Colin Hanks Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment The late funnyman and actor John Candy was the mascot of laughter and fun in Hollywood comedies before his unexpected death in 1994. But Colin Hanks, in directing his feature documentary John Candy: I Like Me for Prime Video, discovered Candy's comedy genius on camera and off masked private struggles like childhood trauma, anxiety and self-esteem issues that he never fully tackled in his own lifetime. "The truth of the matter is, the very man that we're celebrating, who was so sweet, so sincere, so caring, so genuine, those are all traits that developed from coping mechanisms," Hanks tells The Hollywood Reporter as his feature debuts Friday on Prime Video globally. Related Stories TV 'Butterfly' and 'Countdown' Canceled After Single Seasons at Prime Video TV Aldis Hodge Is Back on the Hunt in Season 2 'Cross' Teaser Ultimately, what worked for Candy for most of his life to fend off personal ghosts and the pressures of Hollywood fame is what drew Hanks to direct John Candy: I Like Me. In the below conversation, Hanks opens up about what it took to get him to direct a feature film about John Candy, playing bad guy roles and why he couldn't imagine making a documentary again without Ryan Reynolds on speed dial to help him out of a creative or logistical hole. What first drew you to directing John Candy: I Like Me, a film about the late Canadian funnyman and actor? My producing partner had sort of floated the idea of doing a doc on John, and I kind of dismissed it at first. I was just, I don't know how to do that. He's such a nice guy. I don't know what the angle is, and my plate was a little full at that time and I didn't quite have the bandwidth. Then you got a call from Ryan Reynolds. Basically, he [Reynolds] just called and he was such a fan. He said, "I just can't believe that there's not a John Candy documentary out there, and I don't know if I want to live in a world where one doesn't exist. But I don't know what that movie looks like." And I said, "I agree with you on all of those fronts." I didn't disagree there should be a John Candy doc. But I didn't know how to approach that. We just had a lovely conversation, and I said I needed some time to come up with a theme, with a take. I then went off for about a month, I started doing a bunch of research, and there were two things that really landed super hard for me. The fact that John's father passed on his fifth birthday when his father was 35. That struck me as an incredibly traumatic thing to go through as a young kid and obviously shaped his entire existence. And then [John's son] Chris had mentioned that John had really started to suffer from anxiety attacks, panic attacks and started going to therapy to start working on himself. Because all of the things that had been working for him his whole life were all of a sudden no longer helping him. I said that is a film that I want to explore. And it just so happened that it's also a film about John Candy. Candy's backstory - the trauma of his father's early death, tackling his mental health issues - was hardly talked about, if at all, during the 1970s and 80s, but those issues are openly discussed today. Did that dichotomy factor into your decision to direct the documentary?The truth of the matter is, the very man that we're celebrating, who was so sweet, so sincere, so caring, so genuine, those are all traits that developed from coping mechanisms. Those are all traits that he learned at a very, very young age, living in a house with his mom and his aunt and his brother - essentially his entire family but not his father. And so one of their coping mechanisms was you invite a bunch of people over, you have a lot of food, yes, drinks, you have a good time. And that's not bad. That's a very human instinct. But it instilled in him something that, in one regard we're celebrating, and then in another regard ended up being the thing that kind of was no longer working for him. In that time, therapy was hardly discussed, definitely not in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe a little bit more in the 1980s. But those were what people would call serious uptown problems. You were lucky if you were able to talk about your problems. A lot of people we spoke to for the film said I don't know anything about that. We just don't talk about that stuff. The documentary also shows people, especially during media interviews, being very insensitive to Candy's issues, especially his struggles with obesity, and saying so to his face. No, it just wouldn't fly at all today. And if you're observant; he's uncomfortable. Towards the end, he sort of deals with it, a little bit more head on as he sort of deflects and stands up for himself, while still being polite and being kind. But I was really taken aback by how uncomforta