the other examinations of Andy Kaufman.
So tell me first of all, what brought you to Andy Kaufman? When were you first aware of him? Did you grow up watching stuff about him? Tell me a little bit about that first.
I mean, I’ve been a fan of Andy for a long time. I was born in ’81, so I didn’t have a lot of overlap with his career in real time. But certainly was somebody… I was a kid who watched a lot of TV myself, I remember a lot of Taxi reruns, and SNL has been a staple in my house for a long time. So I very early on remember seeing the Mighty Mouse bit, and just seeing like, even some of the the wrestling stuff when I was little.
But it wasn’t until I was in watching Man on the Moon, and then at the advent of the internet and being able to have access to a lot of his former performances, that I really started to like him even more. And seeing some of the stuff like the I’m from Hollywood old documentary, where it’s a lot about his wrestling and, and the way that he would troll the audience. I just thought it was so unique. And it made me feel lots of different contrasting uncomfortable emotions that really stuck with me. And I thought that, yeah, that was just like, I had a great appreciation for what he was doing. And so that’s sort of my history with Andy.
What was the origin of the film project? How did you come to it?
The film actually originated with Dwayne Johnson and his company Seven Bucks. They were looking to make a doc just about Andy’s wrestling career. And they connected with not only David Letterman and his company, Worldwide Pants, but then they brought Ross Dinerstein at Campfire, and then Shannon Riggs and me on to work on the project.
And we all collectively were approaching the family to talk to them about collaborating with us and telling the story. Andy’s brother and sister, Michael and Carol, they were telling us there hasn’t really been a film that has shown the full breadth and depth of who they knew their brother was. And they wanted something that was perhaps a little broader in scope. And I said, Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. I’m totally down with that. But what are the tools and the toolkit in order to make that story happen? How are we going to do that?
And that’s when they told us about these 84 hours worth of audio that Andy recorded over about six or seven years. And they were, for me, I was most interested in like, phone calls with with friends and family, but also sort of his inner monologues about how he was thinking about his creative process, and coming up with potential new ideas for bits.
So that was like, the key to me was these audio tapes, and being able to hear from Andy’s own voice, the way that he went through his life and his career. And that was like the prism through which I think we could get to see the person behind the persona that was known by so many people.
So I guess you had more access to his siblings and to the family than other documentaries I have. Would that be fair to say?
Yes, correct. Yeah, this is like the Kaufman estate and his family were, as far as I know, this is the only authorized version from the family. And they were just integral to being able to tell the story in this way. And not only giving us these audio tapes, but there are home movies, there are videos of Andy in college, that I personally have never seen anywhere else before.
But also just like people that are in his innermost circle, I loved being able to interview Glenn Barrett and Greg Sutton, who are some of his high school friends, who could give you direct anecdotes about what Andy was like at that point in his life, and how that shaped some of who he was later in his adult career.
I know you had the cooperation, I know you had the tapes, and there have been many, many documentaries with Andy Kaufman before, including one actually that was earlier this year. So what was it that you wanted to do differently with this one than the ones that people have seen before?
I mean, I think that the main focus for me was to be able to have Andy speak for himself in a way that maybe had not been seen before and really try to humanize him and have him be as relatable because you’re giving the audience the opportunity to emotionally connect with Andy as he’s speaking and as he’s sort of authoring his own experience.
I also really love that, as someone who was a fan of Andy, I had never heard of his book that he was working on for a long time, The Huey Williams Story. And so I did not realize until talking to his former assistant and his brother and sister how much he cared about that book… And so it meant a lot to me because it meant a lot to Andy.
And I structured the film to mirror the structure of how Andy structured the book in some way and put some emphasis on bringing some of the stories that he put in that book and bringing them to life because I felt like he would appreciate that. And yeah, it meant a lot to him. So I wanted to pay homage in the best way I could.
Right, so some of the previous documentaries and also Man on the Moon have kind of delved into the idea that he isn’t really dead or that he faked his own death. You didn’t quite do that so much. Was that a conscious choice to stay away from that?
Yeah, of course, I considered it when first looking at all of the, the archive that we had around that and talking to people, but I just felt like, this was perhaps a more grounded version and take on on Andy and his life. And I feel like it was something that that had been well covered in other places.
And I just felt like there was a real satisfaction as we were crafting the movie and the edit to being able to… There was a sadness, but also a sense of completion to the story, with just leaving it as it was, that he passed when he did back in ’84.
Right, so I saw the WWE logo at the top and you mentioned that Dwayne Johnson was involved. Did you deal a lot with WWE in this? I know they end up owning a lot of the old wrestling footage. I assume that they ended up with that footage, or maybe I’m wrong about that?
I mean, it was honestly, I felt like great to have them involved because there’s so many people and Dwayne can speak to this as well, and has spoken about it, that like so many wrestlers look to Andy as an inspiration and how good his heel character was back in the early ‘80s that a lot of those guys draw inspiration from.
So I didn’t know that and it’s something that I learned in coming into this process and being able to have this project initially started as something that was going to be a little more focused on wrestling and then broaden out. But that was a cool fact to learn.
And yeah, the wrestling stuff, the footage that we got, not only from WWE, but also from Jerry Lawler himself, who I was able to interview down in Memphis and has kept a lot of archive material himself of all of he and Andy’s matches over the years.
I know he had some health stuff, is he doing okay?
Yes, I think he he’s he’s doing all right and when we were there he was still dealing with it a little bit. But man, Jerry was awesome. He was just so sweet and he loves Andy so much. It was great to talk to him.
And you have distribution? Or not yet?
We don’t have distribution yet. We’re hoping to make a splash at Tribeca and let the chips fall where they may.
