The RUSSELL BRAND DISASTER MOVIE
A father who introduced him to hookers. A mother he told: ‘I’m the second Jesus.’ A control freak who’d rather ‘kill his own pets’ than let you see...
AS A film-maker, I’ve met all kinds of famous people, rebels, even heads of state – but no one quite like Russell Brand. He approached me to help him complete a four-year documentary he was trying – and failing – to make about happiness.
At the time, I knew him only as the boyfriend of pop star Katy Perry. I’d never read a word of his bestselling autobiography My Booky Wook, nor heard any of his jokes. Neither was I aware of the outrage he had sparked by leaving obscene messages on the phone of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.
Initially, I was bowled over by his intelligence and charisma. He is by turns Adonis, Mad Hatter, and monarch. I was intrigued.
By the time I got back to my car after our first meeting, I’d already received an email that began: ‘I am enchanted. Everything you said was right – and what’s more you said it in those boots.’
It was the start of a sort of seduction in which Russell pursued me daily. Once, I received a text of a moving photo in which every letter of the alphabet was formed by Kama Sutra positions, and a voicemail where he enquired: ‘ Have you become obsessed with me yet?’
He persuaded me to watch one of his stand-up performances. He was working on material that would eventually become the Messiah Complex stage show, in which he offers his ironic take on the cult of celebrity – and compared himself to figures such as Gandhi, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ. It inspired the name of my documentary, BRAND: A Second Coming.
I agreed to make the film if I could make it about him. He was thrilled, but the strange flaws and contradictions in his character soon started to emerge.
When, for example, I went to see Russell for the first prearranged interview at his home in Beverly Hills, he asked me to wait a few minutes, but then disappeared for more than an hour. One of his close friends found him concealed behind a golf cart in his driveway on his phone. He seemed to want to hide from me.
Then, before the second day of shooting, where I was booked to travel with him, I received a call from a handler saying that I was not to ask him a single question. I declined to attend.
Russell had seemed so open. I wondered what he was hiding...
It is true, certainly, that in the course of our time together, I discovered many things about his troubled past.
His first girlfriend, Elia Alvarez, who dated Russell when they were both at drama school, told me that there were two sides to him – ‘good and evil’ – and that she felt the good side came from his mother, the bad from his father. She stayed with him until she could no longer tolerate his womanising ways.
When, after two years of trying, I was finally able to speak with his father, he openly admitted that he had taken his then teenage son to Hong Kong to ‘make a man out of him’, which included sex parties with prostitutes.
The man who helped Brand recover from drug addiction, Chip Somers, identified his sex addiction in the film. His manager, John Noel, elaborated how women would line up after a gig, and Russell would go through them like ‘eating a bag of chips or a Mars bar’.
TV presenter Jonathan Ross told me that women would point to the bathroom and offer themselves up for ‘some sort of degrading exchange of fluids’.
In our film, one girl even went into a lavatory with him and offered to hold his penis while he urinated. Very strange.
I realised that Russell had bought into all the myths we are told will make us happy – drugs, sex with thousands of women, fame – and taken them all to the hilt. He even married the biggest pop star in the world – only to come up empty and still searching. Russell’s friends told me about how his relationship with Katy started to go wrong.
Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher says on the film: ‘Russell called me after he had married Katy and said, “What happens when she wants to watch a film and I want to watch another?” I said, “Is that it? Just f***ing let her watch the film. Surely you’ve got enough money for two television sets.”’
Most women end up with Russell romantically or become maternal figures – there’s seemingly little in between.
Russell’s mother, Barbara, openly addresses his messiah complex, and recalls on film how as a child: ‘Russell came in to my bedroom and he said that he was the second Jesus. He was very upset that I didn’t believe him… But that’s not a normal thing for a son to say, is it?’
As filming progressed, it became clear that Russell was used to controlling pretty much everything – there was always a small fortress of handlers around him, and my access could be revoked at any minute.
He admitted that he had dismissed various crews over the years as he attempted to make the documentary. He demanded that I cut many scenes, and I did make some alterations, but I had to draw the line at some point to protect the film.
He also insisted that I take out a scenes where he is clearly very disturbed on Newsnight when The Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens angrily suggests it is inappropriate to have a comedian speaking on drug policy.
Russell was uncomfortable with this and many other scenes in which he appears in any way vulnerable.
When he watched the first final cut of the film, he called me and his voice sounded like a rubber band that was about to snap.
‘Incredible film,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, it’s about me.’
He continued to threaten, saying that he would personally repay the investors millions of pounds rather than see this film ever get released. He then called me at the Sundance Film Festival and said: ‘I’d rather you shoot my pets than this film see the light of day!’ The budget and schedule were both long exhausted, but I did my best to please him. I made many changes for him, shooting additional interviews, cutting scenes and adding some of the 30 minutes of additional stand-up material he insisted should go in.
However, many of his changes I just couldn’t do. Peter Hitchens stayed in. So did one of my favourite scenes in which a schoolgirl gently teases him: ‘You married Katy Perry!’
Russell retorts playfully: ‘Shut up about that! Maybe one day you’ll marry Katy Perry and how will you feel if some punk kid comes up to you!’ I thought it was charming, but it hit a personal hotspot.
I still admire my docustar, who has real talent and one of the sharpest minds. Russell decided to boycott the premiere, however, and instructed his friends and family to do the same. Sadly, we are no longer talking.
Brand: A Second Coming will be released in UK cinemas on Friday.
‘Have you become obsessed with me yet?’ ‘His contradictions and flaws soon emerged’ ‘I’d rather you shoot my pets than release this film’