Jason Woliner is still trying to figure out why he has spent more than 10 years of his life working on a strange comedic docuseries about a middle-aged Florida man who tweeted at him out of the blue.
Earlier this month, the director of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and several Nathan for You episodes finally premiered Paul T. Goldman on Peacock. And as he explains in his return to The Last Laugh podcast, the impossible-to-describe project has left him with more questions than answers about its mysterious protagonist.
In this episode, Woliner talks about how working with Sacha Baron Cohen helped inform his freewheeling approach to Paul T. Goldman. He also addresses the many comparisons that have been made to his friend and collaborator Nathan Fielder’s HBO series The Rehearsal—including allegations that he’s “exploiting” the man at the center of his show.
When Woliner was on The Last Laugh podcast just over two years ago, he did not let on that he was almost a decade into working on the secret project that ultimately turned into Paul T. Goldman. “It wouldn’t have been a secret project if I had,” the director tells me with a laugh.
It all started on Twitter. “In April of 2012, I got a tweet from a guy calling himself Paul T. Goldman,” Woliner explains, alluding to the fact that he later found out that, among other fabrications, that was not his real name. “He basically said he had an incredible story to tell and asked if I would help him bring it to the screen. It was a movie at the time. He said the screenplay is written.”
When he clicked on Goldman’s account, he quickly realized that Goldman had tweeted the same thing to hundreds of other Hollywood directors and producers. “People ask why did he single me out?” Woliner says. The answer is, “He did not.”
Woliner “devoured” Goldman’s book Duplicity: A True Story of Crime and Deceit about marrying a woman who he believed was leading a “double life” as part of an international sex-trafficking ring. He was the only person who replied to Goldman and said he was interested in a collaboration.
“Some of this process has been me figuring out why I was so obsessed with this,” Woliner says. “People ask me why I did this, why I devoted so much time and so many years to it. Part of the show is me trying to figure that out. I have to admit that I thought it was funny, but it was also far beyond that. A lot of it is really heartbreakingly sad. A lot of it is really shocking, and a lot of it is moving, and a lot of it is weirdly inspiring. So if it was just about making something funny out of this or making fun of a person, it’s not something I would’ve devoted a decade to.”
It took Woliner more than a decade to bring the project to the screen, partly because his approach to the material—essentially a hybrid docuseries, dramatization, and real-life cringe comedy—made for a difficult pitch and an even harder sell. It wasn’t until Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg signed on as producers and he had the Borat sequel under his belt that streaming services finally started getting interested, with Peacock ultimately agreeing to produce the six-episode series.
Critics have expressed their frustration that the streamer decided to provide the first five episodes for review but withheld the finale ahead of its release on Jan. 22. The director says it’s because the episode is still being edited, but he’s already feeling the pressure to stick the landing.
Woliner says he’d love to pretend that he doesn’t read reviews. “But I read everything,” he admits. In particular, he was struck by the way The Hollywood Reporter ended its review of the series by framing the finale as a make-or-break moment.
“A smart ending could have me hailing Paul T. Goldman as subversive and brilliant,” reviewer Daniel Fienberg wrote. “A dumb ending could have me lamenting it as rubbernecking trash.”
“I was like, all right, I hope you enjoy it!” Woliner says in response.
Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing by subscribing to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.
In one episode, you explicitly address the question of whether the series is “exploiting” Paul. I didn’t feel that way, but it did make me wonder whether Paul knows how funny he is. Because there is so much humor in the show, and you said that was part of what drew you to it. So I’m curious what that was like to direct him, knowing that you found it funny, but sort of unsure whether he did.
I knew he found it funny because, even when I met him, he knew that people were laughing at elements of his story, which was very serious to him and has a lot of pain. When I met him, he wanted to do public speaking engagements to tell his story. And he had made a shirt—and this is not in the show—but on the front it said, “From Wimp to Warrior” and had his book cover. And he said, “When I’m telling my story on stage, I’ll get to a point where I’m a complete idiot, I ignore a red flag, I’m a total moron, and then I’ll turn around and the audience will read the back of my shirt in unison.” And on the back of his shirt, it said in big letters, “What a schmuck!” So this is someone who’s aware that there are things about him and his story that people find funny. And to him it was just kind of another way to market himself or brand himself: “Oh, I could be the idiot who was taken advantage of.” So he was always aware that there are parts of his story that people would laugh at.
I never wanted to feel like I was exploiting this guy or have it come off like that. At the same time, there is an inherent imbalance of power in any documentary, not just on where you’re profiling an odd person and some of it might be for laughs. Any situation where you’re handing over your life to someone else, to do whatever they want with, to prove something or examine something about the human condition or tell a story with, there is an imbalance. And at the end of the day, I’m the one who edited this and has control over what I want to be. All true crime is as guilty as anything, of making entertainment out of pain and tragedy in people’s lives. People seem to be more uncomfortable with it when it’s making them laugh than when they’re enjoying the story of someone getting brutally murdered. But it’s all wrought with ethical muddiness and complexity. And in every case, the documentarian is the person who’s descended upon the life of a real person who I would say almost never truly understands what the final product is going to be and how it’s going to impact the rest of their lives.
