ALL ABOUT STEVE

STEVE! (MARTIN) ADOCUMENTARY IN 2PIECES Apple gets to the core of a crazy guy…

An older Steve Martin is happier and more comfortable with himself

What’s great about Steve is, he’s funny but also intellectual,’ says Morgan Neville, who has made documentaries on Bono, Johnny Cash and Keith Richards, but is best known for Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018), the heartwarming, soul-searching study of iconic children’s TV host Fred Rogers. ‘There’s something about that high-culture/low-culture thing that Steve does that I love. You can be stupid and you can be really smart at the same time.’

As the title suggests, STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces divides the legendary comic and actor’s life into twin sections. The first, aided by a stunning array of archive material, wads of which were previously unseen, tracks his childhood, education, love of magic, jobs at Disneyland, and the 15 years spent chiselling away at an avant ‐garde routine that reinvented stand-up comedy, until it at last took off and Martin started selling out stadiums… only to walk away. The second section hangs out with Martin now, in his 70s, a devoted husband and father who’s dipped back into stand-up and is enjoying the success of TV show Only Murders in the Building with his best pal Martin Short.

‘You can be stupid and you can be really smart at the same time’

MORGAN NEVILLE

‘The Steve you meet in the second film, you wonder: “How did he become this guy from the guy he was in the first film?”’ ponders Neville. ‘He had all this success, and then he was like, “Oh, success doesn’t make me happy.” It’s the oldest story. But Steve is somebody who worked on it, you know? Steve is a problem-solver. Literally, he’s doing puzzles all the time, and all the things he’s mastered – banjo and magic and stand-up – are 10,000-hour pursuits. Turning that on himself was another project that took him years.’

Neville smiles. This doc was his dream project – at 12 years of age, he knew Martin’s bestselling comedy albums by heart, and got his dad to take him to the comic’s last standup shows in Las Vegas. But he’s delighted for Martin, too. ‘He’s very happy now, but that took a long, long time. Steve’s whole stand-up career, he was alone, always. He now has a comedic partner, a wife, a child, a band, a cartoon partner...’

He also grew closer to the father who never granted him approval, learning ‘how to deal with anger and hurt, and how to articulate it so that it doesn’t fester’. It’s all there in the doc, which, it should be pointed out, also whizzes through his Hollywood career (The Jerk, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Bowfinger etc.) and is downright hilarious.

‘I showed it to him, and he wrote back right after he watched it, and said, “I love it.” And then he wrote another email 10 minutes later saying, “Can I show it to my shrink?”’

STEVE! (MARTIN) A DOCUMENTARY IN 2 PIECES PREMIERES ON APPLE TV+ ON 29 MARCH.