Bill Simmons, the Executive Producer of the new “Andre the Giant” documentary which premiered on HBO this week, recently spoke with ESPN on the making of the movie, and below are some interview highlights.
On Vince McMahon’s relationship with Andre the Giant and being conflicted about Andre’s wrestling career and legacy:
We don’t make that movie if [ Vince McMahon is ] not interviewed. We made that clear. He was obviously so protective of the Andre legacy and he had a lot of conflicted emotions of how it played out, and we talked about it even before we agreed to do the movie that he has to be interviewed. We can’t do it if you’re not in it. It’s tough. It’s all genuine and what he thought at the end was Vince used him. As soon as he couldn’t wrestle anymore it was like thanks and wrestling goes on. It’s pretty complicated.
There’s also a lot of things that could have been in the doc, but I think the pace is important. It’s 86 minutes and there’s a bunch of other stuff we could have added but then it slows down, and you have to keep things moving. One of things that could have been in it after we did the interviews was Andre’s relationship with Stephanie [McMahon]. She’s a little girl at that point, but Andre was like a big brother to her. He was unusually tight with that family, which makes things a lot more complicated.
On the movie building to the retelling of Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant at WrestleMania 3:
That’s my favorite part of the movie because Jason reinvents this thing that everyone already knew about. I was talking to Triple H after the premiere and he was really blown away by the movie and super-excited, but the thing he loves the most was that part, because it basically captures in the best way possible what it’s like to put together a storyline like that.
ESPN