Brand-ing problems

Comic Russell Brand is up in arms over a new documentary about his wild life

BRITISH comedian Russell Brand is not an easy man to make a documentary about. But director Ondi Timoner (“Dig!”) pulled it off — much to Brand’s chagrin.

“Brand: A Second Coming,” out Friday, chronicles the comic’s recent “Messiah Complex” tour and his move toward activism, including his YouTube show “The Trews,” in which British residents of a low-income housing complex fight off a corporation’s bid to kick them out.

But “Brand” also documents the manic funnyman’s less savory past: Heroin, sex addiction, celebrity and being Mr. Katy Perry.

Brand was none-too-thrilled with the portrayal.

“He was scared that it would derail his mission,” Timoner, 42 and based in Los Angeles, says. “This movie raises the past and questions his motives, because it needs to not be a puff piece. But he’s a manwho’s willing to take great risks. I don’t think it’s diluted because I show him scared in a bathroom, or admitting that he’s a narcissist.”

Brand agreed to be part of the film in 2012, but shooting did not go smoothly.

“We had several fights, one where I said something sarcastic at the wrong moment, and it was the night before our big interview, and I didn’t know if he was going to show up,” says the filmmaker.

This past spring, the “Get Him to the Greek” star bailed on the doc’s premiere, telling his director in typically verbose fashion that “we should have agreed, when we knew it would be about me, that my being unable to attend would be a foregone conclusion.”

But while her subject isn’t supporting the movie, Timoner stands by it. “It really gets people talking and thinking,” she says. “I hope people will pay attention, even if Russell Brand isn’t standing on a red carpet, waving.”