There’s renewed interest in the life and career of Paul Reubens thanks to the critically acclaimed two-part documentary Pee-Wee as Himself from HBO Max.
The film, from filmmaker Matt Wolf, recently hit the streamer after a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Wolf worked closely with Reubens in pulling together the project, culled from more than 40 hours of on-camera interviews and 1,000 hours of archival footage and shaped over what turned out to be an emotional rollercoaster lasting four years.
On the heels of Sundance revealing the 2025 lineup last December, The Hollywood Reporter happened to be on Zoom with Joe Manganiello to discuss the latest season of his buzzy new reality competition series Deal or No Deal Island. As the interview was winding down, THR asked Manganiello about the documentary and Reubens, someone he got to know quite well when he filmed a starring role in Netflix’s 2016 film Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday.
As it turned out, Manganiello had been thinking a lot about his friend, who died on July 30, 2023, following a private battle with cancer. “I love Paul and I miss Paul a lot,” Manganiello said, adding that he had recently woken up after having a dream about Reubens. “Paul showed up and pranked me with a practical joke in my dream. It was one of those dreams when you wake up and it feels really real. It was so vivid. I just thought, gosh, if there was anyone on the planet who would use the afterlife to figure out how to play a practical joke on his friends and prank them in their sleep, it would be Paul. He was so generous.”
As has been well-documented, Reubens loved birthdays and would never let one slip by without making it special. “When he found out when your birthday was, he would bombard you with birthday cards, birthday messages, birthday texts, birthday videos the entire day,” Manganiello recalled. “Friends of mine who just met him in passing through me, he would get their numbers and do it to ’em, too.”
In the film, Manganiello plays himself and the actor recalled that Reubens wrote the part specifically for him, calling the gesture “a validation that one of the great comedic geniuses would call me up” to be his partner on the film. “He was such a genius, but he didn’t demand that you treated him that way. I remember when we went to set the first day, I said, ‘Paul, when we get there, am I calling you Paul or am I calling you Pee-wee? Are you in character?’ He said, ‘No, I’m Paul.’ When I got there, he was there in a full-on suit and bow-tie [like Pee-Wee] but he was still Paul. He really wanted to set you up to win.”
Starring Reubens as the iconic Pee-wee Herman, the John Lee-directed Pee-wee’s Big Holiday follows the adventures of the title character after a fateful meeting with a mysterious stranger inspires him to take his first-ever holiday in this epic story of friendship and destiny. The cast also includes Jessica Pohly, Alia Shawkat and Stephanie Beatriz. Reubens co-wrote the film with Paul Rust and produced it alongside Judd Apatow.
A scene from Netflix’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday featuring Manganiello and Reubens.
Courtesy of Netflix
As for the doc, at the time of THR’s interview, Manganiello hadn’t yet seen Pee-Wee as Himself, but he was excited by the fact that it exists. “It’s a good time for it and I think it’s going to be really effective since it comes from his perspective,” said the veteran star. “I think there’s a lot of confusion with people about out what he was in trouble for and what he wasn’t in trouble for, and that narrative has gotten really muddy. I think that he really did get a raw deal, and it really hurt him deeply. He was someone that felt things really deeply, and it’s sad for me because I look back and I think about what the world would’ve been like had he not had to go into this self-imposed exile or this kind of society-imposed exile. It was dumb.”
Manganiello, like so many of Reubens’ close friends and collaborators, did not know about his years-long battle with cancer. And speaking about him in the interview caused him to get choked up and fight back tears, an emotional moment that he later discussed with People Magazine.
“I think about him all the time. I miss him a lot. He was like a family member. He would come over for Thanksgiving, he would come over to the house all the time, or I’d go to his [house],” recalled Manganiello, getting teary. “He sent me a video before he passed away. It was just him talking about how much he loved me and how great I was in the movie and how funny he thought I was, how great of an actor he thought I was. It was just this glowing, unbelievable video. I didn’t realize that he was sending that because he knew that his time was going to be short. I still have it in my phone and it’s hard knowing that it’s in there, but that’s just the kind of person that he was. He let everybody that he loved know that he loved him all the time. I just feel so privileged to have had the chance to work with him on that intimate of a level and to get to know him as a person. I was his biggest fan. I loved him. I’ll always miss him.”