Yeah, I mean, Paul set out to make his story into a big Hollywood movie. That’s why he was tweeting at all these Hollywood directors. Now he has this show, which is probably very different from what he imagined when he first started thinking about it. What have you heard from him now that he’s had a chance to see some of it, now that it’s premiered, now that it’s been reviewed?
He seems very happy. He’s very happy right now.
He was on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Yeah, I mean, now on the other side of it—and this was something I was nervous about for the entire decade—he’s in a good place now and I think he understands why I made the choices I made. And I think he’s very happy that his story is out there and being told and people are responding to him. You know, he’s someone who has always been impervious to criticism. When I first saw the book on Amazon, half the reviews said, “This is the dumbest guy in the world, this is hilarious, I can’t believe this is real.” And the other half said, “This is inspiring, this happened to someone close to me, I feel for Paul, Paul is the hero.” And I was like, what do you think of these, the people that are making fun of you or the people that say you’re a moron? And he was like, “Yeah, that’s their opinion, but it’s people talking about me and people will take from the story what they will, and it’s real, it’s life.”
One thing that has come up a lot in the discussion around this show is the similarities and parallels to The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder’s show, because it also deals with re-enacting reality. And I know you worked with him on Nathan for You. Were you aware that he was making his show while you were making yours? Did you have any conversations about those similarities? And what was your reaction when you saw The Rehearsal?
Nathan’s one of my closest friends. So we’ve talked to each other throughout this entire process. Back in 2012, I was telling him about this. And while I was working on the Nathan for You episodes I directed. And then we were talking about The Rehearsal. And actually a producer on this, Eric Notarnicola, was also extremely important to The Rehearsal and he’s kind of this unsung genius hero of this whole genre. He’s the funniest, smartest person around. So we’re very close and we were talking the entire time. I showed him this pilot back in 2017 when we first shot it and he was very supportive. So yeah, we definitely talk about our shows with each other.
Did you have any concerns when you saw The Rehearsal came out? Like, this might be too similar to what I’m up to?
Yeah, just because every review has compared it to that, I think just because there’s nothing else to compare either show to. It’s not really a genre. And it’s this thing involving real people and real lives, and also comedy and then also some very heavy stuff. But yeah, I didn’t want people to think… I mean, if you know anything about how something is made, and especially within this show, you understand that I’ve been doing this for 10 years.
You didn’t want anyone to think that you were inspired by The Rehearsal?
No, I hope not. I mean, even if I was, it would be hard to see that and then six months later have this show released. So I don’t think anyone can make a case that I was ripping off The Rehearsal. This is something I’ve been working on for a long, long time. But I mean, look, if people are comparing it to a successful show that people love, then that’s great. I haven’t read anything that said this is like a knockoff of The Rehearsal, but there’s just so few other things out there that are similar to either show, so I think it’s just an easy thing for people to connect.
And both shows have received some criticism for what we were talking about in terms of how much the people you’re profiling are in on the joke. Or whether there is an inherent cruelty to it. I assume that you didn’t see that in his show, but how do you think about that in relation to the two shows?
I can’t speak for Nathan, but I love The Rehearsal and I think there are ethical complexities whenever you’re shooting with real people, no matter how much they understand about what they’re working on. I know both these shows are very upfront about what the exercise is and document that, and that’s included within the show. And I know just from working on Nathan for You, that process is realer than any reality show, than any documentary you’ve ever seen. You are watching a document of real events. And that’s what we tried to do with this show. If anything, the similarity is figuring out how to create an interesting situation and then recording it and seeing what happens. But there are real people and there are real lives, so there’s always going to be interesting things. And not to harp on reviews, but I read something else where someone didn’t like this show, but he also thought we exploited the babysitter in Borat, and I know she was thrilled. Some people just have a distaste for anything involving real people because it does travel in discomfort, and to me, that’s interesting. But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. And that’s fine.
I think the big question that the show asks is what’s real and what’s not. We start with Paul saying that everything you’re going to see is real, and then we slowly start to realize that might not be the case. How much of Paul’s story did you come away thinking is real? And beyond that, does it even matter?
To me, that was the big question of the show. I knew from the beginning, we’re examining one person’s very subjective version and memory of the events of their life. And to me, the show was never about these “gotcha” moments of proving what’s real. I think a lot of people look at Paul from the beginning and think he’s probably lying. So it wouldn’t be an interesting exercise to find an odd person who you think is probably lying and then prove that he’s lying. It would’ve been better to just leave him alone. To me, there was always something a lot more interesting and complex and nuanced at play about examining this story and really going deep into it. But at the same time, it is a project about real people. Even if we don’t use their names, it’s about real people and real events in their lives. And because of that, I always felt a responsibility to determine the truth as best I could. And we do get into that in the last episode.
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