When Louis C.K. went from being a failed film director of the undistributed Tomorrow Night (1998) and studio-butchered Pootie Tang (2001) to the top comedian in the country and a successful TV producer, it seemed like a happy tale of underdog victory. He said all the right progressive things about the problems of sexism, classism, and racism. Perhaps that’s why it took a long time for his own dark side to get exposed, when he ultimately admitted to serial sexual misconduct of self-pleasuring in front of female costars and comedians and in at least some cases, deliberately compelling them to watch.
Caroline Suh and Cara Mones’ Sorry/Not Sorry focuses on the women who were affected, all of whom faced career consequences for speaking out against a top dog in the business. Predictably, the male comedians who complain most about cancel culture are shown closing ranks in defense of their pal and attacking the accusers, as the documentary asks tough questions about fandom and hypocrisy when the one accused of misdeeds is somebody everyone seems to like.
Documentary spoke with codirectors Suh and Mones about how their film evolved as they learned and heard the whole story. Sorry/Not Sorry is available to stream and will open in select U.S. theaters starting tomorrow. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
DOCUMENTARY: The way you put everything together really recontextualizes it and shows that there was a pattern here. This was no guy with an awkward embarrassing quirk—this was a systemic predator. Did you want to put together that picture in a way that it could be unmistakable for those of us who’d only heard bits and pieces?
CAROLINE SUH: We wanted to understand the story, which is why we made the film. Because there are a lot of interesting questions it brings up about who gets let back in, and why. I think while making the film we realized there were other parts of the story; we hadn’t realized this was an ongoing secret for so long. How he changed his tune about what had happened, from being like a power thing that he acknowledged right after the article, to then going on stage and talking about it as a kink. We wanted it to be less conjecture and more the actual facts of the story.
CARA MONES: Seeing this story unfold through the archive, how it was covered in the media, different people in the comedy world speaking out about it, the rumblings about it grow, and how long it took for this to really fully come out, was striking. To see Louis’ statement in the New York Times and then see how he spoke about it in his specials was really illuminating for us. The hope with a lot of docs is that by bringing everything together and kind of laying it out, you’ll be able to see a story in a new way and raise questions you hadn’t considered before.
D: This film is based on a New York Times story and is produced by the New York Times. How does that work? Do they put out there that they’re looking for filmmakers to pitch based on their stories? Do you see a story, and you pitch it to them? What’s the process?
CS: The New York Times has meetings with filmmakers, asking if there’s anything they’d want to do, and in this case, what I wanted to do is make a film based on The Daily podcast interview they had with the Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman, who did that interview after Louis performed for the first time coming back after the article. When that happened, the Comedy Cellar got a lot of criticism and anger about letting Louis back onstage. It raised a lot of questions about who are the gatekeepers, who’s allowed back, who isn’t, and that was the inspiration for the film.
D: How do you divide duties as codirectors on a movie like this?
CM: Caroline and I worked on a lot of projects together, so I was excited when she brought me on to this project, and I think that our co-directing is very collaborative. When I came on, it was a little bit after most of production had ended, around the beginning of the edit, and I think that we have a constant back and forth about how to build these scenes, how to structure the film, working closely with our editors and our coproducers. We were very lucky to have a team of very smart people who came to the film from a lot of different angles. Some were huge comedy fans, some came from the journalism side of things. It helped us find a structure that would let viewers come up with their own questions for themselves, rather than us telling people how to feel. By laying out the facts, finding that tone helped make a film that will generate conversations and welcome people in who might run the other way.
D: So it sounds like you found a lot of the structure of this film in the editing room. Did you have a structure in mind when you started that was different?
CS: I think we were always very concerned about not having the film be about Louis, and having the story of the women who are featured in the film wrapped around his story. We realized that doing it in chapters was the best way to give people the space for their own stories, and not have it be like a biopic about him.
One of the most interesting things was how people around the story reacted. For instance, Dave Chappelle not only made the comment about Abby [Schachner] once, but he kept on going back to it in his comedy. Why, specifically, was he retelling a story about how she didn’t hang up the phone when [Louis] was masturbating on the other end, rather than asking, “Oh, why is my friend masturbating on the phone to this woman who he doesn’t know?” So there were things that we learned through just going through the footage and going to the archive that changed our understanding of the story as we were making the film. It’s not like we set out to say these certain things about Louis. We just wanted to understand the story, and that’s how the film evolved.
CM: Yeah, once you see hours and hours of footage of people full of rage towards the women just for telling their story, it’s pretty striking. And it’s different than if you see maybe one interview clip online, but when you’re actually seeing it all pulled together, it takes on a different effect.
D: Jen Kirkman said she was tired of talking about it, so was it hard to persuade and get her on board? She’s in it so much. Was there any difficulty getting her to talk about it?
CS: One of the film’s producers, Amanda Branson Gill, approached her. There was initial reluctance, and then through talking with Amanda, she trusted that we were going to handle this responsibly. A big part of her story is being forced to talk about this ad nauseum when she’d really rather talk about all the other things she’s doing, such as the work she’s putting out and her actual career. So, unfortunately, we were putting her in the same predicament, but we’re so grateful because she’s such a big part of the film.
D: What was the hardest part of putting this all together?
CS: I think it’s just unpleasant. I think the film is not unpleasant to watch, and I think it’s interesting, but the making of it… I mean, we shouldn’t complain, because these women who are featured in it received so much flack for coming forward. But it’s about a gross series of actions and gross responses, and it makes you question everything you think you know about yourself and what you would do. And nobody wants to talk about it and empathize, but nevertheless, it’s very stressful, and disheartening. It’s one of the harder projects that I’ve ever worked on.
CM: There’s always that constant question of knowing that the women had faced so much backlash for coming forward in the past. What does it mean to make a film that is dredging this up again, and potentially setting them up for backlash again? That’s really difficult to grapple with. But I think that the women who participated in the film saw a reason to continue to speak about this, and so we’re really grateful that they did. Jen says at some point in the film, “Why am I still talking about this? But there’s something that hasn’t changed, so here I go again.” So I think that it feels difficult to have this be out there, but still relevant and important.
D: The same week this is coming out, there are stories about Neil Gaiman, and it seems like movie fandom is doing a bit of reckoning with itself, but comedy doesn’t take the issue as seriously. Do you think that’s the case?
CS: We’re not experts entrenched in the comedy community, but from what people have said when we were interviewing them, it does seem like it’s a very hard career to maneuver if you’re female. There are some industries that are harder than others to enter into, and thrive in, and this seems like one of them.
CM: Yeah, I would be curious to hear more from people inside the comedy industry about how they feel like it’s changed now since 2017. Because it does feel a little bit slower, and I think that you can really see in the film, because it is a really tight-knit community, how speaking out could really derail your career.
D: What’s next for you? Is it easy or challenging to shake the baggage from this one and move on to something fresh?
CS: We are currently working on something totally different that’s light and fun. But the film sticks with us, like every time you run up into some issue about how to navigate something with people you work with, it really does make you think about it in a different way, once you’ve spent a long time working on a subject like this. The issues in it aren’t just about Louis and his behavior; it’s about all of us and how, when we choose to act or not act, and when we’re being hypocrites, and where you draw the line.
CM: We’re still always grappling with these questions in our day-to-day. Even if we’re not thinking about Louis C.K., I think the questions that the film raises stay with us.
