Q: Let’s talk about the attention-grabbing title of your new documentary, “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?” Was it intended as a gag, or did you think you could actually track him down? Well, anybody who buys a lottery ticket doesn’t buy one saying, “I am not going to win.”
You thought you could locate him? Yeah, why not?
Well, then why can’t the U.S. Army find him? That’s what I said. Why can’t they?
Where do you think he is? I think he is probably somewhere in the mountains of Waziristan,the tribal region of Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan.
If you found him, would you have killed him or interviewed him? I think that by trying to kill him, I would have brought my own demise very quickly. It seemed a little smarter to try and get some answers. I haven’t heard from him, How does this all stop? When does it end?
Instead, you ended up making a light-as-air travelogue that shows you wandering the Middle East in a salwar kameez and whistling into a cave in Tora Bora as you ask, “Yoo-hoo? Osama?” Nobody likes to be poked with a stick. But everybody likes to be tickled with a feather.
I didn’t really see it as comedy. It has an almost Midwestern earnestness. Am I “Mr. Smith Goes to Riyadh”? “Mr. Smith Goes to Afghanistan”?
You’ve used that line before? No, that was the first time.
To what extent were you influenced by Michael Moore, whose documentaries are a cross between the evening news and stand-up comedy? I think he opened the door to a lot of doc filmmakers. Not just me. He’s the guy whose movies make $20 million.
What about “Super Size Me,” your foray into the world of fast food and weight gain. Didn’t that make a fortune? Yeah, I’m a hundredaire. It’s still a documentary film.
In a way your films are the upscale version of the homemade videos on YouTube, documenting your own antics more than anything else. Boy, I wish. Then I could make movies a lot cheaper at home.
Where does your creativity come from? I grew up in a small town in West Virginia, so it wasn’t as if I was exposed to the arts. My mother wrote poetry and made up stories. She was an English teacher. I would finish something, and she’d correct it with a red pen.
That sounds character-building. Traumatizing.
What were you like as a teenager? I was just a kid who was having a good time hanging out with my friends. Maybe you should ask somebody else that question. Maybe they have different memories of me.
I can’t. This is a Q. and A. I have to depend entirely on you. Wow, that’s a shame.
“Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?” concludes with footage of your wife giving birth to your first child. Maybe that’s what drove you to the Middle East, a fear of facing fatherhood. That’s what my wife said. She said, “You’re just trying to get away from us.”
Definitely. I am glad you got home just in time for the delivery. You and me both.
Where exactly do you live? We rent an apartment in a brownstone in Park Slope. When you get pregnant in Manhattan, you swim across stream and you spawn.
Do you help with changing diapers? I’m a pro, man. I can do it one-handed.
I hear you are working on a new series for Comedy Central called “Public Nuisance With Morgan Spurlock.” They ended up not picking it up. They tested it for their audiences. The answer that we got is that it’s just too smart.
How often are you accused of being too smart? I’m not accused of that ever.
Da The New York Time Magazine, 6 aprile 2008
