If you ask the countless celebrities out there who’ve opened up to fans about their lives in documentaries, tell-all memoirs, or sit-down interviews,
chances are most of them will express how liberating it was to tell their story. After all, there’s nothing quite as freeing as living your authentic self.
For David Beckham, who gave a candid look into his retired life in his 2023 Netflix documentary Beckham,
sharing his story was indeed liberating, but also riddled with other emotions too.
In a new essay for The Hollywood Reporter, the former soccer pro talked about how daunting it was to be so vulnerable like that for the first time on camera.
“In all honesty, there were times when [director Fisher Stevens’] raw approach made me feel uncomfortable and a little bit nervous,” he admitted.
“But I knew that embracing this discomfort was a necessary part of the process. I told him that I only wanted to do this once, and I wanted to do it properly.”
Among his and his wife Victoria Beckham‘s candid confessions in the series were talking about the infidelity allegations from Rebecca Loos, how the pair first met, how they found out they were pregnant for the first time, David’s struggles with depression, and the many pressures of living in the public eye.
“I must admit I wasn’t fully prepared for the depth of commitment and emotional energy this process would require,” David continued. “It was challenging and at times, hard. I spent over 50 hours with Fisher, and every time I saw a session with him in my diary, I would try and come up with ways to get out of it!”
Much like a therapy appointment, Beckham felt emotionally rattled after a filming session with Stevens. “After each interview I found myself needing time alone to decompress,” he said. “Reflecting on both the highs and lows of my life and career was — at times — mentally and emotionally draining.”
“I realized that I had pushed so many of these feelings and emotions aside for years,” he reflected. “I had always been taught to hold everything in and put on a brave face. This was the first time I had truly confronted some pretty monumental moments in my life, and it was therapeutic.”
While we’re not mental health experts ourselves, letting go of past experiences and processing things is the best way to reflect on who you were, and what happened and keep moving forward. So while it might’ve taken David a whole film crew to get there, we’re happy that the release happened.
In Stevens’ own recollection of events to Variety, David did indeed start with the picture-perfect image he had been projecting all these years. Then, with some insistence, things began to change. “I realized anytime I went away from David, the story was bulls–,” Stevens told the outlet. “Then David started to really open up to me much more and the interviews started getting much more intricate and deeper. Then I was like, ‘Oh f–, I don’t need any of that stuff. I just need him and his wife.’” Looks like both David and Stevens found what they were looking for.
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Source: USA Today
