David Beckham has opened up about the “really difficult” experience of being interviewed for 50 hours for the hit Netflix doc, while he praised director Fisher Stevens for making him feel “uncomfortable.”
Netflix has faced questions over the authenticity of Beckham, given that it was co-produced by his Studio 99 banner, but Beckham reiterated the point today that he first watched the show at its premiere and was not involved with its editing.
At the RTS London today, he laid out how tough the filming period was.
“It was really difficult and took me a long time to come to terms with the fact I was going to make it,” said the former soccer star. “It made me nervous and it made [wife] Victoria nervous because as much as people think they know everything about us, they don’t.”
Beckham said Succession star Stevens “took convincing” to direct the four-parter, but the former Man United star was immediately keen for him to helm the show as “he made me feel uncomfortable, and I had to feel uncomfortable to make the thing we made.”
He decided to let the cameras inside his home during the pandemic, when it struck him that it had been a decade since he retired from football, he added.
Beckham’s Studio 99 has also been behind Disney+ series Save our Squad and Prime Video’s Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything. It is now making a show about Beckham’s wife Victoria Beckham, again for Netflix.
Beckham said it was “hard to convince” Victoria to be the subject of her own doc, but “she had been such a big part of the process with Netflix and was like, ‘I love these people and the way they work’.”
During a wide-ranging keynote with Sister boss Jane Featherstone, Beckham voiced admiration for Michael Jordan for going from a “sports career to being an entrepreneur to being owner of a team.” “I wanted to do that if I ever had that opportunity,” he added.
Beckham was speaking on the same day as Netflix boss Ted Sarandos at the RTS convention.